LowEnd

Thanks for the response... you may be right, my home stereo as a source may not be the best test. I ought to try it in a live club setting. The recording I got using a 9 volt pre-amp and running "mic in" turned out great. No distortion. I may try the line-in at our next gig to see how it does.

I use an MZ-NH1 and Core Sound cardoid mics Up until now I have been running my mics into the "mic input" and getting decent recordings. I recently bought a two channel mixer so I could run the mics into one channel and a line off the board into the other channel then mix and run into the minidisc. I didn't realize that I needed a pre-amp to power the mics so... I bought a 9 volt pre-amp. Thats the backstory... now onto my question... after receiving my pre-amp I had a gig to record but I didn't want to mess with the mixer but I wanted to try out the pre-amp. I tried plugging the mics into the pre-amp and the pre-amp into the "Line In" of the minidisc because I heard that would give a better sounding recording then the mic-in. The problem is that the recording level is not loud enough. Even with a fairly loud test of cranking up my home stereo and I cranked the recording level up to 30/30 and could barely get the level to touch the first dot. I usually like to get my recordings between the first and second dots. Am I missing something here? I assumed I would have plenty of headroom to set the recording level... any thoughts would be appreciated. By the way, I still used the pre-amp and ran it into the mic-in (I did notice that I only had to set the recording level to about 12/30 to get a good recording level which is lower then without the pre-amp) and the recording turned out great. Any thoughts on how to get the recording level "hotter" using the line-in?

Great... I'll give that a try, thanks!

Whenever I run a line into the "Line-In (opt)" input it seems to ignore the fact that I have the track marks set to 5 min intervals. It appears to set track marks based on when the audio starts and stops. I end up with tons of track marks. More specifically, we recorded some music on a friends new Roland digital recorder and I ran a line out of that into my MZ-NH1's Line-In (opt). Am I doing something wrong or is this intended for a purpose?

When I insert my USB cable, it always catches/latches easily on the left side but the right side takes several "shoves/firm pushes" to get it to catch/latch. Anyone else noticed this?

I now have an MZ-NH1!! Delivered today! I went home at lunch from work and had an hour to play around with it. Very nice looking machine, seems sturdy and I've already thrown a few songs on it and did a quick mic test. Unfortunately, I had to return to work this afternoon so I plugged in the battery and it is charging. Can't wait to get home and play with this fine unit! I was billed my original purchase price of $329, with tax and shipping, $340. I'll let you know if Datavis will honor their current pricing or not.

Kaotic... I see your point and you may be right. The $20 or so dollars is not too big of a deal. Although, IMO I think I should receive the lower price and I'll be contacting Datavis if I don't receive it (even though $329 it is fairly low price to begin with).

This is interesting news! When I pre-ordered from Datavis back in the beginning of April, the price was 329.99! My MZ-NH1 is arriving today via UPS so I'll have to check my bill and make sure I received the current price of 309.99... very cool... nearly pays for my three discs I ordered from Sony!

Larry B... glad to hear you are liking the NH1! I'm curious, are you using the "included" earbuds or some other headset? I've seen some comments that the earbuds don't do it justice. My unit is sitting right across the state from me in a UPS routing building/truck! I expect to get mine on Tuesday! My first MD unit (or digital recorder, period!). :cool:

Looks good!

I "believe" it is a US company... the package originated from Long Island City New York.

Quick update... I've now received confirmation that my order was shipped yesterday on the 4th. I have a tracking number and it is definately on its way! Just a few more days now!!

www.datavis.com (where I pre-ordered my MZ-NH1) just sent me an e-mail. I'm still waiting on my order confirmation but this is very encouraging, below is the e-mail text... Dear Customer Thank you for your interest in MZ-NH1 HI-MD Walkman digital. This email is in response to your request to notify you when this item in stock. Please go to our web site www.datavis.com and purchase MZ-NH1 HI-MD Walkman digital. It is now in stock. click here Please note that many new items may be constrained by the manufacturer and supplies may be limited. If you have any questions regarding price and availability, please call 1-888-888-2087 for assistance.

Thanks so much for the detailed responses! I do understand the issue with the guy yelling "whooo" or whatever. I've had issues with that in my analog cassette recordings. I do like recording off the board (which I can easily do) but it seems that unless I get lucky, the mix is not usually the best because the soundman is mixing for the "room" and quite often one instrument will be louder than another. Of course the flip side is to record ambient sound and then you get the guy yelling in the background. The idea of a little mixer allowing a mix of board and ambiant may be the ideal approach. I hadn't considered that idea... I may have to give this a try. Thanks again!

