aaron_ximm

They're not as broadly focused as Freesound, but if you're willing to share your sounds with the world, you might also consider donating a recording (or a dozen) to the excellent SoundTransit project: http://soundtransit.nl or (self-promotion alert!) sending a favorite 60-second excerpt or two to me, for my own One-Minute Vacation project: http://oneminutevacation.org Both are contribution-based archives of recordings from all over the world of all sorts of subjects. Content distributed on both is, of course, free for the downloading... Happy New Year! aaron -- quietamerican.org oneminutevacation.org

Also FYI, Minidisco is claiming "in stock" (and presumably shipping immediately!?) as of now.

Thanks for the kind words about my site too. Always nice to hear that someone's getting inspired. And please everyone, if you're willing to share your gems, I'm always looking for interesting recordings for that vacations page... www.quietamerican.org/vacation.html People interested in soundscape/field recording should definitely check out http://phonography.org and also the phonography group at Yahoo! groups. It's quite an amazing bunch of people doing a lot of DIY recording for the pure pleasure of it... But about fireworks -- the general rule of not having peak loudness events over about -12db (on the old Sonys btw this was indicated by a meter indication going from solid to dotted line...) can be bent a good bit with things like fireworks that are very very short ("transient") loud sounds, you can actually get away with "clipping" (going over maximum loudness on the meter) for VERY short times, like fireworks/fire crackers, if you're careful... You still have to listen closely though because if the sound clips for more than a sample or two, it will be noticeable distortion. Beware in particular that the digital meters on MD decks are SLOW to track changes in loudness and AVERAGE what they're getting, so if you are getting peaks consistently at the top of the range, the *true* peaks are probably well above clipping! <geek>Different MD decks from different companies handle clipping in different ways BTW, my old Sharps did something really odd that was *very* noticable as distortion, but also easy to fix -- they "rolled over" the sample into a negative number; Sonys I think nowadays just truncate the waveforms.</geek> best aaron http://www.quietamerican.org

A quick note on AGC: don't use it for recording natural soundscapes! Though I understand it's a pain to disable with the Hi-MD decks, it's worth it to always disable it. Personally I recommend not using it all for anything other recording lextures and speakers (for which it was really desinged); the way AGC changes the gain during recording is impossible to remove post facto and is a very unnatural effect even in concert recordings. You're better off setting the gain so that the PEAK levels you expect never get above -12db, or perhaps a tad higher if you are in a very consistent environment. You can always bump the levels later, but if you go "over" with any regularity the distortion is also impossible to fix. Incidentally the main challenge in concert recordings is usually bass; a switchable "bass rolloff box" that also provides plug-in power for your mics is a very wise investment!!! Though it's woefully in need of an update to discuss Hi-MD, harddrive/compact flash (MP3) recorders, etc, people interested in recording with their MDs might find the DIY section of my website valuable; see the "links/resources" section of www.quietamerican.org. FWIW I'm a field recordist and have used MD and stealthy binaural-like mics since 98. Also, if you want more examples of things people have recorded with MD (etc), you might like my collection of submitted recordings at www.quietamerican.org/vacation.html. Hundreds of short recordings made around the world, freely shared. best regards, aaron ximm aka quiet american

On the off chance that Sony is monitoring this: PLEASE allow .WAV conversion of realtime recordings made via optical digital input!!! This was going to be my main use of Hi-MD: field recording with quality mics into prosumer or pro preamps/convertors (denecke or Grace Design or sound devices or apogee...), with an optical output to the Hi-MD deck. This would be a wonderful, wonderful solution for very high quality very portable recording! But not nearly so wonderful if I am stuck using consumer level convertors on the Hi-MD deck!!! No offense but the analog stage and convertors are not up to the level of pro gear of course. AND we were told earlier this year as I recall by Sony that we could upload recordings made via OPTICAL in as well. Upload of high quality recordings is USELESS to field recordists unless it is an unrestricted format! Legal objection? Two answers: (1) As others have pointed out, no OTHER manufacturer seems to be prohibiting this for home recording act reasons ~ for example, the iRiver HP series WAV/MP3 harddrive recorders! (2) At least unlock non-domestic US models, and let consumers willing to order overseas units take their own risks (none for our own recorings)!!! Thank you. Aaron Ximm www.quietamerican.org

Re: the question of what happens when you transfer your own recordings to the PC using SonicStage, I would fear the worse: no access to them as normal (ie WAV files) even if recorded at PCM. Notice the section "On Copyright Protection" that says "SonicStage encrypts audio files in OpenMG format and stores them on the hard disk of your computer to prevent unauthorized distribution." Sounds like Sony is, as we all fear, going the extra mile to cripple their very capable hardware. I will be very, very sad if I'm right about this. and will go out of my way to avoid purchasing any Sony product ever again.