optimistic-pessimist

Not sure if this has been suggested (so my apologies if so) but what if the recorders had, say... 32 MB of internal memory for recording onto. My idea is that when the unit nears the end of a disc while recording live material, the unit switches over to the internal memory seamlessly, allowing you to change discs without missing anything in your recording. 32 MB would give around 3 minutes of recording time in PCM mode (if my quick math is correct) which would be plenty of time to switch discs, even in the dark. I know this will NEVER happen as Sony has yet to cater to the live recording crowd... but it's a nice thought anyway. Of course, 2+ GB discs would most likely make this completely unnecessary, but in lieu of larger discs, I think this is a pretty good idea.

Sometimes I'll use my cell phone for time keeping purposes in a show, so I don't have to take the recorder out of my pocket AND out of the protective bag I keep it in. Or occassionally I might text message a friend that's at the show, if I really need to, but certainly not for calling my girlfriend or anything. Won't be taking it in at all anymore, though. As for the recording levels... yes I would just like to be able to SEE them without taking it off of "hold", not change them, obviously. I didn't think about leaving the OLED display on all the time, but it seems like that would drain the battery a lot faster. Not a concern for shorter shows I guess... I have one more comment. I've charged and depleted the gumstick battery a couple of times since buying my RH10. The other night, it was completely depleted to where the unit wouldn't play at all. I plugged it into the adapter, hit "stop/ charge" and nothing happened. I checked all connections and made sure the battery was oriented correctly. After several attempts with no success, I took the battery out, charged it in my old R910 for a few minutes, and then put it back into my RH10. The RH10 started charging the battery without problem this time. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Have faith. If he was in the Superdome, I'm sure he's ok and they got him out.

Not sure if this really qualifies as a bug, but since I never had this problem with my old R910 or R55, I figured I'd mention it. This past weekend, while recording a live concert, my unit reacted to interference from my cell phone while recording, and actually put unwanted sound into the recording. The sound is similar to the noise your computer speakers will make when your cell phone goes off nearby. I don't know how close to the unit a cell phone needs to be in order to cause this... honestly I don't even remember using my cell phone or taking it out at all during the show... but I DO know that my cell phone and the recorder were never side by side.

I have a few comments about the RH10 to add after spending this past weekend recording several concerts. Live recording is basically the only reason I have ever owned an MD or HiMD recorder, so all my opinions are geared solely towards that purpose. First, I noticed almost immediately that, in order to see the recording levels, I had to take the unit out of "hold" mode. I suppose this is just an inconvenience, and not truly a problem, but it does take away from the convenience of the OLED display a little. Secondly, and this is a *BIG ONE*... my unit reacted to interference from my cell phone while recording, and actually put unwanted sound onto my recording. The sound is similar to the noise your computer speakers will make when your cell phone goes off nearby. I don't know how close to the unit a cell phone needs to be in order to cause this... honestly I don't even remember using my cell phone or taking it out at all during the show... but I DO know that my cell phone and the recorder were never side by side. So I guess just remember to turn your cell phone off, and hope that a nearby cell phone won't cause the same problem. I never had this problem with my R910 or R55 in 3 years of use. Third, I don't like that the inputs are on the top of the unit. On my old R910, the inputs were on the side, and when I put the recorder into the neoprene bag that I use to protect it at concerts, the bag served to secure the mic cable and keep it from rotating or coming out. With the cable inserted in the top, I worry that it's more likely to be pulled out, or rotated, possibly causing pops or scratches in the recording. To finish up, I've found several things about the RH10 that I don't like, from a live *stealth* recording viewpoint, but I LOVE the sound I'm getting from the PCM mode. Anyone with a discerning ear will tell you that the HiSP mode just doesn't compare to the lossless PCM. So while there are some things that will take some getting used to, I'm hanging on to my RH10 (unless I find a third gen. unit that I like better.)

I had someone look over both boxes when I first bought them. He told me the same thing, and told me that simply placing the battery in backwards in the Sound Pros box would work just fine.

Even small donations will help the hundreds of thousands of people who have been left homeless and jobless by the hurricane. I live about an hour from New Orleans, and I've seen some of the people coming out of there. There are parking lots around Baton Rouge filled with people living in cars because they don't have any other place to go. Baton Rouge was fortunate to not be hit very hard, but large parts of the city are still without power and probably won't get it back for several more days, making it hard for the shelters in town (which are overflowing) to handle all these people. New Orleans is uninhabitable. Residents probably won't be able to return there for a month or more. Power won't be back on for a couple of months, and the recovery and cleanup will probably take years. https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp

What's pissing me off?... this disastrous situation just an hour from my home caused by Hurricane Katrina. Half a million people have suddenly become homeless and jobless. The entire city of New Orleans is shut down for weeks, maybe even months, and the recovery will take years. It is absolutely unbelievable. If you can find a way to donate money to the relief effort, it is definitely needed. I think redcross.org has a way to donate online, or at least a physical address you can mail to.

Ended up taking in the AA attachment anyway. The gumstick wouldn't have made it through all 5 bands that I taped. Thanks for the input!

Seems like I read somewhere that the initial charge or two of a new gumstick battery won't give you the full potential life of the battery. Can anyone verify this? My concern is that I'm going to be taping several hours (haven't figured out EXACTLY how many yet) of music in PCM mode at Ozzfest this weekend, and I just got my new recorder last week. I haven't used it aside from a few initial tests... so I need to know if I need to take in some extra AA's and the attachment or not.

