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King Ghidora

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Everything posted by King Ghidora

  1. Doesn't the Zoom H4 get around some of the problems with the R-09 and the MicroTrack. It takes balanced mics with phantom power so it isnt limited to the plug in power condensers that we are mostly all using. At least that's what I've heard from people. Do you have any experience with this recorder? I've heard the complaints about the MicroTrack before as far as using plug in power mics with it. I think that turned a lot of people against it. Apparently they just didn't try the right setup of mics with it. Also we've been talking about getting a multi-track Portastudio type recorder for the band I work with. Any suggestions on a budget version? I've heard good things about the Fostex MR8 as a budget model (yeah it's a cheap bunch of geezers - they'll pay 5 grand for a third mandolin but won't pay much of anything for a recorder ) Any suggetions in this area? I've been recording with a single mic and my HIMD which I actually think works pretty well for a bluegrass band if you set things up right. It's not going to be mistaken for a studio recording but it's just mainly about practice CD's anyway. I'd like to move up to a better quality level but I think it would cost quite a bit because it would mean moving to close micing which means a whole series of mics would need to be bought. It's just something I do as a hobby anyway. My business is video.
  2. I believe Sony suffers so much from their split personality that they don't know which foot to put forward first. On the one side they have the personal audio equipment that has made them a lot of money over the years. On the other hand is their interests in the music recording industry. One hand keeps trying to cut the other hand off. I have a video production company. I spend a lot of time on boards that discuss video. I've seen Hollywood people say they think the ability to record quality video should be highly restricted to the point that ordinary people can't get their hands on the equipment to do it. And they were dead serious and according to them the idea had a lot of support in the Hollywood circles. These posts were around 2 years ago which is important. At first I thought the guy was just some loon who didn't want to face the future. But now things have started to change big time. For the past 2 years camera companies have almost wiped out the ability of consumers to create quality video with the new equipment on the market. Features that were very common 2 years ago are impossible to find now. The companies (Sony included) are pushing such things as DVD cameras which are a total joke compared to minidv cameras. And unfortunately the iPod crowd is going for this marketing ploy big time. So we all start to wonder if Hollywood has exerted too much influence on the camera industry. Then Vista comes out and we no longer have to wonder. We know the answer. Hollywood is trying to make it impossible for consumers to create quality video. The future of video is obvious HD of course. Well Vista deliberately cripples the ability of a computer to create HD video. They claim it's an anti-piracy move but we all know pirates will find a way no matter what. The truth is Hollywood is scared that they are losing their stranglehold on video production. And Sony is one of the companies leading the charge to force anyone who wants to do HD video to have to spend about $100k to do it. Hollywood knew that any joker with a few thousand dollars could buy enough equipment to make video that was competitive with the stuff they put out. I'm not saying it was the same quality but it was close enough and it was hard to tell the difference on a SD tv set. So Hollywood paniced and they went to Bill Gates and got him on board. Now the future for consumer produced HD is very bleak even if you just want to video your dog scratching fleas or grandma going to the grocery store. Hollywood studios have a long history of making moves to corner the market on the distribution and production of movies. It seems they have done it again too. That guy I thought was just a wacko was a real representative of what the thinking is like in Hollywood and apparently they have bought their way again. They knew that people like me could produce good enough video to compete with their stuff and they didn't like it one bit. So they crippled the entire videocamera industry. I'm actually set as long as SD programs still get airplay but that's not going to be for long. I have some of the really good cameras that are no longer being produced. So anyway the point of all this is I think Sony doesn't want people producing high quality audio with their equipment. They want to make some money from us but they don't want the quality to be too good. Other companies that don't have one foot in audio production don't care about this stuff yet so they will sell much better gear than Sony will. I figured when the ex-Beatles producer George Martin said that anyone could produce music while sitting in the bathtub that things would likely change for the worse for some companies (especially Sony). Martin didn't think it was a good thing that just anyone could get their hands on quality equipment and he said so. It was something about not havnig any way to produce stars or something like that. Well I think Martin can make all the music he wants in his bathtub. I think the best thing that ever happened to music was to make it a truly democratic thing where everyone has the chance to make music. Now if we can just wrestly control of the public airwaves away from the payola crowd we might see some better quality music available because I'm one guy that really doesn't care all that much for Barbie doll bimbos struting through music videos and getting their machine produced "songs" played non-stop on the public airwaves. My brother's brother in law has a 3 hour bluegrass show on the biggest local radio station. I think that sort of thing is the future of music in the USA. He can promote local talent to no end and that means a truly fair distribution of CD sales money. I'm just tired of big companies buying off DJ's with cocaine and party favors to get their songs played on the airwaves. In the past at least the stuff they produced was decent. It's all junk now. It's time to end the payola system for controlling what gets played on the publicly owned airwaves.
