A440

Hi-MD is still the most economical hi-fi recording around. It also has nice things like level controls and track marking. After using regular MD, you are in for a treat: uploading that actually works. Since you have an old MD player and might conceivably want to record something you can play back on it, you need first-generation Hi-MD. (Trade-off: If you record in old MD formats then you can't upload. If you record in the newer uploadable Hi-MD formats then you can't play back on your old MD.) Second-gen MD (the RH units) eliminated live recording in SP, LP2 and LP4. Take a look at some of the first-generation MD prices at Minidisc Australia. http://www.minidisc.com.au/default.php?cPa...7ab87aa02059527 NH700 is really all you need. Even with incredibly expensive shipping to the US, these are bargains--$149 Australian = $109 US. Install Sonic Stage 3.3, not the old version that comes in the package with the CD.

You have a NetMD, so just record in real time. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7070

OK, I admit it, Normalize has always confused me because Nero, for instance, will "normalize" a bunch of tracks to sound smooth in sequence, which means boosting some and lowering others: altering dynamics. But apparently the term is used two different ways. This is from http://homerecording.com/normalizing.html "Normalizing, as far as Sound Forge or other digital audio editors are concerned, simply means to adjust the peak volume of a selection to a known value. Generally the recommended maximum is -0.5 dB. ... Normalizing a set of tunes to be burned to CD, however, means something slightly different. Here it implies that you're adjusting the average volume of those songs so that they will all sound about equal." So apparently with Audition and other sound editors, Normalize is like an optimum setting of Amplify. Good to know. By the way, I just stumbled across this: http://web.archive.org/web/20030201093835/...m/articles.html Looks like a wealth of information there.

Everything depends on the quality of your original recording. If it's good to begin with, you don't want to mess with it. Every bit of processing is a change in the music you captured. When classical music sound-quality geeks record, they often proudly proclaim that all they've done is set up a pair of high-quality mics and record the signal at a very high bitrate or high-quality analog. No post-processing at all. But you're probably not recording a symphony orchestra in a soundproofed studio with $2000 mics. So if your recording has specific problems, you can compensate for them. Normalize smooths out the peaks and valleys of a recording. Before you do that, with your quiet battery-box recording, I'd suggest plain old Amplify: boost the whole recording equally. Try a little section (highlight it) at various settings to see how much you want to amplify it. Then, are there wild peaks and valleys? Some live music has them, some doesn't. If yours does, then go ahead and normalize. Equalization is your tone controls. Too much bass? Lower it. Can't hear the vocals? Try boosting around 100-600 Hz. Sound dull? Push up some of the highs. Does your mic favor certain frequencies and cut back on others? Change the EQ to reverse the problems. Real mastering engineers have this down to a science and examine every instant of the sound. But the more you tweak, the less fidelity you have to the original recording. An EQ fix that will probably help is to take down the bass, since every concert seems to have too much bass. Beyond that you'll have to experiment. There are some tricks you could try. Noise reduction will analyze a sample of room noise (if you have one with no music) and then remove that same spectrum of sounds from your music. It would take some of the music with it, however. Filtering gives you some very precise EQ: if there's a conversation nearby and you can figure out what frequency the people are speaking at, you could make a notch filter for that annoying voice. You can also do fade-ins and fade-outs of applause. A lot of the other stuff in Audition is for studio work: adding effects (flanging, phasing, delay, reverb) to instruments, moving things around in the stereo mix, and similar things that are inappropriate for a live recording. Panning (as in panorama) is moving back and forth across the stereo field. If you were doing a studio production where you wanted some synth noise to swoop around the room, you'd use it. But for this....well, you can always Undo.

You're going to have to find a charging cradle (probably not easy) or an outboard battery pack (probably easier) for the N10. The N10 doesn't have a direct DC in to charge the rechargeable battery. The idea at the time was to make the N10 as thin as possible--that meant moving a lot of useful functions (like DC power) into the charging cradle. Take a look at this detailed pictorial and description. It should answer a lot of your questions. http://www.minidisc.org/brian_youn/mzn10/

Also, the USB port is a mini-port, not the same jack as the one on a computer.

Looking at the listing, he seems to be using the same basic Panasonic capsules as everyone else, 20-20,000 K, so you're not losing anything. As long as they're well-built, this is a good alternative. For what it's worth, a mic that picked up 20-16,000 wouldn't be much additional help in loud situations--it's the bass that overloads the preamp, not the high frequencies.

You're probably stuck. The only way your computer can play .omg/.oma files is with the OpenMG module in SonicStage. When SonicStage is installed, you can add .oma and .omg to the files Winamp plays--but uninstall SonicStage, and no go. How about adding some memory to the computer, or burning some of the files on your disc to CD to free up some space.

I went through the hoops to try and uninstall the Sony garbage. That means going to this well-buried link: http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/form9.html Send an email, wait a day for a reply, use the link to an online uninstaller that only works in IE (but doesn't tell you that should you access it in Firefox). And then, less than halfway through, it crashes IE and terminates the uninstall. Sony all the way. Maybe I'll try this when I have a lot of time. http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/s...tal-rights.html

The NH700 or NHF800--the 800 adds an FM remote--is a great field-recording option. http://www.minidisc.com.au/product_info.php?products_id=469 has them at low prices, even with expensive shipping to the US. Four complaints about NH900: 1) smoked-plastic over the un-backlit LED makes it difficult to read, 2) gumstick battery latch has to be taped shut 3) gumstick battery doesn't last like an AA--to be really secure, you need to add the outboard battery pack, which puts the size difference in favor of the NH700/NHF800 and 4) Pause and Stop--two very different functions--are on two halves of the same button, inviting disaster. For recording and uploading, the NH900's digital amp doesn't matter--and some people think it's harsher sounding on playback, too. With the money you save, get an RM-MC40ELK remote which lets you monitor levels with backlighting.

