mrsoul

That sounds like a mic problem. Are you going through the red input or the white input into the NH800? Is that a powered mic? Do you put a battery in the microphone? I would try something like the microphone your brother has on your NH800 or use the cheap mic that came with your computer and see if you notice any static with either of those mics.

I think I may just hold off until I look at the Auris mics and the Boost Box some more. I like the AT822 and its ease of use. It does a fine job outdoors but indoors can be thin at times. Thanks for the info and the offer for the assistance.

I guess I will just focus on what I have bought to record live music which was my primary reason for going the MD route. Initial MD purchase: Sharp DR7 (new): $280 Sony JE-520 Deck (used off Ebay): $100 Blanks and Otterbox for the Sharp DR7: $60 Giant Squid Audio cardioid powered mic: $95 Upgrade to Sony DX-D400 Deck (after I sold the JE-520 on Ebay): $210 (minus $90 for JE-520) Cheap soundcard with optical input and output: $25 (later sold on Ebay for $10) Creative Audidy ZS2 system (bought because the opitcal input on above card would never work without stutter): $200 Sold Sony DX0D400 on Ebay for $220 (made a profit!) and bought the NH900 for $240 (with extra warranty and 2 blanks) since I no longer needed to worry about optical in/out since the USB upload functionality of the Hi-MD took care of all that fun New larger Otterbox and mic stand: $95 Shockmount for mic stand: $25 AT822 mic: $280 Sold Sharp DR7 on Ebay ($180 with old small otterbox) Total (includes what I sold back on Ebay): @ $1100 which is still way cheaper than a DAT deck and a mic In the long run, I am very satisfied and happy with the quality of the recordings I have made and I have become a MDfreak in the process. I do also have a MZ-S1 that I take out on walks and to the Y at least 5 times per week: $80 (on clearance at Best Buy, best $80 I have spent in a long time, got me excited about the whole NetMD thing which rolled into the Hi-MD that I was debating on delaying until Sharp produced a model... but here I am and that is my MD investment story)

I have used and charged 3 different prismatic gumsticks in my NH900 without any problems. I do get a much longer life with the 1400 mAh and above. Plus, you CAN use a rechargeable AA in that dry cell case without problems. I have recorded at least 10 shows with my NH900 and I always use the AA case along with the gumstick. I have yet to have any problems with batteries dying while I record (ususally 1-2 hour sets). I do change the gumstick out during set break if I have the chance or the set was long just to be safe although my at-home test tell me I am being paranoid. The prismatic gumsticks really are cheap and have worked fine for me. You might also be interested to know you can record in PCM for over 2 hours with a standard AA battery alone without the gumstick. During my test, I had to change the Hi-MD disc long before the AA battery got below 2 bars out of 4.

Those are for Hi-MD only. They have been out since July '04. You will need a different MD player to play these than what you have. Sorry. But, a Hi-MD will still play the old standard 74/80 min MDs.

Dex- I can never get SS to combine my OMG tracks after I upload. It gives me some excuse about they have already been uploaded. So, am I to understand that you can combine tracks that you have uploaded in SS?

Howdy and welcome. Next time, take a quick look at the FAQs for Hi-MD or do a simple search on the forum. The search engine here does a mighty fine job for you... That battery shipped with the NH900 is a "piece of crap" to quote Neil Young. Check out this Battery Thread Or go here for info: http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-21.htm Shop here for a better replacement: Battery

Howdy! Do you still need someone to take that off your hands?

Sony already does it with some recorders, see for example my MZ-S1 which has the orange back light. It doesn't stay on all the time but it's still a joy to be out early in the mornings on my walks and see what track is playing or the volume level. It would be a treat to have that on my NH900 but that is what I bought the 40ELK remote to do for me.