  3. You talk about getting the sound you want Guitarfxr. How do you think HIMD holds up against these pro level units you're describing as far as "getting the sound you want" goes? I see posts where people say they record in 24 bit and higher khz settings then convert down to CD quality levels (44.1khz - 16 bit)or video camera levels (48khz - 16 bit). People say they get better results that way. And what about the pre-amps in HIMD? People often upgrade to stand alone pre-amps. Do you think that's a worthwhile investment? Are we talking a lot of money for a little bit of improvement? Another question. I suppose I should ask my son about this. He's an electrical engineer and I wonder how hard it would be for him to build a better pre-amp.
  4. I won't be running out and upgrading while I have a perfectly fine HIMD recorder. But I don't expect it to last forever and I do need multiple recorders for my business (video production). Plus this new device has some definite advantages. The ability to swap out memory cards is a big step up over many flash based recorders. The ability to do multiple tracks can be a big advantage for anyone recording their own music. And of course there are no moving parts so it should be durable. I love my HIMD and I expect to be using this technology for quite a while. But the state of portable recorders has changed. I expect a flood of cheap and capable recorders in the near future. I've already bought very decent recorders for under $20 each. They aren't HIMD quality but they aren't bad either. I can't see HIMD being able to compete eventually. It's just going to be much cheaper designing equipment that doesn't require moving parts and memory card prices continue to fall. I think we can expect to see 4 gig cards selling for under $20 within a year or two. It's true that SD cards are too small to keep up with but when we're all using 20 gig cards there won't be much reason for swapping them out.
  5. I actually think the price of HIMD will continue to go up as new models become more scarce. People who are strongly into HIMD will want to stock up on extra players before the end of the whole line comes. I think we have already seen the discounts on the first gen. units. I think the price will continue to stay high on those and the newer models. Prices were down last fall to about half of what they seem to be right now for first gen. HIMD. My video camera is going through the same scenario. Newer cameras don't have the features cameras did 2 years ago so I could sell my camera now for more than I paid for it new. The price bottomed out about 14 months ago and it has gone up ever since. I think HIMD will do the same thing.
  6. You should be able to find HIMD cheaper than that. There's a place in England that still sells them considerably cheaper than the price you mentioned. I believe they will ship to Mexico. BTW there are actually some advantages to using the older model HIMD recorders. They use AA batteries which many people think is a big advantage. Later models use a gumstick battery. They aren't exactly hard to find but they aren't sold in your local hardware store or gas station like AA's are.
