dex Otaku

I've never seen this abbreviation before - aside from which, no one here ever uses the term "general admission". I don't know if I've ever heard of a show referred to as general admission, to be honest. The term is still completely meaningless to me.

I hope the question is clear enough. Clarification: * Location recording - means recordings made "live" using a microphone or from a line source, generally speaking. This includes interviews, music recordings, poetry readings, sound effects/foley, environmental recording, &c.

Hey - good point. [slaps forehead]

The question could be clarified, but I honestly can't think of a better phrasing at the moment. The idea is to answer with the format you use most frequently, with a and obvious leaning towards portable use. Note that under HiMD I included "whether with legacy or 1GB discs" - I myself mostly use MD80s, but have only ever written a MDLP-disc once, and for someone else. 1GB discs are nonexistant in stores where I live, and I can not afford to order them online [aside from being one of those strange people who has no credit cards and no means of online payment]. Go with the format you're using to create discs/compilations/whatever the most now. The idea is to say what's your -active- format, so if you have as part of your collection 300 MDs recorded in SP mode that you listen to regularly, but in the last year have only created HiMD-mode discs, your answer is HiMD.

I would mean "Sound" set to "Normal", i.e. EQ disabled. Note that this should be the same as setting the custom EQ to all '0' [centre] positions. Setting the custom EQ to 'all bottom' != [is not equal to] setting the EQ to flat, the same as setting all to the top isn't.

I would check your system for: * third-party USB storage drivers * other devices plugged into the same USB controller [each controller usually has 2 ports] * drivers for other USB devices that might interfere * other background processes that might be interfering [process of elimination, unfortunately] Also, don't use the unit through a USB hub if you have one.

Thanks, people.

The process is: * upload your recording * export it as WAV * forget about SonicStage and the original on your disc, and use the WAV for editing in other better-suited and more reliable software. In all honesty, there's currently no hack in existence for recovering the rights info, and Sony certainly don't provide a way to do so. Once you've uploaded a track from the originating disc, AFAIK the only thing you can change about it is the track info [title, album, &c.]. This is why I upload, export, verify the WAVs, then erase the original disc - because it's no longer of any use. Please note that you -can- re-import the exported WAVs, before or after editing, and put them back on the same disc. As with all downloaded tracks, they can't be edited.

I've never even tried burning a CD from SS, to be honest. The first thing I do with my recordings [after combining tracks if necessary] is to export as WAV. Following that is editing, CD authoring et al, all of which I use other software for. I never considered using SS for burning CDs, actually. In other respects it was too unreliable for me to bother trying.

I suppose it would be useless to point out that this fora is part of MINIDISC.org, not ATRAC.org?

Kind of. It's more because WAV stores PCM without error-correction, clock info, &c. To my knowledge there is no subcode, only frames of audio.

Unless, that is, your sound card refuses to support that correctly [as my Revo 7.1 does]. [How do I know this? By trying to play a DTS or AC3 stream over SPDIF; from apps such as WinDVD or PowerDVD, it works fine, but from any other player, the stream gets munged regardless of whether all DSP including volume control are turned off. From Fb2k, DTS and AC3 over SPDIF are destroyed, whether in kernel-streaming mode or not.]

Try it without an addtional preamp first. The output of the RH10 at near-max volume with a peak signal is very close to 1Vp-p, which is well within the range of what constitutes line level with consumer audio. As KJ said, basically just disable the EQ and turn up the volume. My measurement of near - 1Vp-p was made with the volume set at 29/30. If you happen to listen to music that is extremely bit-pushed, you might notice distortion, in which case I'd simply turn down the RH10 until the distortion disappears and then turn up the volume control on your amp. Also: running the player from its AC adapter might lower the chances of distortion at high levels. [i can't be sure of this because of the digital amp; units with analogue amps almost always work more smoothly when -not- run off batteries.]

If you want the LCD, get the RH910. There's no such thing as a black OLED [since OLEDs emit light, they can't be black].