I recently started browsing and posting after buying an RH10. I found the forums through google while searching for more info on this recorder, and HiMD in general. Just the other day, though, I checked my inbox on here, and I had a couple of responses dated back in 2003! Apparently I had used this forum a couple of years ago to ask a couple of questions about the MZ-R910 before buying one! I had completely forgotten about it.

There are many, many people that will attest to how much better live recordings sound when made on DAT over MD. I know there are other factors involved, but surely the ATRAC compression has something to do with it. I like the size of MD recorders (as far as sneaking it into shows is concerned) so having PCM mode in a machine the size of an MD recorder is great... at least that's my opinion so far. Actually this weekend I'm going to sneak in my MZ-R910 as well as my MZ-RH10 and do a side by side comparison. Unfortunately I don't have two complete recording rigs, so it won't be a TRUE side by side... but I'll record a song or two with each recorder (while the same band is playing) to hopefully get a good idea of the differences and similarities between the two (at least, in my usual recording environment.)

Hmm... Hi-SP a good alternative to PCM you say... I'm hoping that PCM will offer a noticeable difference in quality for my live recordings. That's the whole reason I bought a Hi-MD unit. I'm taking 5 discs into Ozzfest with me this weekend so I can record in PCM mode. Inconvenience aside... I want the best quality I can get.

It's stressful enough getting one recorder and mics in... let alone TWO! If I was that confident about sneaking stuff into shows, I'd just take a bulky DAT recorder and forget about SS and it's problems for good! (I've only had my RH10 for a week and I'm already talking like this... ) Haha... and no I'm not bootlegging! Merely taping... I never sell. It's for my own enjoyment and the enjoyment of those that I trade with. ... and you can't put a price on that.

I could deal with a dead pixel or two... but hypothetically, say I drive 1000 miles to make it to a concert (which I've been known to do), get my stuff into the show, manage to get a great capture, travel home, then go to master the show on my computer, only to lose it thanks to Sony's stellar technology... Ok so it hasn't happened to me yet... but just thinking of the possibility................. ... and please don't anyone say "Well at least you'd still have your memories of the show."

I know you all are generally talking about putting your music collections on MD and HiMD... but I've been wondering... As far as live concert recording... how does Hi-SP compare to the best quality I could get on my "old" MZ-R910... (regular SP I guess)?

Haha... ok well I assume you're talking about bit errors... which really don't concern me. I just want a reliable way to get my PCM concert recordings to my harddrive digitally... even if I have to do it real time. I've been doing real time transfers for 4 years now and I really don't mind it so much.

Already done... but all the test runs in the world won't save me from these seemingly random crashes and recording losses that I keep reading about. I guess until they upgrade SonicStage again, or offer a HiMD deck unit with optical out... I'll just have to take my chances.

Man I hate hearing stuff like this. I haven't used my RH-10 yet... but I got it exclusively for recording concerts. If I lose one, especially when it comes to some of my favorite bands, I might end up... I don't know... going on a shooting spree down at Sony headquarters? Just kidding... of course.

Normalizing means using an audio editing program (live Wavelab or Audicity) to bring the highest peak in your recording up to 0 dB.

I'm a little ticked that I finally manage to get a HiMD recorder, I'll probably have 6 discs or so of PCM recorded concert material by next Monday, and I'm so nervous about possibly losing a recording thanks to Sonicstage. Every upload method seems to have some kind of negative, or potential negative... It's almost enough to make me want to go DAT after all. Wait, is that considered blasphemy around here?

Hard to say really... Most of the shows I record are loud rock concerts, and I use a battery box with bass rolloff plugged into the line-in jack on my recorder. The battery box provides more power to the mics than the plug-in power of the recorder, which allows the mics to handle higher sound pressure levels. The bass roll-off reduces the amount of bass getting to the recorder so I don't have as much editing to do later. Lastly, the line-in can handle higher signals than the mic-in. I don't know if you're recording in similar situations to mine though... I had one concert where I discovered that my battery box wasn't working just as the band was coming onstage. I quickly took out the batt box, plugged the mics into mic-in, set the mic sensitivity to low, and put my levels WAY down. It didn't matter... this setup just couldn't handle the heavy bass and the entire recording is basically ruined by brickwalling. Anyone else feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, or add more detail to my rough explanation.

Actually I'm following a technique used with one of my all-time favorite recordings... TOOL - 11.16.02 - Oklahoma City. The taper stood front of stack, placed the mics on his chest taped flat to the underside of his shirt. The recording is remarkably clear, well balanced and full. You can hear the sound made when the guitarist slides his hand down the strings over the frets, even in the middle of a song with the other instruments going. Probably the only thing taking away from the quality of the recording is that it was done in LP2 mode. Anyway... I'm not looking to capture room acoustics or ambience as most of the shows I go to are rock and metal shows in arenas. I tape front of stack to try to capture as much clear, direct music and as little crowd noise as possible. Also, I failed to mention that, to my ears at least, the vocals usually tend to sound a little more distant than the rest of the music on many of my recordings. That probably my biggest complaint. I guess the only way I'm really going to figure this out is to actually do a side by side test with the same setups and different batt. boxes. Easy to say though.............

I guess I'm paranoid about possibly losing a recording in the upload, as so many people have complained of this problem in the past. According to the topic post that I mentioned above, if you're paranoid about this, you can play the recording THROUGH Sonicstage and simply record it directly onto your HD as a wav. This sounded like a more reliable method. Damn...

Hmm... according to audiocubes.com... those Onkyo decks only have an analog out. http://www.audiocubes.com/index.php?cPath=...3a&filter_id=42