  7. I thought you meant a dual mono cable like the ones that split a stereo signal into 2 separate mono miniplugs. The long cable that came with my Nady mic is like that. I use a different XLR cable instead with the short adapter that also came with the Nady. It has the stereo trs miniplug. Some people have all the luck. I get lucky once in a while I guess. I just found a bottle from the 1840's in my yard a couple of days ago no doubt from someone's trash pile from long ago. It was complete too. It's probably worth some serious jack. I'm guessing it might go for about $500 judging by the prices I've seen on other stuff from that time period. It has embossing on it which was very unusual from that period. Woo Hoo on that for me. It was a big surprise to see a bottle still intact after laying on the side of a bank for 165 years or so. I've found other things from that time period here too but nothing as nice as this. A house obviously burned down there a long time ago. Best thing I found before was a marble. You just never know what you might find in someone's trash pile especially if it's from 160-170 years ago. A buddy of mine gave me what he thought was just an old camera not too long ago too. It was in mint condition except for the case which had rotted. Turned out it was a Yashica from the 1960's which is worth quite a bit too (maybe $75 or so but nothing to sneeze at). He also gave me a fluid head tripod which works great. He kept trying to get me to sell the full size VHS camcorder that it came with. I tried to tell him the tripod was worth 20 times as much as that camera but he never did get why I don't think. So I can't begrudge you your bit of luck with the Kenwood I guess. A person can always find a use for a quality piece of equipment like that.
  8. Sorry about repeating your info greenmachine. I really should stop posting when I'm half asleep.
  9. The RH710 is a HIMD recorder though so a mic pre-amp added to this or a battery box could make this an excellent recorder.
  10. Yeah I know you can wire a 3 pin XLR to a mono minijack without too much trouble. I know they sell fairly cheap adapters to make this easier too. I have the XLR to stereo trs minijack adapter that came with my Nady mic. I'd like to have a balanced mono to dual mono trs adapter. I'm still not clear why Shure suggests the use of the impedance matching transformer. Maybe they just want to sell more equipment for no reason. I know the pre-amps on MD's are pretty good and at least as good as the other mobile recorders. People do buy better pre's though often just so they can use the line in feature of various recorders (some of which don't come with mic pe-amps or have them disabled by upgraded firmware) because they think the pre's could be better on MD and HIMD. I haven't tried any of the add on pre-amps that people use so I can't say from experience how much better they might be. I've always suspected it was a lot of money for a little bit of an improvement when it comes to HIMD with built in mic pre's but I couldn't say that for sure without actual personal experience.
  11. Thanks for the explanation Guitarfxr. I knew there was a reason people didn't use balanced dynamics like the Shure SM-57 with plug in power stuff like MD. I just couldn't find the answer when I went looking for it. I said at first that it was a bad idea then I found people who were doing it by rewiring the XLR plugs to dual mono or just using adapters to do it. I thought I had heard that the level would be too low and that there were other problems also. Basically I thought I remembered hearing stuff like you have just said and I knew there was problems with the resistance. I didn't know about the induction problem. But I saw where people were doing it and I thought I must have remembered it wrong. So I talked myself out of what I thought before. What really threw me off was Shure's suggestion that people use their A96F cable which has a transformer in order to use their SM-5x mics with unbalanced input equipment. I still don't understand why they suggested this. They don't explain it at all. Here's the web page where they make that suggestion. Maybe you understand why they make this suggestion but I don't. I thought the A96f was an impedance matching transformer but maybe that's not what it is.
  12. The problem with recording music with the GS300 is that it doesn't have manual level control. That's a killer for recording music. I made the mistake of buying a GS250 instead of a GS400. They're great cameras and take fantastic video but you really can't record music correctly with AGC (auto gain control). So yes you will need a separate recorder to do music justice. Not too long ago it was possible to buy a new first generation HIMD recorder for under $100. Unfortunately the price seems to have gone up. But the good news is you can probably still get a HIMD recorder for around $150 if you look around. That makes HIMD the best bargain for high quality recording. I've seen some deals like that on eBay recently but not that often. You might try emailing the company that was selling so many of the first gen units to see if they have any left in stock. They will probably give you a good price if they do. I can pm you their email address if you want. I don't like to post email addresses in an open forum because of the spam bots. As for comparing the Nady with the Rode SVM it's really no contest. The Rode is much better. Of course it is made to be mounted to a camera but it also has the ability to be mounted to a mic stand or a boom. I've heard the Nady compared directly (almost anyway) with the AT822 and the Nady held it's ground nicely. It will pick up some echo if you don't set the level correctly and if the room is too bright. It's a little finnicky because of this but I think I can make it work pretty well if I work at it. That AT822 probably isn't as tempermental but it costs twice as much. As far as the Pro24 goes it is said to be an excellent budget mic but all you need to do is look at the specs and you'll see it won't record bass sounds well. It's only rated down to 100hz where the Nady is rated down to 30hz. That's a lot more of a difference that some might think. Still the Pro24 is probably an excellent mic for the price. I used a Sony ECM-MS907 for years and it didn't have the bass response it should have. But that was the main reason I bought the Nady. You may want to ask this question on other boards too. I'm sure you will get a lot of suggestions on mics. We tend to make the same suggestions over and over again and none of us can know everything about every mic. I don't like to suggest too much about mics I haven't used myself. I just know I've been happy with my Nady. You can check the sound samples for yourself and see what you think. Most important IMO is buying from a place that will let you return stuff if you don't like it. Musician's Friend will let you try stuff out for 45 days. That's hard to beat.