Okay - my advice: * mount the mics where they're not likely to be brushed against, to pick up clothing movement, &c. * remember that the higher the mics are mounted [i'm assuming you'll be wearing them in some sense], the more direct sound you'll be picking up from all sources around you when in a crowd; i.e. if you put them low on your body, the press of bodies around you will be absorbing much of the high end - whereas mounted high, they'll be picking up more of them directly from all sources around you, including both the PA and the crowd * the closest sources are the loudest; microphones can't filter sound the way your brain does, so that guy standing beside you whistling will definitely be more noticeable than the sound from the stage [unless you're at a Pink Floyd concert, in which case the PA is likely so loud that you can't hear your neighbour screaming directly into your ear]. The closer you are to the source you -want- to hear in the recording, the more it will dominate the overall balance * since you have a battbox, try going mic->battbox->line in first and setting levels manually [see below for more about that]; if you have to crank the levels really high to get any signal on the meters, try plugging into the mic in instead and turning levels down [make sure the mic preamp is set for "low sensitivity" which, IIRC, is a switch on the bottom of your R37. Chances are, if it's an amped event, line-in from the battbox will be loud enough. What is GA? If you mean amplified, I'd walk around [if possible] and listen for the spot where things sound the way you want them to, paying close attention to balance between the PA and the crowd. It's good to think in terms of the angle between the mics and speakers, too. The farther back your are at a loud performance, the more coherent the sound will be on your recording. The closer you are [with the speakers angled farther out at your sides], the less coherent things will be. Front row will never sound as good as anywhere close to the Front Of House booth [where the mixing is done], for instance, but then - the crowd noise near the FOH might detract from the music. It depends on how loud the PA and the crowd are. The only way to judge this is with your ears [unless you happen to carry an SPL meter]. The vast majority of live performances I've either attended or engineered FOH at don't even use stereo sound, but big touring acts usually will. Keep that in mind if you're thinking of standing in front of one of the speaker stacks; you might be missing the other channel by letting that one dominate. If you mean it's an acoustic or lightly-amped venue, then get as close to the instruments as possible. When I say close, keep in mind this example: I've recorded acoustic shows with the crowd around me, within 3 feet of the main performer, and gotten good results. I've also moved back to 10' away, and noted how lost the recording is in crowd noise, even very quiet crowd noise. Again, the simplest rule of thumb is that the closer you are to your desired source, the more it will dominate the overall balance. There's no fixed answer to this. It depends on the gain ratio of your preamp, the sensitivity of your mics, how loud the source is, and your distance from the source, among other things. I'd say - use manual levels, and adjust them so that "average peaks" [i.e. where the levels sit most of the time] are around the middle dot [-12dBfs] on your meters. If things tend to get very much louder than that [i.e. pegging the meters occasionally] back off even farther with the levels. The idea is to record so that the peaks are not clipping [again, pegging the meters] and the average is not way too quiet. For most amped events you can set the levels once at their beginning of the performance [sound check is a good time to do this, or during the opening act if there is one] and left for the rest. Remember: your MD recorder has a much higher dynamic range than cassette tape, so don't worry excessively about things getting lost in the noisefloor of the equipment. It's better to back off and avoid clipping distortion than to try and keep things loud in your original recording. That's what moderate use of compression [and subsequent dither of course] in post-production are for. No. No existing consumer MD or MDLP portables can upload. The R37 has no data output ports of any kind, for one thing. For another, MD and MDLP recordings can't be uploaded with -any- consumer portables [including HiMD recorders]. You can copy your discs digitally using a home or pro MD deck with an optical output and another recording device [computer or not] with an optical input, but generally speaking, the only method you can use for copying your discs is by using the portable's line-out going into the line-in of something else [like your sound card]. Hope that wasn't more confusing than helpful. Cheers.

