A440

If you were trying to record loud music or music with strong bass, the preamp on the MD probably overloaded. Once you get that distortion and clipping it can't be removed. To get better recordings of loud sounds, here's an inexpensive trick. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=9069 And here are some basics: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showt...993entry49993

Try running SonicStage's converter on it again: Under Tools, Save in .Wav format. You can also download HiMDRenderer from downloads and see if that will convert the .oma. Two hours of .wav is going to be very big file: 1.2GB. Do you have the hard drive space for it? I also wonder if the size of the file is a problem for the SStage converter. I've never uploaded a single track that's that long.

Please spare yourself some misery and upgrade to Sonic Stage 3.2, either from www.connect.com or from the standalone installer from Downloads above. SS 1.5 is less a software program than an instrument of psychological warfare. Look at the pinned Software FAQ to see how to uninstall 1.5 completely. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=8071 And be sure to back up your library first, with the Backup Tool under SonicStage in your Start/Programs. SonicStage 3.2 has an option (under Transfer) to Create an Audio CD. Hard to say whether it will work with your files. You can't upload recorded lectures from a NetMD like your MZN910. But you can record in realtime: connect headphone out to computer line-in, use a recording program like Audacity. Or if you have tracks already edited on the MD, you can partly automate the process with WinNetMD, which will control playback via USB and record each track (in realtime, from headphone out to line-in) as a separate file. Search these boards for WinNetMD or user tmeg.

What kind of error messages are you getting from SonicStage? If it's a fixed-bitrate mp3, at 128, SonicStage will usually convert it. If it's variable bitrate (VBR), SonicStage sometimes chokes on it. Dbpoweramp (from Downloads above) will convert all kinds of formats back and forth. If your current mp3s won't work with SonicStage, try converting them to fixed bitrate 192 kbps mp3s (or above) with dbpoweramp and then via Sonicstage. mp3 at 128 kbps isn't the best sound to begin with. If you have the CDs, you should rip them directly to MD using Simple Burner. One conversion (.wav to ATRAC .oma) is better than two (CD to mp3 to ATRAC).

You have the mics under a shirt? Get them in the open air somehow. I clip my BMC-2's to the collar of a dark shirt and run the wire down behind the buttons, out along belt loops to the MD in my pocket. Higher up would be even better. Is anyone going to care that you're recording in a church? What handsfree mic are you talking about? Something for a cell phone? Something that moves against the mic cable could make noise, or crackling in the headset, or just rustling against your clothes. This is another good reason for the shirt collar, or greenmachine's eyeglasses mount. Besides the fact that you won't be muffling the sound, nothing rubs the mic. Drugstores have cheap reading glasses, and might have something with no correction. Or get very light sunglasses.

Earbuds that come with portables are throwaways. They're usually a disservice to the sound coming out of the headphone jack. If you don't mind spending some serious $$, get the Shure E3 (gray) or E3c (iPod-style white). They're about $130, but check around for sales. These are isolation phones, also known as canal phones: earplugs with speakers in them. They're genuinely musical. They go way inside your ears, shut out a lot of external sound (like the New York City subway when I wear them) and have various sizes of soft rubber earplug adapters to fit your ears. Because they provide isolation, you won't have to crank them as high, so you might have some hearing left in the next few decades.

It would be nice for someone to post an image of that CD somewhere. Despite the magnificence of the MDCF installer, Sony's own would be a great resource.

fabolousrmx-- What MD do you have? Only Hi-MD will play .pcm. And it only puts 90 minutes of .pcm on a 1GB Hi-MD disc. Since you're using LP2 I suspect you have a NetMD, and the best quality you can get is SP. breepee-- Why rip to an intermediate stage at all to transfer to MD? Why not rip directly with Simple Burner, which will tag the songs with CDDB? To build a music library on the computer, then sure, use WMA lossless or FLAC, but otherwise....

The analogy is to a library. You take a book out of the library--transfer it to your MD--and then return it when you're done. Actually, the file stays in your computer and you're copying it onto MD, then removing it from the MD when you transfer it back. SonicStage used to "check out" songs a limited number of times, but not in the latest version. Open SonicStage and click on My Library. Your songs should be listed there, though they may be hard to find depending on what title information they were given. The file itself should be in a folder called "Packages," unless at some point you told SonicStage to save things somewhere else.

No, you don't have to rename before uploading--I just wanted to make sure the file you've ended up with has a .wav extension. Do you still have the .oma file you uploaded to your computer? Does that play with SonicStage? You could try converting it again with either SonicStage (there is no limit on conversions) or marcnet's Hi-MDrenderer (from Downloads). If you don't have the uploaded file, SonicStage 3.2 should allow you to upload again from the disc. To be ultraparanoid, get TotalRecorder, connect the USB, use SonicStage to play it back from the disc through your computer and record it onto your computer with TotalRecorder. (Make sure TR is set to record stereo .wav files under its options.) Then upload again and try converting.

There is a bug in SonicStage when you make track marks on the unit. Say you have made tracks 1, 2 and 3. You don't like where track mark 2 is, so you erase it and make a new one on the unit. SonicStage will have trouble uploading any track that has the REMNANTS of more than one track mark in it, and it may also lock you out of editing. If you have two tracks separated by a commercial and then erase the commercial, you may have the same bug. Better to make track marks around the commercial but NOT erase it, then upload it but don't download it back. I make track marks while recording, during applause between songs. But that's all the editing I do on the unit. For any other editing, you are better off uploading and editing on your computer.