  13. I thought I had seen where handhelds like the Shure SM-57 and SM-58 and the EV RE-50 wouldn't sound as loud as you need when used with a MD. I was thinking it was because they were balanced mic but apparently it's because they are dynamic mics. That Shure cable is the same cable listed in the link I provided to what Shure says about using their SM mics with unbalanced equipment. They didn't explain very well what the real problem was. It's true that devices are used to increase the resistance of Low-Z mics so you can get better sound from them. All XLR mics are Low-Z mics too. I thought the main problems were that the bass rolls off and you can get some distortion in certain situations. Apparenlty not providing a loud enough signal is another reason people still sometimes use Low-Z to High-Z converters. The Shure cable seems to be an example of that. That Shure cable is not at all cheap though. $50 for an adapter cable seems pretty high to me. IMO you could probably find a hand held condenser mic. The ATR25 and ATR55 are sometimes said to be capable of being used handheld. I'm not sure about that though. They would certainly be a cheaper way to go and from what I understand they provide a decent level of quality. I doubt they are SM-57 or RE-50 quality though. Not many mics are. Like I said I've been thinking about getting a handheld myself but I still haven't found anyone suggesting a good example for a MD or a video camera. I have a video production business and I could use a good handheld mic. I just haven't found the right one to get for sure. All I can tell you is what I've heard so far.
  14. OK I think I found the difference is only that you will lose the benefit of using a balanced cable if you switch to an unbalanced cable. That is you lose the protection against picking up interference on long cable runs if you go with something like the Nady cable with a balanced mic. The transformer you're talking about I believe converts low-z to high-z which is not needed in this situation. I think the difference between low-z and high-z is that mics are generally low-z and things like electric guitars are high-z. I believe matching impedance was more important a few years ago than it is now. At one time it wasn't a good idea to try to run a mic through a guitar amp because the impedance didn't match. It's still important in some applications but not as much as it once was. So you should be ok to use the Nady cable with the Shure mic. You will only get one channel of sound but that's easy enough to fix in post. Or you could buy an adapter to fix this but IMO using too many adapters will put a strain on the low level of power a mic uses. You're probably better off fixing it in post which is what I do when I use my Rode VideoMic through the XLR adapter I have for it which allows me to use XLR cables. I feel like the ability to use XLR cables on longer runs outweighs the extra adapter in this situation. I mount the mic on a boom at times and I don't want to be limited to poorly shielded 1/8 inch cables. It isn't as good as having a balanced mic on a long run obviously but it's better than using a 1/8 cable. Rode makes a long cable for the VM but I believe my good XLR cables are better than any 1/8 inch cable. The adapter I use is made by Rode so apparently they knew people would want to use XLR cables. You won't do much better for a handheld mic than the Shure but keep in mind that it's a dynamic mic which means it has to be very close to the speaker to get a good signal. The reason the SM57 and SM58 are so popular with bands is because they don't pick up what other members of the band are doing like a condenser mic would. The mic most popular with reporters is the Electrovoice EV RE-50 for interviews. It has a wider pickup angle than the Shure but will still not pickup stuff behind the speaker that much. It's also a balanced mic and is made to be handheld. If I wanted a handheld interview mic that's what I would probably get. In fact I might decide to get one for that purpose for my business but I also might go with a Shure because it can double as an instrument mic for when I record the band I work with. You won't go too far wrong with either mic but probably just for interview the EV would be better.
