dave_bass5
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Posts posted by dave_bass5
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I've just phoned them and they do NOT have stock at present. He's hoping to have some in within two weeks.
No, really?
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Just seen this and was wondering if its true
http://www.electronics-online.co.uk/acatal...MD_Walkman.html
Seems a good price as well
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Probs with these types of players (MP3 Solid State and / or Hard Disc units).
1) If you lose it, break it or it gets stolen etc. then you've LOST your library --you'll have to get another one and re-compile / re-create your library all over again -- and if you haven't got a computer near you or don't have the music available on the computer -- Re-Ripping time again.
2) When the device is full you have to decide what you want to erase so you can add more music.
3) Creating decent playlists on these types of devices is always a bit fiddly --often you want specific playlists --you don't need to sequentially listen through hours of music.
4) with larger capacity devices just managing the library is not such a simple task as you might think.
5) Hard Disks are not particularly robust --these are relatively fragile pieces of gear which won't take anything like the same wear or tear as a solid state device or a minidsic recorder.
Minidisc recorders have in particular these adavantages
1) Unlimited storage -- just take whatever complilations you want with you
2) If you lose / breeak the device or even if it gets stolen --not so likely as "the masses" haven't a clue what a MD player / recorder is anyway you've only lost the disk that's in it (one disk).
3) superb record facilities. Some Ipod thingy's have limited recording facilities but awkward to use and unless you are using something like the Marantz solid state recorder (at around 1500 USD) no PCM record mode either.
4) It's easy to manipulate music collections at a Disk level --much easier than organising 1000 tracks on a HD device.
5) Disks can be transferred between machines and devices -- AFAIK most HD / Solid state devices don't come with removable media so you are stuck with using that particular device.
I suspect that even if you could use removable media you might run into all sorts of DRM issues when transferring solid state cards between devices.
Incidentally even 1GB solid state media costs a lot more than a 1GB minidisk so if you want a music collection stored on 1GB removable solid state devices it will cost you A FORTUNE even today.
People's mood changes and it's nice to be able to stick the approriate disk into the MD for playback. It's a real pain using a Hard Disk device for manipulating loads of different playlists.
In the end use what you like best but remember your modes and tastes change over time and you might prefer the flexibilty of devices like the MD compared with Hard Disk or Solid State devices.
Cheers
-K
I think your answers are very pro MD because it suits your needs and thats great and i wont go in to all your answers, but here is my view on a few of them
"1) If you lose it, break it or it gets stolen etc. then you've LOST your library --you'll have to get another one and re-compile / re-create your library all over again -- and if you haven't got a computer near you or don't have the music available on the computer -- Re-Ripping time again."
thats not fair because this applies to MD as well.
You say when a HD unit is full....well, 20,000 songs is more than i actualy have so no chance of that happening
"Creating decent playlists on these types of devices is always a bit fiddly --often you want specific playlists --you don't need to sequentially listen through hours of music"
I dont agree, based on the fact that HD units tend to have much bigger displays so you can see more info at one time
"1) Unlimited storage -- just take whatever complilations you want with you"
This is one of my points. either having to decide what you want to take or take a few discs.
"People's mood changes and it's nice to be able to stick the approriate disk into the MD for playback. It's a real pain using a Hard Disk device for manipulating loads of different playlists"
No its not. having to hunt down the right disc for maybe one or two tracks is a pain. plus you cant create a playlist spread over a few discs. I use my HD player to provide background music at my gigs between sets and if someone wants to hear a specific track i can dial it it without having to stop whatever is playing first. MD cant do that if the song happens to be on another disc.
"4) It's easy to manipulate music collections at a Disk level --much easier than organising 1000 tracks on a HD device."
but you cant get 1000 songs on 1gb MD can you? plus its much, much easier to transfre tracks to a HD unit than it is to use SS3.4 you can also use any PC/MAC anfd just drag and drop. its also quicker because of USB2.
"5) Disks can be transferred between machines and devices -- AFAIK most HD / Solid state devices don't come with removable media so you are stuck with using that particular device.
I suspect that even if you could use removable media you might run into all sorts of DRM issues when transferring solid state cards between devices."
As long as you have more than one Hi-MD with you then agreed. but who carries more than one player around? (ok, i guess a couple of you do)
The recording side i totaly agree on, that why i have my RH-10. nothing comes close
my arguments above are based on HD based units, not the little 2 line display SS units that are so cheap now.
In the end, as you say its what suits your needs and both HD based MP3 and my RH-10 suit mine.