Hello, Being new to minidisc recording (waiting for my mz-nh1 to arrive)... I've wondered if there are any newbie tips concerning mic placement when recording live. Specifically, I play in a band in small clubs and our soundman usually has the best seat in the house so I plan to set the mic/recorder next to him. By the way, I bought a set of "Core Sound" mini binaural mics (little condesor mics) and I'm wondering if it is best to aim the mics directly at each main or should they be aimed directly at each side wall (parallel with the mains.. more like your ears are aimed)? What have been your experiences with mic placement and MD? Thanks, Lowend

*rant on* And another poor sounding, analog cassette recording of my band this weekend. I had hoped to record this weekend with my new "21st century recording device". Ordered the MZ-NH1 in early April... then it was May release, then June/July... then July/August... now late August Can you tell? I'm anxious to delve into the digital world? No, I've never owned an MD before, a buddy of mine has one and has me convinced this is the way to go for portable/live recording. I've recorded with cassette my entire life and don't know anything else... can't wait to hear what my band "truly" sounds like! *rant off* Patience my precious... patience!!

I've seen plenty of etailers advertising that you get a HI-MD disc included with your purchase but have also heard a few reports of no disc included when they opened their package. Does anyone know if a 1 gig disc is included or not? I'm purchasing the MZ-NH1 from datavis. Just trying to decide if I should pick up a pack of 80 min discs to have something to use when I get it in.

Thanks for the info, this helps! Although storing them as Atrac3Plus 256k "may" be sufficient, I'd prefer to store my collection in PCM format which means I can't really get this work done until SS 2.1 comes out. I think I'll rip a CD or two at 256k and see if the sound quality is acceptable or not. Might be for what I need and would save me a ton of disc space. Sounds like I may be getting a new hard drive to store my music on so I don't eat up all my space and not have enough for other things on my computer.

Being new to minidisc (I have a MZ-NH1 on order) I am looking at using Sonic Stage to store my CD collection on my computer hard drive. What I'm looking for is opinions on the best approach to doing this. It seems pretty straight-forward but I want to make sure I'm on the right track before I rip a bunch of CD's and wish I had done it differently. I'm running a Vaio desktop with 160 gig hard drive. I can probably dedicate 60 - 80 gig of space for music storage (I may end up getting another drive just for music storage if I need to) I have several hundred CD's and would be great if I could store all of them on my hard drive but I'll probably end up just picking my favorites and starting there. If I rip them to Sonic Stage in PCM mode (assuming storage space is not a problem) then when I want to download to the HI-MD does it convert it on the fly to say Atrac3Plus 256 (or whatever lower bitrate choices that are available) or should I rip them to sonic stage in 256k mode and if decide that I want to download songs at a lower bit rate to HI-MD, will it convert it during the transfer process? I guess what I'm trying to ask is... should I store the music on my hard drive in PCM mode so I can have the option to convert it to whatever bitrate I want or will storage space be an issue and I should store them as Atrac3Plus 256k mode? Hopefully I'm making some sense. Any suggestions on the best way to start my music collection on my hard drive would be appreciated.

I remember reading that someone from this minidisc site was being interviewed for a New York Post article concerning HI-MD. Did the article ever hit the paper?

Thanks JadeClaw! I have a friend who used these same mic's with his MD recorder and they did a great job recording some live shows.

Since I just saw "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" movie the other day, I thought his post was quite funny! By the way, there is a band named "Veruca Salt" and after watching the movie I realized that must be where their name came from.

I've ordered a set of Core Sound Low Cost Binaural mics from http://www.core-sound.com/lcmics.html in anticipation of the arrival of my MZ-NH1. Below is a comment concerning these mics and I'm wondering if anyone can confirm if the MZ-NH1 will have the "Bias Voltage" they describe? !! CORE SOUND'S COMMENT !! "The Low Cost microphones require a bias voltage (also called "plug-in power") of between 1.5 and 10 Volts DC, supplied by the recorder or mixing panel via the same cable that carries the audio signal. All current digital and analog recorders supply bias voltage." I tried using these mics plugged into an analog video camera and could get no sound and I wondered if this could be the issue. I then plugged the mic into my "Mic In" on my computer soundcard and was able to pick up some sound, even though the sound quality was terrible. I don't think this test represents the sound quality of these mics so I'm anxious to try them recording live music into my HI-MD unit.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=3074649780 You can get this 1 gig disc for the cheap price of only $400 I LOL when I saw this!

Interesting... 3 for $10... that is quite a bit cheaper then the $7 a piece price I have been hearing about! I'll believe it when I see them on the shelves at that price. It would be great if they were that cheap!