Opinion: the combination of occlusion effects, naturally-imposed EQ &c. that are caused by the recordist's head and body, and the positioning of the mics [ear-distance apart, facing out at nearly 180 degrees from each other] are specifically what make the binaural recording sound the way it does. The difference from recordist to recordist is noticable but only in the same way that A-B mic'ing sounds different when you space or orient the mics differently. It's not like someone taking an EQ and cranking certain bands and cutting others; it's more that the mics are in a different position, so phasing is slightly different, as well as overall EQ because of things like the recordist's size. What you're suggesting seems more to me like the difference between close-mic'ing an instrument in a reverberant space, and distant-mic'ing it. If you close-mic the instrument, it sounds pretty dead when played back, so you add reverb to it to make it sound more "natural". If you distant-mic the instrument, the recording already contains the reverb and needs no processing. This is not to say that either of us is right or wrong. I'm just saying that IMO an actual binaural recording should be "processed" that way -before- the material hits tape [so to speak]. [by "processed" I mean that the effects caused by the recordist's body / the dummy's head+torso should be present in the recording when it's being made for it to be considered binaural]. Still, this is my opinion, not the word of Bob. [read more Douglas Adams if you don't get the 'Bob' reference.] I'm not a professional audio engineer [in the actual engineer sense], nor am I formally trained on any of this. These are the conclusions I've come to on my own, so I might very well be out to lunch on it, though it makes sense to me. In the end all that really matters is that the recordings either sound good or bad, hopefully good, whichever way things actually work. You might be right on this one [i think you are], but I don't recall which way it swings. I know that headphones are generally EQ'd to either compliment or cancel the "average" curve of human hearing at the pinna - basically, to compliment or cancel the binaural effect. Unfortunately, I don't recall which it is. The idea is that the signal reaching the mechanics of your ear should be flat, so I'd think that circumaural 'phones would likely be cancelling it. I do know that some 'phones claim to be made "for binaural listening" where the vast majority are not [or at least don't mention it]. The only ones I've seen that mention this are canalphones, so it might make sense that circumaural 'phones are compensating to cancel the same effect. I don't really know. What I do know is that recordings made with these mics sound perfectly fine over every pair of 'phones [and I mean circumaural 'phones] I've tried them with - they sound "natural", whatever that is. Playback over speakers, though, often sounds, well, like crap unless you EQ the signal [bass rolloff]. On 'phones you don't even notice that there might be an imbalance of some kind, whereas over speakers, the bottom octave is almost explosively loud throughout. This might just be the response curve of the mics, and it might be treble-filtering from my pinnae, or maybe it's both. You're welcome. Discussion is good. Sure. I've done some reading on HRTF processing, mostly by a Spanish or Italian gentleman whose name I don't recall, who designed dummy-head/torso systems for evaluating sound which have been since used by car manufacturers and such for acoustic analysis.

WAV is a container format, not an encoding format, but in cases where we know the data is PCM the file should be straight PCM data other than metadata in the header and footer. In other words, once you're past the file header, it should be straight PCM.

The overall fidelity of the mics isn't .. hmm. how to say this. The mics themselves have the same response curve regardless of where they're mounted, but that doesn't mean that what reaches them is the same regardless of where they're mounted. When you wear them in your ears, your ears and head actually EQ the sound reaching the mics. This wouldn't be true HRTF-type stuff, but it does make a difference with headphone listening, as the shape of your pinnae, the size of your head, and even the shape and size of your torso all affect the sound reaching the mics themselves. Note that regardless of where and how the mics are mounted, the same thing happens. If you mount mics on the temples of your glasses, to a hat bill, or pin them to your shirt or jacket, the same thing's happening - the mounting surface is occluding sound from certain directions, adding reflection and absorption characteristics of its own. The key difference is that you're applying a very specific kind of "profile" to the sound when they're in your ears. I have tried recording with my mics in someone else's ears, and the difference when listening is immediately obvious. So - to sort-of answer the question - no,the mics are not EQ'd differently [assuming that the capsules are identical] but where you mount them does make a difference - as is the case for all microphones in all mounting situations. The SP-TFB-2s work as any other paired omnis. The only difference is that they're molded into soft plastic hooks for wearing in your ears. Mounting them as you would any other pair omnis gives you the same effect as using any other pair of omnis. Considering the fact that the SP-TFB-2s are made for binaural recording, EQing them to compensate for the difference incurred by your ears [which is different for every wearer, though there are average curves that can be applied, sure] would be entirely counterproductive. The whole idea in the first place is to use the "profile" caused by your ears, head, and upper body for a particular effect, that of binaural recording. That said, the mics themselves should be as sonically neutral as possible. This is part of why I take issue with companies that call their mics binaural, when the only 'real' binaural mics are either earworn or mounted in a dummy head. Just because they're paired omnis doesn't make them actually binaural in any way, shape, or form. Binaural is a particular recording technique and depends on the mics being mounted in a pretty specific way, which I just mentioned the two primary variations of.