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it's a "Gutt" feeling i have ; after being a pro-musician for over 43 years..
we are all "right' in our own ways (shpere of me'ism).
just about every one of my friends has an MP3 player; mostly i-pods; and i leave them alone; unless they ask.
when i put the Mic in the Headphones; i record in PCM and you can't believe how great the results are.
it's only for a sample;; and for to listen for a while.
i've enen gone in Starbucks Coffee Temples and put my mic in one of those MP3 music dispensers's headphones things and just antagonized the customers.
they asked what i was doing; i said "pirating" leave me alone; lol's
then i explained; why should i pay this stupid amount of money to listen to this music; when i can record it and listen to it all day; way,, ray; say may i have another Triple Expresso Lattay?
i just use my Hi-MD in a lot more ways than a normal person does; and since i am not normal; i have the right to fight.....to P-A-R-T-Y (thought by Beastie Boys; rant and action by Rayzray).
long live Hi-MD'ing! *kissing the mirror*
I play in a couple of bands and record all the gigs and i am really impressed with the recording quality my RH-900 and RH-10.
with my MZ-N1 i allways had to use maual rec levels but now i just leave the RH-10 on Auto most of the time. it never seems to distort and it even picks my bass notes up clearly.
for this use there is no cheap alternitive IMHO
Even bugged the bosses office when they had a board meeting and it picked up everything
Dave.
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i don't care about OTHER ppl;;i care about "ME" rayzray;; and to go on a trip with al lot of inferior music is just not worth it; i rather KNOW i have the best sounding music possible; so MP3,4,5,6,&10 is out; i am only interested in "ME', and a few disks can't be a nuisance (sp). hinder; or blinder.
and, when i go into a CD/Vinyl store;; and secretly put my mic in my Hi-MD900;; and incert the mic between a pair of headphones; and "Steal" a free sample of anything they got to offer;; i an sooooo gratified, not mortified.
but i DO understand the inferior need or the masses.
MP3 is not inferior to ATRAC. or at least it doesnt have to be.
Just as with ATRAC MP3 also comes in various samle rates.
If you want the best then .wav would be the format to use. you wont get much on a 1gb MD.
and of course a few discs can become one disc if you loose one.
but i agree with your first line. if it works for me, then its better than something that doesnt.
I wouldnt say that putting a mic between headphones is getting the best possible quality. much better to download it if your going to nick it.
Dave.
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All this about capacity in comparison to HD units.
Just TWO 1Gb discs will hold 14 hours of music @ nearly lossless quality.
And up to 20 hours (per disc) decent quality at lower bitrates.
If that ain't enough for people during the day then they have far too much time on their
hands!
but what about music for week away or more? and what of the inconvienence of having to decide what songs you take and what you dont. and in your example with 2x1gb discs thats 2 more things to carry around which was my point.
and why limit yourself to what you can listen to?
I use my MP3 player as background music at the gigs i do and people ask for certain songs to be played. its more convenient to be able to sroll through a large backlit display on the MP3 unit or be able to do a search for songs than it is on my RH-10.
As i said in my first post this is just where I think MD falls down and i agree that every one has different needs but you can see that MD has been around for a few years longer than MP3 players and yet its the MP3 players that have really taken off. i asume this is because they offer more to the mainstream public and are better priced.
Also a lot of MP3 players have line in so a PC is not always needed. i also think that while an optical input is nice to have why bother putting one on a protable that will be used with headphones out in the street or in noisy places.
Dave.
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I think Hd based mp3 players are much more usefull than any MD player i have seen.
The three main letdowns for me with MD are:
1. The screen/displays on MD units are terrible compared a lot of HD based units. Apart from the RH-10
I cant remember seeing a backlit display on any portable unit, making quick track selecting dificult.
2. Although 1gb disc's hold a lot of songs its still a long way off from HD based units. you still need
to cary more discs around to match a HD unit. If im going away for a few days i would like to take as many tracks as i can for a greater selection but i dont want to be swaping discs all the time.
3. I find my RH-10 to be quite bulky. I also had a RH-900 and both were bigger than my MZ-N1.
But i dont think MD can be beaten when it comes to field recording. i havent found a MP3 player that even comes close at a decent price to MD. i record a lot of gigs and i would be lost without MD
just my thoughts of course.
Dave.
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I use my RH10 to record my bands gigsvia a plug in sony mic and i must say that i find the AGC has really improved over the years to the point that i now just let it record using the AGC with the recorder sitting on the stage in just off from my amp and its works fine for what we need it for.