The most important question: Did you reattempt another upload after you had the failure? If yes, then the data has been deleted. If not, then you should try opening SS and attempting to PLAY the tracks on the transfer side. If it plays, then you can use something like Total Recorder or your soundcard to capture that playback. DO NOT ATTEMPT ANOTHER UPLOAD, SS will kindly delete your data without even telling you that it did. It's a damn shame Sony doesn't at least warn you! Yes, you should always track the large PCM files before uploading to avoid the large data transfers that seem to bog down SS for some reason. Hope this helps some. I lost a one of kind concert recording attempting the PCM upload and that made me angry for a few days but grad school work would be in another category of disaster. Good luck!

Thanks Dex. Anything from Sony that you can think of? I saw a mixer on New Year's Eve that was very small. Maybe it was a headphone mixer? What about something like this... http://www.rolls.com/new/mx44.html http://www.rolls.com/new/mx41.html (this would probably be best for my mics that already have power)

I would be most interested in a portable mixer that accepts both 1/4" plugs (from my AT822) and/or 3.5 mm miniplug (from my other cardioid set with battery box). Is there such a thing or do all mixers take XLR only? Thanks for any info or suggestions. This has me thinking about doing some mixin' at shows with my two mics, one spread about 12 inches on each side and the AT822 in the middle. Does that make sense or is it possible?

Rechargeable NiMh AAs in the battery case have worked fine in my NH900 with and without the gumstick in place.

Chris- Even if it works on your system all that proves is that you need some serious processing and RAM power to handle that transfer for some reason. That's not exactly good news but it's worth testing... I have an Athlon 2400 with 1GB of RAM and still had the same problems and worse. Just making an observation.

Test #4 was the problem for me as well. I no longer attempt to upload PCM as 1 large track. Luckily, most of the bands I record don't follow the Miles Davis 1970's style of 1 long track :-) Chris and Dex- This should go in the FAQ or pinned since most folks might not know that it is best to avoid uploading a very large PCM file. The 2 big problem uploads I had were both 1 large PCM file uploads. I have had no problems at all since I started tracking into smaller files before uploading.

Thanks for the reply. I would recommend that you download a part of the Visulite show instead of streaming. Try something in the 2nd set like the "Hey Driver" or "Pedro" these 2 instrumentals will give you a better idea of what it sounded like. It did take a little while to get the room dialed in and I still think the vocals were up that night. Thanks again for the feedback. Maybe one day the Auris but for now the Audio Technica AT822 will have to be the Mule for this train. I do like the simple set-up: mic up, line in, turn on the MD, switch to manual record, place on pause, put the recorder on HOLD and then work everything else with the 40ELK remote. It's almost too easy for decent results.

It's true. On the Sony MDs when recording from a line input, you will get a new track if there is more than 2 seconds of silence. It's a PIA if you ask me. I think I read a post here that states the same if the source is optical as well. This does NOT happen with mic inputs.

Thanks Dex, I never noticed that in the options but I will give it a whirl. Nothing in the Help menu that I could find but you would think if you rename in My Library it would rename the file. I guess since I was renaming on the Hi-MD before transfer it wasn't yet in My Library. Here's an attachment with a screenshot of that option, it's the last box checked... filenameoptions.doc

Thanks for the feedback Dex. I prefer the Visulite because of the bassy sound. One of the gems of this band is the bass player. The Visulite is warmer and more full sounding to me. But, I do hear what you are saying about the room acoustics. I think some EQ would do the Variety some good as well. I appreciate you taking the time to listen. The show I recorded on Thursday is in the link below. It was a beautiful venue but the acoustics were not very beautiful at all. Still the performance was above normal for me and I had a blast recording and listening. No problems with SS upload. Enjoy and I appreciate your feedback on this one as well. No normalizing this time, just straight OMG>WAV>FLAC. Thanks again for the feedback from everyone! http://www.archive.org/audio/etree-details-db.php?id=21211

One thing with the Sony WAV converter, if I don't change the track names on the Hi-MD BEFORE uploading (I use SS to do this), then the WAV converter uses "Untitled" as the name of every track. It actually takes me a few minutes to refigure the track order after I have to weed through all of these "Untitled" tracks. Anybody else notice this? If I rename after uploading it still uses "Untitled" as the track name. Weird.