  15. I'm repeating the advice Shure has on their web site about using their balanced mics with unbalanced equipment. I know that wiring a mic with the leads from one of the hot pins and the ground pin will give you sound with any balanced mic. But from what I read the sound isn't what it's supposed to be. I believe it has to do with the signal level not being as high as it should be. I will have to find the exact reason but I know what Shure says about their mics. BTW just because a mic uses an XLR connector it doesn't mean that it is a balanced mic. The Nady is a perfect example of that. But I do believe the mic you mention is a balanced mic. I also believe you are supposed to use a converter for it also. That's what it says on this web site. You'll find people discussing this very issue on that site including the Shure mics in question and the mic you mentioned. Here are some quotes from that site: I did a long search 18 months back and settled on the Sennheiser e835... The catch is that you need a pre-amp and converter from XLR (balanced) to standard unbalanced audio. And also: ...you can never go wrong with a Shure SM58 or an SM58 Beta. Although you'll need some way to change it from an XLR connector to an 1/8" mini plug, either an adaptor or a custom cable. I can find quotes like this all over the web. I can also find the reason why you shouldn't just use a connector like the one that comes with the Nady on a balanced mic. It will just take me a while and I haven't got the time right now. I know they aren't just talking about a converter that connects the wires. There's something about the two hot wires on a balanced output mic that doesn't translate directly to an unbalanced signal. The quote from the Shure web page should prove that but there's plenty more out there when I find the time to look for it.
  16. The CM-2S is a very sensitive mic. You can turn down the sensitivity either with a recording device that has manual level control or an inline volume control designed to be used with headphones. Mics are more sensitive than human ears. They will pick up what you don't normally hear and amplify it. It's just a matter of learning how to deal with your mic if it's a real sensitive mic like the Nady is. I'm afraid it will. Mics have to be designed to be used as handheld mics. There are some handheld mics that will work with MD and other plug in power devices but not all that many really. The SM58 is a balanced mic. Your MD uses unbalanced mics. There are devices available to convert them or you could make your own if you're handy with a soldering iron. The SM58 is a great hand held mic. So is the EV RE-50. But it would be a hassle trying to use either with a MD because they are both balanced mics. You can read about the issue on Shure's web site. The adapter they suggest using isn't all that cheap. You can find more info on the subject on this web site. Consumer video cameras use the same type of mics that MD's use. There's a list of handheld mics on this web site. And I have heard the AT mics I mentioned before (the ATR25 and ATR55) are said to be capable of being handheld. To be honest I haven't been able to find a suitable handheld mic that will work with my equipment. I haven't looked all that hard but I intend to find one soon just because of the same reasons you mentioned. Currently I use a boom mounted mic for interviews with more than one person. You could probably do that with your Nady. A painters pole and this clamp on adapter from Radio Shack can get you into the boom business pretty cheap. But a boom requires an operator if you are interviewing more than one person and that operator needs to know what they're doing and to practice at doing it until they get good at it. I've said exactly that myself to people who insist that recording voice with a stereo mic is a bad idea. I've said that stereo mics are more flexibile than mono mics because you can do this. But to be fair it is true that the elements of stereo mics are not pointed directly at the subject. Unless you know exactly how the element is pointed you can't point it directly at the subject. And not all stereo mics can be used this way either. M/S mics in particular won't work this way. But you really don't need to worry about converting a M/S recording to mono anyway. It will work just fine. Still with practice you can make this method work with voice recordings. You can also fix some phase issues by reversing the phase of one side of a stereo mic feed but that has limited success. Some frequencies won't be out of phase even when some are. The main reason I suggest using mono mics or mics that easily convert to a mono signal is that some people have a hard time figuring out how to use one channel of a stereo recording as a mono signal. It takes some knowledge of an editing machine. And some people won't be editing on a computer. They will keep the recording they made and play it back with the same device they recorded it with. Besides there's nothing wrong with learning a little about sound so that you can work things out for yourself in any given situation. And I suppose I cave in to conventional wisdom at times and cw says we should learn why stereo mics can be bad for recording voice if you don't know what you're doing.