FLAC supports >16-bit streams, it's just that Foobar2000's implementation of its encoder doesn't.

Having just discovered that FLAC encoding from Foobar2000 ignores 24-bit data [encodes as 16-bit] .. and that WavPack doesn't [encodes as 24-bit as it should] .. I'm now using WavPack. Yes it makes a difference to me - I have once again changed my editing workflow. I'm working with 16-bit originals, editing in 24-bit, using Waves Ultramaximizer with its internal dither [i don't really use it for maximizing, but it makes "normalising" low-average level files easier to eyeball], saving edits as 24-bit WAV, tagging in Foobar2000, and then converting the tagged WAV files in Fb2k to both WavPack [for keeping] and MP3 [for internet distro]. The crucial part at the end there is that Fb2k passes tags between formats when you're transcoding. From a tagged WAV I can create WavPack or FLAC files along with OGG, MP3, and whatever else it supports - with tags consistent across all formats.

Please note that the NH700, of the models you listed here, is the only one with microphone and line/optical inputs. If you want to do recording, 'D' [downloader] models are completely useless.

It can actually lock up the player if you reboot &c. with it plugged in. While removing power completely has always fixed this when it's happened to me [all of twice], it also erased a disc on me once.

When did you bite? You fall into my category of users for whom the format fits their needs or preferences. Did you actually read the whole post, or just the first 10 lines? I would assert that the majority of users out there don't fit into that category.

It's possible that the sample rate of the file is not 44.1kHz [it has to be], or that the bitrate is one of the MPEG-2 standard [but not MPEG-1 standard] rates. These are usually very low bitrates, so I doubt this is the case unless the podcast is crap quality by default.