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/.../item/ISI-HMA-1

Thanks for the info about the logo, jadeclaw. XCP has its own logo which sometimes appears on copy-protected CDs, so I was confused. Everyone should disable Autorun on their CD player in Windows settings. There's just too much garbage out there. Sony has posted a link that leads to a fix here: http://updates.xcp-aurora.com/ And here's the doubletalk: "This Service Pack removes the cloaking technology component that has been recently discussed in a number of articles published regarding the XCP Technology used on SONY BMG content protected CDs. This component is not malicious and does not compromise security. However to alleviate any concerns that users may have about the program posing potential security vulnerabilities, this update has been released to enable users to remove this component from their computers." Not malicious and does not compromise security--yeah, right. I hope they are sued heavily and effectively.

http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7070

Exactly what I considered at the time, greenmachine. However, in the middle of a concert I couldn't be sure what was at fault--the mic plug, the cord--or what was coming through the remaining channel, whether there was static, etc. More important, it was one of those booming-bass concerts that would have me worrying about mic overload anyway. So I stuck with the headphones. No bass, no overload: the Sony method.

At a concert last night I plugged in the mics, set levels and noticed I was only getting one channel. When I checked it out later at home, it turned out that the mic cord had an invisible break or short. Gotta replace it. Luckily I had my Shure E3s, earplug phones. Plugged them into the mic jack--no attenuator, since 'phone recording volume is low--and amazingly enough, it came through. It's tinny, but it's very clear. With the little soft rubber earplugs on the 'phones, there was no noise just letting them sit against my shirt. I may upload a song to the gallery, not for sonic excellence but just to show it works.

XCP is truly evil. Early versions completely crashed a computer--newer ones simply refuse to play. I haven't seen any XCP discs sold commercially. Sony/BMG is currently using "Copy Control"--the logo is a circle with a triangle enclosing a C--on its retail CDs. I believe it installs a special media player on Autorun (which I have disabled), and it won't simply play with Winamp. The disc I have includes OMG files for Sony music players--I don't know what bitrate--and WMA files. Isn't that nice: buy a CD and get lossy playback on your computer. The free program called CDEx, which you can find here http://cd-to-mp3.audiolaunch.com/cd-ripper/ can easily locate the .wav audio files on a Copy Control CD. But far be it from me to recommend using CDEx to copy the audio tracks as .wav files and then burning them to create a non-DRM CD, since that might violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Definitely don't do that.

Go to www.ebay.com, search for the MZ-G750, and then under Advanced Search go to Completed Auctions (it's in there somewhere). You can see what people paid for them and in what condition.

Full sympathies about Katrina. Here's to hoping you can rebuild your life there. I'd suggest asking about the discs through Sony chat support at http://esupport.sony.com/EN/feedback/feedback.html Putting an old disc in a new case sounds like a good idea as long as you can get the shutter to work. Sounds like you're handy, so see what happens. But I'd suggest that instead of wiping--which could scratch the disc with the fine grit--that you dip them in slightly soapy water first and try to wash off as much grit as possible. .

That Cowon X5L looks like quite the gizmo. When you get it, please report back on how it is for recording.

When you delete a track from My Library in SonicStage, you can check or uncheck "Delete this track from my computer" and keep the .wav if you want to. But I don't see why you would. The .wav file is going to be monstrous in size, and its quality won't be any better than the original (and much smaller) .ogg. Just keep the .ogg file, and the ATRAC if need be, and delete the .wav, either through SonicStage or just with Windows Explorer.

But hey, even with the PCM-D1, what's with the fixed-mounted mics? How am I supposed to use that at a standing-room concert? Give me the recording functions of the PCM-D1 (at least as touted) in a smaller box, and let me use my own mics, thanks.

From the magnificent Dex Otaku, all is explained here: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7989

As often stated in this topic: Best newbie mic, if you're in the US, is the Sound Professionals BMC-2. http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-BMC-2 Get them with clips so you can clip them to a hat, shirt collar, etc. They are the size of pencil erasers, they pick up the full frequency range (20-20,000K) and they are very stealthy. What they pick up sounds surprisingly close to what you heard. If you're recording amplified music with them you will need either an attenuator--the Radio Shack Headphone Volume Control http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.js...oductId=2102975 or a battery box from Sound Professionals or Microphone Madness. Please don't get Sony's designated microphones for minidisc (like DSP-70) , which are bigger, introduce more noise and have lousy bass response. These are far better, and they cost less.

I enter track marks on the unit during the recording. Any other editing is after upload. It's the only way to avoid the bugs.

The iPod as recorder is vaporware. Apparently previous iPods also had this capability, but Apple didn't enable it--you needed Linux to use it as a recorder. Whether or not the capability is there on the new iPods, you are still going to need some kind of outboard box--preamp, battery box--because it's Line-in, not mic-in, and some other kind of outboard gadget for level, track marking, etc.. All of which are very nicely available on Hi-MD .