M.Linc

Canadian and US standards both use 110 volts and the same outlets. Snap it up!

I have over 2400 tracks in SonicStage now, but they're all over the map in terms of volume level. Older CDs, especially, seem to have been recorded at quite low levels; perhaps the recording engineers were erring on the side of caution with the then-new digital medium. So the Dynamic Normalization capability of the MZ-RH1 is very interesting to me. But I don't know if it works well or is better left off. If DN doesn't work well, then I can just as well save my money and carefully choose similarly-loud tracks to transfer to MDs using my MZ-N707. Has anyone actually downloaded tracks with widely-different volume levels to a single MD and played them on the RH1 using Dynamic Normalization? If so, what are your impressions? On a similar note: If I were to unpack my old MD deck and record tracks from CD so that each is just short of oversaturation, should they all sound similarly loud, or are there other dynamics involved which I'm unaware of?

Is there early MD equipment that can't use the 80-minute discs?

May is good. I still have some of my tax refund left. I still haven't seen word on whether Dynamic Normalization works well. But the rest of the features are such that I'll probably buy an RH1 anyway and try it for myself. Does anybody know if a 12V car power adapter will be available for the RH1?

The post starting this thread says it will be available in the US around summertime. I can wait.

Sony may be targeting this unit largely at those who do live recording, but that is a relatively small subset of the larger market. Sony wants that larger market, so it can't simply make the RH1 larger to give it the battery power or battery swapping capability that would make the field recording folks happier. Why not? Fashion. Smaller is 'hip' or 'cool' or whatever you want to call it. Larger is not hip. You can thank Steve Jobs and the iPod for that. What Sony might have done was to make a unit the size of the RH1 with one side of the case that could be removed and replaced with a battery pack of some sort, which would give longer run time and also power the unit while swapping the internal battery. Then if you really want either feature you can have it, while those who would rather have a smaller unit would also be happy. There could even be various sizes of battery packs that might take AAs or NiMH or other batteries, to suit everybody. Too bad developing such a thing would cost more money than Sony would likely be willing to spend.

Thanks for the response. Another couple of questions, then: Do you know if the unit merely sets the playback level according to the highest volume level of the track, or does it perform a more detailed analysis? And can you say it works well? I have quite a disparity of volume levels among the tracks I've uploaded from my CDs to SonicStage, enough so in some cases that I won't put certain tracks together on the same MD disk unless I use my old deck to record them. That, of course, takes much more time than using SS to transfer the tracks to my NetMD unit. If this dynamic normalization works well, I'll be more than happy to postpone my next computer purchase so that I can get an RH-1.

MDFreak, have you had a chance to test normalization? Any problems with it?

Can I assume that we'll be able to use a car power adapter (and, for that matter, an AC adapter)? I don't record live often or long enough to care about the lack of an AA pack, but I drive long distances. How will the unit handle normalization? Will it save settings on each MD? Will it work as it should by allowing adjustment of the volume of each track? If so, the last obstacle to my buying Hi-MD may have just vanished. If it's just a volume limiter, forget it. I would still like to be able to have the option for fade in and fade out when editing tracks in SonicStage, but I can live without that.

Now if Sony would include normalization in the next SonicStage (it's not in 3.4, is it?), I'd be a happy guy. I'd probably even break down and buy a Hi-MD unit.

Excellent! That's the kind of information that should be on the download site to begin with. Thanks again.

I presume (correctly, I hope) that the update installer is the full installer on the main download page? Or is there an updater I haven't been clever enough to find? (I'm perfectly capable of that.) Thanks.

I notice that SonicStage 2.2 is available, and that I'm running SS 2.0. What is the best way to update the software? Can I just install the new version over the old and have everything work as before? Or am I asking for trouble? Also, is downloading from the Connect site the only way to get the new software? The instructions there seem to be geared to potential new users only, but I see nothing in the SS help files about any other way to update. (Or any way at all, actually.) I don't want any problems with updating. I'd hate to have to rip all my CDs again; I'm not even half-done doing that for the first time!

I'm happy enough with a NetMD and a cassette adapter. What I want to see, though, is a line input on the front of every car stereo head unit around. I want to take any player (MiniDisc, cassette, mp3, what-have-you) and just connect to any car stereo from the player's headphone jack, adjust the volume a bit as necessary, and listen away. I'm surprised this isn't already being done now. It would eliminate the need to create new car stereos every time a new music playback technology is introduced. "Installation" is a lot easier, as well. (I do have a line input on a Sony compact stereo unit I use in one of my rooms at home. If I want to play a NetMD disk, which the unit doesn't support, I just connect my NetMD player. No more cursing about obsolete equipment!)

To agree with what was mentioned elsewhere, I would really like to see normalizing of tracks in SonicStage. I often play music from my PC when preparing and eating meals, and if I make the quieter tracks more audible in the kitchen, the louder tracks darn near knock my monitor off its perch! I would also like to see an expansion of editing functions in SS. Right now I can Divide or Combine tracks, which is a nice thing. Divide is especially nice for those tracks with four-minute gaps (who decided that was cool?) or to extract the main part of a song from some weird bit of introductory noise. I also like to extract songs with intros I like but which are ruined when the lyrics begin. But of course, I want more! I would like to be able to fade the volume at the end of the first part of a Divided track, which would make some of my extractions a bit less jarring. This leads to being able to ramp up the volume at the beginning of the second part of a Divided track so that it sounds better. I would like the capability to determine the length of the fade. I miss the playback equalizer I had when using OpenMG. Come to think of it, being able to both normalize volume and adjust for too much or too little of this or that frequency range would be most welcome when playing from SonicStage or transferring music to a disc. I don't suppose there exists any third-party software than can do any of this without causing problems with SonicStage....