In the old days with my MZ-N1 i always had to set the manual record level and it was a pain.
Dave.
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The only thing i would say the MD has over mp3 players is just that...they dont record (well the cheaper ones dont)they are just players.
I started a thread saying i have given up on MD and was going over to mp3 but i found i couldnt get one that records for anywhere near the cost of my new RH10.
Im still going to get a mp3 player (just noticed today Dixons are doing the little Q-bee 1gb player for £39) to playback my recordings once i transfer them from the MD because i think the Solid state mp3 players are more convenient to slip in a pocket for say jogging or just walking about. much less to go wrong.
Dave.
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Ok guys, ive been out of the MD scene for a while(well more the SS3 scene)
am i right in thinking if i record through the mic on say a RH910 i can upload via SS3.4 direct to .wav or/and 352k or have i got this wrong?
Thanks for any help
Dave.
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I also record my bands gigs. normally put the MD unit on the stage and was finding i was also getting the gaps. i now always put the unit on a coat or somethng soft and it records fine (well it did untill the glass of coke went over it).
I think some units are more prone to vibration than others when recording.
Dave.
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How exactly? The amount of hard drives I have had fail on me loosing alot of data far outweighs the number of times my minidisc has failed. Not having a go, just IMO minidiscs are more reliable and resillent than solid state recorder
Oh dear.
Solid state recorders have no moving parts, they are flash based so no HD.
IPods and players like them (the ones normally with more than 2gb storage) are HD based and i agree with you about HD failing but you need to realise the difference first before you post.
I would say that MD's are more like Floppy disk's although more robust but you only have to look at the threads on this forum to see that things do go wrong (as they can with any electrical device) but with SS you dont have anything to remove, nothing spinning round etc so they should be more reliable.
Dave.
People with iPods/HD players are just like sheep. They see someone else with one and have to conform.
Baaa.....
and see my post above, im not talking about Ipods/HD players.
I guess you dont have any sort of portable music player then (or a tv, radio etc) as lots of people have them as well and you dont want to conform do you
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Yes, long live mp3 recorders. You are absurd, but the prospect of the hilarity of the replies keep me from locking this.
Hmm, what do you mean im absurd?
The bit about the coke was a follow up after i had already said i was giving up on this format so im not sure what you are meaning by this.
And i do believe MP3 recorders will totaly wipe out MD in the future.
its hard enough getting hold of MD as it is. Md in one form or another has been around for ages and yet most people who want portable music go for MP3 players.
There is a lot less to go wrong with a solid state recorder.
Dave.
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Joking aside, everyone has different experiences of using MD as this forum shows only too clearly. I guess the great thing about this site is that we can all share our problems/solutions/workarounds and I am sure that the majority here are sold on the idea of MD. If a better meduim presents itself (I don't believe that an affordable alternative is available yet) then maybe opinion will change. I have to say that I have never had a problem with Sonic Stage in any of the versions that I have used and I love the fantastic recordings that MD can make whether it be by microphone, line-in or download from PC.
I have to admit to not taking the trouble of creating a line-in copy of an important recording but have trusted blindly to Sonic Stage - "more fool you" I hear some say. That being the case I don't expect to get any sympathy the first time my recording goes belly up and I lose everything.
When there are known problems we should either follow the perceived wisdom or make our own way. So the meduim isn't perfect - what else is in this world? For me, MD is just what I need and with the last few developments of SonicStage it has only got better. Whatever format you choose dave_bass5 I hope it serves you well.
Well i hold my head in shame as i cant find a better way of recording live music than HiMD so im starting to look at the latest Hi-MD recorders.
I would rather not use a portable but i have no choice, also it needs to be cheap.
Im looking at the Sony MZ-Rh10 as it seems to be the only one (and please correct me if im wrong) that has an display you can see in the dark (i dont use the remote) and has mic in.
£165 is about my limit
Dave.
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Hi all
not posted here for a while but ill get to the point
I have a MZ NH900 and been happy with it since it came out but over christmas i had a disaster.
i was editing markers on a recording i had done and all of a sudden i got the message "cannot record or playback with this MD" or something like that. i took the disc and battery out, put them back in and the disc started to format. i lost everything. totaly blank MD.
So i did the usual and threw the unit at the(softish)wall. this of course made me feel better but didnt get the recording back. unit still works ok (but then i dont consider it to be ok when it formats disc's or cant play them back) so i felt i had nothing to lose as although ive been in to MD since it first appeared im now ditching it as soon as i find another portable recording unit.