I lost 1 original concert recording in SS 2.2 but I have since figured out that tracking my larger PCM files into smaller tracks has kept me out of trouble. Also, I did not know that I should try to reattempt the upload once Windows rebooted and I found the track was still there. It deleted the file when I reattemped the upload. Now, I know to forget the upload IF I have an error and just run an analog connection from my NH900 to my Creative Audigy2 ZS, etc. So, in other words, when I had the 2 errors, I still had the tracks on the Hi-MD. I only lost the first recording because I tried to re-upload which is a big error and just sad that Sony doesn't even give you a warning,etc. No problems yet with uploads on 2.3.

I always keep the FLAC file around on my 2nd HD and burn to a CD. I am hoping to get a DVD burner really soon and then I will back up the FLAC files to that. I may also start keeping just the raw WAV to FLAC and edited WAV to FLAC of the same show. I taped the same band in Augusta, Georgia at the Historic Imperial Theater last night (Jan 13th, 2005). It's one of James Brown's old haunts. Great place but the acoustics weren't very good at all. I am in the process of posting this show to the archive as well. The performance was stunning at times last night. I avoided any editing this time around, you can just use your volume control if you want it louder. Just straight OMG PCM to WAV to FLAC. I will post the archive address later. BTW, if you are interested, check out this campaign I am running for their drummer who had a major emergency surgery in 2001 and still has substantial medical bills. Check it out and help out if you can... http://www.5in5foryonrico.com Thanks for indulging me on this topic thread. Glad I could help expose such a great band just a little more.

Thanks for the info. Very informative and something I just bookmarked. I really like the NiMh prismatics. On that subject, I just bought a new Sony double charger from Bargaining4all.com. When I got the charger, it wouldn't charge and none of the pilot lights worked. There was no current found with my tester on any of the terminals. I took it to a battery plus shop. The service tech opened the box and we found a broken connection that he soldered back to the power terminals. It now charges with about a 3.2v output but still no pilot lights. Anybody else have this charger or similar prismatic charger? Sony BC-7DC2 is the model. http://www.bargaining4all.com/catalog/prod...&products_id=38 I can only find very, very limited info on the net regarding this charger but its specs say it will work in any country and that the pilot lights should work when charging. Bargaining4all.com hasn't been the greatest of customer service. First, he accused me of not using the right battery and then of not having a working power outlet and then of not knowing how to test a current, AC or DC. Any help is appreciated. I am not trying to put down the vendor, just trying to find out if anyone else has this charger. I got the 40ELK remote from him and have been more than happy with it (although I did dream last night that I broke it by accident, weird). His track record on Ebay looks really good otherwise.

Chris- Hey, life is opening a new door, kick it down and step through! Maybe we can catch a Derek Trucks show in Georgia sometime since that is their home territory! Get in touch when you get settled down South. Hey, I just got my Master's in May and it really makes a difference to some folks who have the power if you have certain initials behind your name... and a difference to your checking account They are actually let me do the things I have talked about for years (I was a staff RN for 5 years and now I am the Nursing Informatics Coordinator). Without that extra degree, it wouldn't be happening. It will be to your advantage in the long run. It wasn't the easiest thing to do, work fulltime and go to school "fooltime" with a wife and 2 little boys. It won't be the easiest thing for you but trust me, you will have it made in the shade. Take advantage of the new opportunity and enjoy school this time around Good luck and keep us posted. M

Yes, the NH900 does make new tracks when the signal source is low. I miss that about my old Sharp DR7... and the on the fly recording level adjustments speak for themselves (without the default AGC that Sony refuses to save settings for Manual). The ability to upload via USB and record in PCM that the Sony offers puts the NH900 in a much better light. I would go for the NH900 since that is what I traded my Sharp DR7 to get (along with the Sony Deck I no longer needed thanks to USB uploading). Hard choice but a good one to have to make.