Ppk3000

...has the miracle finally arrived? Sony are actually fulfilling a long desired wish many of us have made? :ohmy: Everything just might have a first... http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t=5417 On the contrary, who thinks that WAV utility might be bugged/flawed/function-limited in some way (hey you can't assume the best with Sony's past NetMD record.. :whatever:). But hey I'm still aiming to get a Hi-MD recorder either way. Apple has to put a recording function in the next iPod if they want me to buy it :rasp:

That's Sony for ya... but I took a peek at the NH1 manual and on page 96, 2 diagrams implies no "2nd hand copying"... perhaps a fancy way to hide the ugly truth. Hopefully that Sonic Stage 2.1 fix rumor is true.

It really depends on your purpose. If you are recording yourself only to hear the quality of your playing (pianist right here) and nothing else (no burning to CDs, no sending a copy to your friends), then any MD recorder would do. Information on many Sony MD recorders (except Hi-MD) available at: http://www.minidisc.org/part_Recorders_Sony.html If you're just using your MD recorder purely for recording, then older models are good enough. If not, and instead if you want your recorder to also be your handy portable player (and have a few mp3s and/or wma's you want to hear on the go) then Net MD a possibility. If you want the biggest capacity possible MD recorder, then the recent Hi-MD is your answer... but neither Net-MD nor Hi-MD can really forward/rewind in the cassette style, and only offer a CD player's "skip by track" method. **NOTE** Net-MD recorders disallows transferring your recordings back into your computer... well technically you can using the "analogue trick", but it degrades (and alternates) the quality of the audio quite a bit, which is probably the nightmare of every musician. If you want to transfer your recording back to the computer in its original format, I suggest you target the Hi-MD players. Although Sony seems to disallow burning the uploaded audio on to a CD, or even extracting it for other purposes, you can record a near-clone of your computer's own audio output providing you know how to adjust the windows mixer settings properly and have a decent sound card. In addition, some claim Sony finally disabled the Hi-MD's file protection on Sonic Stage 2.1, but the release date of this software or whether the long-craved-for protection-removal update would be included... Edit 07/21/04: Sony just might fix the protection problem... http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t=5417 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On the note of the microphone, I'm rather inexperienced with this. I personally recorded many live performed music with a Sony ECMMS907 mic... it's pretty good except I would prefer a bit a higher response range. (100Hz - 15KHz).

By "soundcard", I think jadeclaw meant connecting an analogue line between your MD recorder's headphone jack and your computer's soundcard line-in jack, then using some sort of software to record the music while the MD plays back.

Sonic Stage 2.0 and Simple Burner works with my N10. The drivers are not directly related to the software (sonic stage etc.) However it's best to use the latest Sony has (newer drivers are usually less buggy).

Not with Net-MD recorders. The only easy way out is to do an analogue rip through the recorder's headphone jack. Some quality degrade will happen... but it's the only simple solution.

sweet... FAT storage format heh... I hope the disk doesn't break if the defragging computer crashes in the middle of a defrag (just an interesting thought... :laugh:)

You can actually defrag it and improve seek times? :ohmy:

I am not majorly concerned of Hi-MD's restriction to decrypt imported (uploaded) MD recordings. I think the "recording the computer playback" method should work fine. I did a simulation of the "Wave Mix" recording scenario on my own by playing a short 60 seconds 320kbps mp3 and using Window's Sound Recorder to pick up the sound output and saving as WAV. As far as my hearing can go with my MDR-EX71 buds, there seems to be no noticeable difference between the original (.mp3) and the re-recorded (.wav) version. However, anyone attempting this method should take note that all pre-amped settings should be set to their "neutral" state. So turn down those treble/bass boost... volume should be reduced to avoid distortion etc. etc. On the note of preservation. I believe it's impossible to keep the "dubbed" version 100% identical to the original recording due to the nature of mixer settings (i.e.: volume) and possibly hardware/software factors. But the overall quality and integrity should be quite high in most cases. So I think I'll still get an NH900/NH1 when it starts showing up in retail's. (P.S.: anyone know why the Sony's Hi-MD "players" are shipping with the [rumored] "unlocked" SonicStage 2.1 while all the recorders are shipped with version 2.0? It's not like the plain Hi-MD players need the ability to burn/extract recordings :whatever:)