Then, 2 weeks ago i split a glass of coke over it as it was recording. i didnt know this had happened at first but when i looked at the unit it was dead. i took the disc and battery out over night and in the morning it all worked fine apart from the fact that the recording had stopped when the cocke hit it and now i cant transfer the recording via SS3 although it plays ok.
anyway, rant over. im not looking for help as i dont want anymore to do with a format that is so unreliable (this is not the first recording ive lost but it never happened until HiMD came along)
long live MP3 recorders
Dave
Ok guys, ive been away so only just started reading your replies (in fact only read 2)
Maybe i wasnt clear in my original post (thought i was but sorry anyway)
I complained about loosing a whole disc worth of recordings and then said i was going to ditch MD
I then went on to write about the coke going over the unit but it still working.
of course i wasnt complaining about the player not working after this and i thought that would just be commone sense but obviously not
That bit came after the complaint and wasnt meant as a go at Sony (although the first bit was)
I hope this thread can now stop being a dumping ground for jokes.
Dave.
It's interesting to me how .. different people, because they use MD or HiMD differently, find different bugs in the firmware.
I have never experienced any editing bugs with HiMD simply because I don't usually use its editing features.
This probably comes from a tacit philosophy of mine: never edit the master, or for those less hardcore than I, never edit the master until it's been duplicated. Of course, once it's been duplicated [i.e. uploaded], it's far easy to edit on the computer than on the recorder. As a result, I never find the editing-related bugs.
Dex
you are right of course but you would think that it should be safe. i was only putting markers on but normaly i would transfer it first.
Dave.
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Hi all
not posted here for a while but ill get to the point
I have a MZ NH900 and been happy with it since it came out but over christmas i had a disaster.
i was editing markers on a recording i had done and all of a sudden i got the message "cannot record or playback with this MD" or something like that. i took the disc and battery out, put them back in and the disc started to format. i lost everything. totaly blank MD.
So i did the usual and threw the unit at the(softish)wall. this of course made me feel better but didnt get the recording back. unit still works ok (but then i dont consider it to be ok when it formats disc's or cant play them back) so i felt i had nothing to lose as although ive been in to MD since it first appeared im now ditching it as soon as i find another portable recording unit.
Then, 2 weeks ago i split a glass of coke over it as it was recording. i didnt know this had happened at first but when i looked at the unit it was dead. i took the disc and battery out over night and in the morning it all worked fine apart from the fact that the recording had stopped when the cocke hit it and now i cant transfer the recording via SS3 although it plays ok.
anyway, rant over. im not looking for help as i dont want anymore to do with a format that is so unreliable (this is not the first recording ive lost but it never happened until HiMD came along)
long live MP3 recorders
Dave
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The Sony centre in Baker st London has them. RH10 £199.
played with it yesterday
Dave.
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Just found this at dpreview.com
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0503/05030802sony_mdmzdh10p.asp
sorry if its been posted already.
Dave.
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Mine is 4BAA1135E that came with my 900 and im getting the same error. ive got about 200mb left on the disc. Its more random though as sometimes it will play sometimes it wont.
Had it since early sept 2004.
this is the first time its been this full but i have a couple i got from Audiocubes that seem ok
Dave.
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I also get this sometimes but it seems to be if i connect the my 900 and then open SS2.3. it happens because XP is also opening the drive as a data disc so it sort of gets there first. if i close SS2.3 down and make sure Xp isnt using the MD then open SS2.3 again its all ok.
This might not be of much help but its what works for me.
Dave.
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Just seen the above in local maplins (i think its 1325 but might be 1350). packaging says its compatible with Sony MD so going to get a couple next week
just thought id let you all know.
Dave
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and surprise surprise Dixons have the for £6.99
Dave.
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Have you tried to reformat the MD and then copy the main audio file back to the disc.
just a thought
Dave.
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You can adjust levels while recording like dex said, it's just that when you stop that recording the player goes back to AGC. So for your next recording you need to change it to manual level control again.
At least the levels stay the same when you go back into manual mode.
I find the AGC on the 900 is far better than my previous MD recorders, much more constant levels. i have recorded my band a few times with the 900 on stage and it picks everything up well and no distortion.
Dave.
Is it really out yet?
in Minidisc
Posted
This is what i really really hate about some retailers. they say its in stock on the website so you order and then find out its not and you then have the hassle of trying to get a refund which can take up to 10 days, thereby tying your funds up or just waiting and waiting while other retailers get the goods in.