  17. I know that placement means a lot for dealing with phase cancelling problems. One of the advantages of using a binaural type setup like you use with your BMC-2's when you mount it on your headphones or glasses is that sound from the opposite side of each mic is blocked by your head. So you don't get the problem of sound waves reaching the mic at different times (which is what causes phase cancellation - if the top of the wave hits one mic and the bottom hits the other they effectively cancel each other out much like noise cancelling headphones do). You can still get some problems with sounds from the center though. With a single point stereo mic you don't have half of the sound blocked by something so you can get phase cancelling all across the sound field. But if you know what to listen for you can pick up the problems while monitoring your recordings. The Nady mic isn't all that bad for picking up phase cancellation actually. The pros say that a coincident pair, which is the same as an XY design, is fully compatiblewith a mono signal and that converting to mono is easy usually. The only time you can have problems is with certain placement issues. So most of the time you won't have problems with an XY design but it is possible. You will never have a problem with phase issues with a M/S mic though. The best explanation of how this works is on this web site. I use a Giant Squid omni lav for voice recordings a lot plus I have a Rode VideoMic that is excellent. I generally use them both when I need to be sure I get a good recording. Backups are always a good idea IMO.
  18. You really don't want to use most stereo mics for interviews. The weakness of most stereo mics is the center. You may get phase problems with an XY design mic like the Nady. Because sound arrives at the different mic elements at a different point in the curve you might get phase cancellation which would make anything in the center sound pretty bad. This doesn't always happen of course but it can cause a signficant problem. The Sony ECM-MS907 has a M/S design which means it has an element in the center and an element on either side to pick up the stereo imaging information. It is far less prone to phase problems in the center. This mic is considered to be capable of providing a mono quality voice recording. Mono is what you usually want for recording voice. You can get decent cheap mics for recording voice some of which will even work as handheld mics. The Nady is not going to work well as a handheld mic at all. It will pick up far too much handling noise. It is intended to be used in a mounted fashion. That ATR55 is a decent cheap mic that some people say works as a handheld. The ATR25 might even be good enough for your purposes. If you don't mind using a lavalier mic the Giant Squid mics are excellent at recording voice. A omni lav mono Giant Squid mic only costs $30. I use one to mic my interview subjects for my video business all the time. There's a world of different mics to choose from. Some mics work better in certain situations than others. The Nady is going to be great for recording music. You may get a decent voice recording with it and you may not largely depending on the room acoustics where you record. It's best to have a series of mics for various jobs if you can afford it. In the meantime I think you would find a GS omni lav to be an excellent way to record interviews if you don't mind clipping it to the person you are interviewing.
  19. I think you'll like the Nady. I know I like mine. Wish I could have bought one for $50 though. I paid $119 for mine. FWIW they are built to mimic the AT822. They even look very similar. And I've heard comparisons between the two and the Nady stood up really well against the AT. The Nady will pick up some echo if you have the sound level set too high. It needs to be set just right to record the sound at the highest level without picking up echo. In most places it isn't a problem anyway. But if you get in a place that has a lot of reflective surfaces you could get too much echo. I still think it's an excellent mic especially for the price. And the price you paid makes it really a good deal. I do prefer mine over my Sony MS907 BTW.