Haven't tried it, but it's for CDs, not MDs. You can convert files for free with dbpoweramp---look in Downloads. And you can burn CDs with free programs like Windows Media Player, iTunes or RealPlayer. If you want a good, well-known CD burning program, look into Nero.

DRM = Digital Rights Management. It's technology that limits your rights to use data. With Hi-MD, SonicStage 3.2 allows you to do unlimited uploads to your own computer of any live analog recordings you have made via mic-in or line-in. It should have always been that way. I don't know if you can upload your recordings to a second computer, but I doubt it. If you have a NetMD (since you're in the NetMD thread), you still can't upload live recordings. Prerecorded songs are digital recordings, not analog. You could always upload songs you had downloaded to your MD from your computer. You still can't upload songs downloaded from someone else's computer.

How are you recording? Mic to mic-in? Mic to battery box to line-in? 28 or 29/30 is a lot of amplification from the preamp. If you're going through mic-in with something that quiet, then I hope you're not using any attenuator, and you should check under REC SET to use HIGH SENS rather than LOW. (It won't matter with line-in.) Perhaps you're using a low-sensitivity mic. Whether you should leave headroom: yes. The mics and MD don't care if the loudest sound is music, handclapping or low-flying helicopters

If you have a broadband connection then go to www.connect.com and install 3.2 from Sony's online installer. Second best is to use the offline installer from the Downloads tab. Even if the codecs are causing no trouble elsewhere SonicStage may not like them. It doesn't play well with the other children. eyal knaany, there is no "why" with sonicstage. It just does what it does.

There's no alternative to SonicStage. Welcome to Sonyland, where everyone speaks a different language from the rest of the known universe. Under Files/Import/Music Files, you can import only the album you need rather than all your music at once. If you're importing albums and group by Date Imported (just click on the column heading) then you can make groups for your newly imported music. No one loves SonicStage. "Irksome" pretty much describes it.

Are some of your recordings analog (via stereo plug) and others digital (optical plug). Sony is still a little touchy about digital recordings . Convert them to .wav with himdrenderer (in the Downloads section on the homepage) and you can edit to your heart's content.

The MZ-R models (not RH, just R alone) are from the pre-NetMD generation, way back in 2002. They have no computer connection. Also, the MZ-R501 has no mic input. The MZ-NH700 or MZ-NH800F will record just as well as the MZ-NH900 if you can find them.

You're right, cardioids should help cut out the echoes in a boomy place. With omnis, have you tried putting them on your chest so your body is helping to block echoes?

That nimo codec pack and divx (which might also have spyware in it) could be giving you problems too. Try uninstalling them, rebooting, and running a scan from http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ from an Internet Explorer browser window. Fix any problems it finds, and install SonicStage 3.2 afterward.

Your NetMD isn't playing your mp3. It's playing its own format: ATRAC. So it has converted your mp3 to ATRAC. The better the quality going in, the better you will preserve. When you compress to mp3 or to ATRAC, you lose quality. When you compress twice, you lose twice, though your high-bitrate mp3 probably didn't lose an audible amount at your first stage. The best way to transfer CD to minidisc is to use SimpleBurner from the Downloads section on the www.minidisc.org homepage. Start the program, connect the MD, pop a CD into the drive and transfer it. The way you did it, you lost some quality compressing to mp3, and you lost more quality compressing the mp3 to LP2, which is ATRAC at 132 kbps. With Simple Burner, you could eliminate one round of compression. SonicStage will also transfer from CD to minidisc, and leave a compressed file (.oma) in My Library. Simple Burner doesn't clutter up your hard drive. The more you pack onto a disc, the lower the quality. SP (ATRAC at 292 kbps) is better than LP2, but then you get only the face value of the MD (74 or 80 minutes) rather than double. As you have probably noticed, LP4 (66 kpbs) puts a serious dent in music. The best quality music file to use is .wav , which is uncompressed, direct from the CD. There are some lossless compression formats--FLAC, .ape--but minidisc doesn't support them.

As long as you record analog into line-in--just using a regular stereo plug to stereo plug cord, not an optical connection--you can upload. Recording from the cassette would be in real time. You could record it onto a minidisc by connecting the headphone out of the cassette to the line-in of your NH600. But don't bother with the minidisc at all if you want to get a lecture from cassette to computer. Simply connect the headphone out of the cassette to the line-in or mic-in of the COMPUTER and use a recording program like Audacity to record it directly into the computer. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Then if you wanted you could download it to the MD. The only problem is a lot of laptops don't have a line-in jack and have a bad mic-in jack. You can get the Griffin iMic for about $35, and that will give you both mic-in and line-in through a USB connection. From a CD, the best way to transfer is using Simple Burner (from the Downloads section at www.minidisc.org ). Just put a CD in your computer, connect the NH600 via USB and download it to the minidisc.

In Real under Tools/Preferences/CD you have a choice of what to convert them to. You could convert to .wav, which would preserve all the quality. You can also raise the quality of the mp3s by making them 192 kbps or higher. If for some reason Real makes you keep the same bitrate and won't let you convert to .wav, then try dbpoweramp.

Are the converted files named as .wav files? Do you have any other .wav files on your computer? Do those still play? You might be having trouble with your .wav codec.

Alcohol won't burn directly to a minidisc, if that's what you're asking. Only SimpleBurner or SonicStage will burn to Hi-MD. If you're asking whether you should use alcohol, just don't drive afterward.