My view on this subject is apparently somewhat unpopular around here, but here's what I think: If you want a player, buy a player. If you want a recorder, buy a recorder. People have made many arguments about the versatility and robustness of removable magneto-optical media, and while I agree with the robustness charge, I think this is really a case of specious comparisons. Removable media has the advantage of, well, being removable. In the case of MD and HiMD, the media itself is: * very robust * sufficiently small to make for convenient handling * sufficiently large to be written upon and not lost by accident [as with flash cards] In terms of capacity: * MD offers what was state-of-the-art in 1992 [60-80 minutes, same as CDs] * MDLP offers a quality compromise for longer playback and recording times [LP2 was decent for the mid-to-late 1990s] * HiMD offers reformatting legacy discs to higher capacities [MD80 = 291MB usable] by using more efficient error-correction * HiMD's native 1GB DWDD discs offer just under 1GB of usable data capacity * HiMD's native recording modes - atrac3plus 256, 64, and 48kbps as well as LPCM - offer reasonable recording/playback time considering the high density of the medium versus its form-factor/physical size [note that DWDD could be expanded for much higher densities still, up to single-layer DVD capacity per MD sized disc] The medium isn't everything, though. To offset the advantages, there are caveats to be considered when using MO media: * slow write speeds [usually about half the read speed] determined by the heating/cooling times of the "write" layer and low-power requirements [though not by any means limited to only these factors] * slow read speeds determined by the density of data and low-power requirements [though not by any means limited to only these factors] * under nominal storage conditions, MO should retain data longer than any dye-based WORM format [specifically thinking of CD-R here], however, exposure to very strong magnetic fields or relatively high heat can still data stored data Both MD and HiMD have basically the same pros as cons. In both cases, the biggest problem from the consumer's point of view is likely to be the slow write and read speeds, which compared with any other currently-available medium [including CD-R and RW; DVD+/-R and RW; flash-RAM; CF-hdd; portable hard discs of any type] is noticeably slower by at least one order of magnitude, in most cases now by at least several orders of magnitude. Even the slowest hdd-based players should be able to download tracks from a computer at around 10* the speed of HiMD or around 25* the speed of NetMD. HiMD doesn't even exceed the maximum speed of USB 1.1, 12Mbps, and MD averages at below half that for reading, and again about half of that for writing. IMHO, Both MD and HiMD are great at what I see as their intended purpose - a highly portable, robust recording medium. While I use both of my HiMD portables for listening, my primary purpose for having both of them is for inexpensive location recording. I view their playback features as little more than a bonus feature on top of what they're really made for - recording. ==================== No system is perfect, period. Hard disc players, if used properly, are in my eyes basically a removable storage medium with playback hardware permanently attached to them. If what I really wanted was a portable player, keeping in mind the limitations imposed by the use of hard discs [i.e. jogging with it will destroy the disc, high-altitude use is likely to seize the bearings, &c.], I would much rather have a hdd-based player than any MD, NetMD, or HiMD portable. I would recommend the same to anyone who's looking for a player. I do not recommend MD or HiMD to anyone who is looking for a player. I do recommend that the user try out whatever players they can, to see what their interfaces are like. A usable interface is more important to the majority of people than good sound quality is, even. While MD, NetMD, and HiMD have mostly-usable interfaces on the units themselves, if there's one thing that they seriously and detrimentally lack, it's a usable interface for downloading music to the player. SonicStage and the limitations that Sony impose on their customers is absolutely ludicrous. I also tend to point out that hard discs are totally unsuitable for rough handling - something which sales people never seem to point out. Ever. Most people have never even heard of a head crash until it happens to their beloved $400 player which they decided to take mountain-biking or something else that's ridiculously G-inducing. For people who want to do more vigorous activities while listening, I'll recommend flash players first, and HiMD last. The most often-cited argument against hdd players is that "if the disc crashes, you lose all your music". My answer to that: what kind of complete utter moron would trust their music collection to a portable hard disc that they carry around in their pocket? MTBF for these units is usually a max of about 3 years, and that's if handled judiciously, which most audio players are -not-. You'd have to be totally daft not to keep copies on your home computer or some other removable media [like DVD+/-R, which is extremely cheap and now quite fast]. Given the choice, I would opt for a purely solid-state format over either hdd or MO. No mechanical parts, lower power consumption, no chances of head crashes, skipping, data corruption from jostling, &c... My biggest beef with flash isn't the cost, either. The cost will eventually come down, for one; more importantly, the offset of the medium being totally non-mechanical is worth paying for if you can afford it. No, my biggest beef with flash is the fact that the cards are so small that they're easily lost. I would rather see a flash card made half the size of an MD that has 5GB on it or something, than to use a tiny XD card the size of a postage stamp, that you can't write on and are more likely to misplace than an MD. ==================== A well-designed player should be good at that thing, and that thing only. Cameras, java support, photo and text readers, &c. are completely unnecessary on an audio player, IMO. A device made for one function is virtually guaranteed to be vastly superiour to one that has been extended for other uses to the point that it actually needs an operating system and loads of bug-riddled software in order to just be turned on, let alone used. That said, NetMD and HiMD are generally the -last- formats I would recommend to anyone looking for a player. There are people for whom it's a logical choice, especially if they're accustomed to maintaining a portable library consisting of multiple discs [like friends who have MP3-CD collections, which is what I moved to HiMD from]. It's a great medium for people who are patient. The vast majority of people would rather be able to copy their entire music collection in under 5 minutes than to have to wait at HiMD's extremely leisurely writing pace of 10-15 minutes / reformatted MD80 [note that's 10-15 minutes for only 290MB of data] or 22-40 minutes / 1GB. Despite everything I've said here about MO formats and their pros and cons, NetMD and HiMD's biggest stumbling block from my POV is one and one only: SonicStage. While it has improved vastly since v2.1 [what I started with], it still has an incredibly long way to go in terms of general usability, user-friendliness, and especially how it deals with uploading tracks. SS 3.1 still has specific problems with trashing users' recordings under certain circumstances. IMO, Sony should trash SS and start totally from scratch. It sounds as though someone may be doing that job for them, so I hope it turns out well. As regards SS and drag&drop support, there's absolutely no reason why Sony couldn't write the OpenMG module with shell hooks/as shell extensions, enabling true drag&drop both to and from HiMD devices without any use of SonicStage at all. They could also include support for transcoding of any audio format that has a DirectShow filter. ==================== Lastly - I'll repeat: no device is perfect. Form and function are both elements in how people choose things like audio players. In the end, I don't think that either format [MD/HiMD or hdd-based] is technically superiour to the other. What you find works best for you is what should determine your choice, among other factors such as cost. Being well-informed about what you're buying is far more important than buying what everyone else says is best, in any case.