  20. Sorry I didn't see the price limit you set on the MD. If you want a good recording system for not a lot of money you might check out a IFP-XXX recorder from iRiver. They have mic pre-amps which aren't great but are ok and they record to mp3 but at very high levels. Plus you can get an IFP-890 for under $20. It's only a 256 meg recorder but you can record 90 minutes at 320kbps stereo with them. They have manual recording level control and a lot of other features. For a budget recorder they are pretty good. Plus you can upload to a computer through a USB cable. And the settings don't change every time you stop recording. They won't sound as good as a MD recorder initially because of the quality of the mic pre-amps. But when you upload a MD to a computer you're creating a second generation recording and that drops the level some. So if you want to edit on a computer you will end up with sound that is pretty close with either a MD or these iRiver recorders. I have a couple of MD models one of which has a mic input and I still bought 2 of the IFP-890's. They are pretty good to stick in someone's pocket with a lav mic attached to them. You can almost treat them as a throaway recorder in case you want to put them in a rough situation. MD probably does sound better even after you upload through your sound card but they aren't as convienient as these mp3 recorders. And you can get models with more memory if you want. I figured I had a use for both types of recorders. But for anything I really want to be quality I use my HIMD of course.
  21. All HIMD models record sound at the same level of quality. So any recorder from the list posted by Sparky would be a good choice. There are different features for these models though. You might want to check what models have features you might find important. If good sound is all you need then go with the cheapest HIMD model you can find. Up until a few months ago it was possible to get HIMD units on eBay for very good prices. The prices have gone up lately though. I see NH700's selling for around $165 now. That's double what they were last fall. But those are new units. You may find a used one considerably cheaper. Keep an eye on what gets posted in the classifieds on this board and other MD boards too. There's the Audio-T board and Minidiscussion. The TapersSection is another board where you might find used stuff for sale. Buying used is always a risk of course. I bought my HIMD used and I had a problem with it at first. Turned out to be a bad disc but I thought I was going to be out the money I spent for a while.
  22. The "Desperado" album by The Eagles, "Classics Vol. 1" & "2" by Delbert McClinton, "Still Alive And Well" by Johnny Winter, The Great American Bluegrass Band and "The Millennium Collection" by Joe Walsh lately. But it changes a lot.
  23. Mic selection depends largely on what you plan to record and how. Are you recording your friends garage band or are you recording a rock band with the recorder hidden in your pocket? I know you said you would be recording music but where? What you think you might do with a mic makes a difference. There are many mics around that are good but some have great reputations so you are pretty sure to like them. Personally I prefer a little more expensive mic than the price you listed not because it costs more but because it sounds better. I'm not familiar with the mic mentioned by A440 personally but I know it has a great reputation. I have a Nady CM-2S which I think sounds pretty good and better than the sub-$100 mics I've heard. But it's a fairly big mic so it wouldn't be at all good for stealth recording. I use it to record a bluegrass band I work with. You might try finding a few sound samples from various mics around the net. But keep in mind that a single sample is hard to go by. You really don't know equipment until you've lived with it a while. That's why I buy from Musician's Friend. They have a very liberal return policy (45 days with no questions asked) so you can try out what you're getting without having to keep it if you don't like it. But they don't have the mic suggested by A440 which is a popular mic so there are always things to think about.
  24. I'd like to have the smaller size of the thin rechargeables but to me AA's are head and shoulders above them in convenience. I'll never have a dead MD when I need it to work. I know a person can buy extra gumsticks but batteries don't do well if you don't use them often. I've seen too many different types of batteries go bad from lack of use so unless you charge and discharge your spares you could end up with a problem before you knew what was happening. If that happens with AA's you just stick in a alkaline and you're set.
  25. Not too long ago it was possible to get a new Sony MZ-NH700, which is a HIMD model, from an eBay dealer for at most $120 shipped. Now the only auction listing for the MZ-NH700 on eBay is already up to $165 with 2 hours to go. It is way more expensive than they were just 6 months ago. But I do still see used MZ-NH700 and MZ-NHF800 models being sold used. There is a used MZ-NHF800 being auctioned today but it doesn't have a remote with it. I think they only ship to the US and Canada. But these are just examples of used HIMD models for sale. I found mine in the classifieds on this board. They are around if you look for them. eBay can be risky of course. I would check out the seller very well if I even thought about bidding on the used NHF800.
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