Linguini

Well one benefit of this is Mac users can stop asking on the forum if or when Hi-MD can be used with their Mac. Now there is absolutely no reason to worry that the Hi-MD can't connect to a Mac (I know very recently Sony brought out a couple that can but sorry Sony - Too Late). Get an iPod! Sorry Sony, you gave me the $#$@%^ for years with your incompatibilities - now you are losing money hand over fist and Apple come along and remove the only thing the Hi-MD really had over other consumer devices. This really is another stake in the heart for Hi-MD - a format that could have ruled if only Sony had allowed its imagination to break through its intra departmental rivalries.

Thanks for this. I will post an update on how these different ideas went. Cheers.

Thanks A440 for the additional comments.

Thanks very much greenmachine for all the info. Unfortunately I'm a two-hour light plane flight from the nearest town and will not be able source those parts from here, but it would be a good project when I return to the city. I wasn’t expecting to have to do any music recording, so my microphone is inadequate for live music. I guess even with a microphone with a wider dynamic range the Hi-MD is still going to struggle. Thanks for your help.

Hi, I hope someone will be able to help or give some pointers. I am currently in the field recording language for linguistic research. I am using a Hi-MD machine MZ-NH900 and only record in PCM. The microphone is a Sony ECM-MS907. This equipment makes great uncompressed recordings of spoken word. However, I have been asked to make recordings of a local group of musicians that perform a Pacific Island style of music with drums, clap-sticks, guitar and vocals. The recordings are turning out quite poor. After reviewing posts on this great site it looks like it could possibly be caused by the overloading of the MD's pre-amp. So I just want to check my set-up. Microphone set to 120 degrees (other option is 90 degrees) On MD Mic-Sens to LOW Rec-Vol to MANUAL; where should the peaks in recording volume reach – at the moment they are hitting the max on the level indicator. I am in Australia – is there an equivalent of the “radio shack volume attenuator” solution here? I would be interested if anyone had any other ideas of improving the recordings or other settings I am missing. Cheers........

Does anyone think that the fact that the president of Sony, Kunitake Ando, was introduced at Mac World 2005 by Steve Jobs might indicate that Sony could be thawing the releationship with Apple and they might - you never know - port SonicSoundStage accross to the Mac.

Capn002 really looking forward to hear how your testing goes.

Thanks capn002, dex, rirsa and all – the information presented is very thought stimulating indeed. I am going have to reread dex’s post a couple more times to get it to sink in. This is off the subject of HI-MD now, but the microphone I use has a frequency response with an upper limit of 18kHz. I assume this means, taking into account the Nyquist issue, if you want to record all frequencies captured by the microphone you need a recording device that has a frequency response greater than 36kHz.

Hi, Thanks for all the great responses. There are so many great points raised but not all specifically minidisc related. I think linguists are going through a painful period of readjustment with the new technologies arriving. HI-MD solves the problems inherent with MD but has MD (& HI-MD) had it’s day? With the new solid state/HDD machines now on the market, there is more choice than ever. I think it is assumed that we all copy our recording to PC/Mac (BTW there are real issues with HI-MD and Mac which is unfortunate as I think there are a lot of linguists using Macs) and use software to edit the recording and burn the results. This can be done easily with solid state/HDD but is currently hobbled at the moment with HI-MD. Something that I think HI-MD has in its favour is the fact that the discs themselves are relatively cheap and can be kept as the source “original”. The problem I find with the other methods is it is up to you to ensure you make a copy of the “original” and keep it safely backed up (HI-MD enforces that). The analogy to this is photography and having a negative – how many digital photographers are going to lose a lot of memories with a HDD head crash. I really can’t imagine that anyone is really recording to a 1GB compact flash card and then putting it a drawer never to be deleted – no one has that much spare cash (150 bucks per 90 uncompressed minutes of recording?). There is mention of professionals using solid state and it certainly sounds like great equipment but I imagine these professionals have established work flows within organisations that ensure backups are taken and stored securely (possibly by a dedicated department). HDD recorders (iPod if it had a decent microphone adaptor) are okay but if you are in the field (up a Papuan Mountain or the Australian Desert) and your HDD goes kaput then you are probably stuffed. Of course this can also happen with MD but I you still have access to your already recorded media. One major major positive in MD’s favour is battery life. I don’t know the specs but I do own an iPod and it dies after 4 hours away from the mains. I suspect the solid state machines eat up the batteries too. MD’s go on and on and if your battery is running low you can use the AA battery backup adaptor (and you can find AA batteries anywhere – even in a store in the Aussie outback). I won’t go into the compression argument in linguistics. If you can do uncompressed recordings then I supposed you should. But the quite narrow frequency band that language is spoken would indicate that the advanced compression algorithms today would have a very little, if any, discernible impact on the recording. So I really like MD (and HI-MD when it becomes un-hobbled) for recording language and I just wish Sony would realise that they have a product that could be something special if only they took the blinkers off and looked beyond the mass-market. How about a machine with the ease of use of the Marantz PMD-670K1 with HI-MD as the recording media (I must admit the little buttons and menus of the MD machines are a pain) now that is something that linguists would rush out to buy (and other recording professionals I’m sure).

I think I have the answer - NO - after reading other posts on the subject. I will wait for the hacks or for Sony to come to its senses (no prizes for which comes first).

Hi, I am a linguist and was hoping that HI-MD was the answer to my prayers. I needed a device that can record language in an uncompressed format. It appears that HI-MD will do this. However I have heard that to move the recording down from the HI-MD machine to the PC requires Sonicstage and that this puts some kinda curse on the recording meaning it can’t then be burnt to CD etc??? Sorry for the none techie speak but all I want to do is copy the uncompressed recordings to the PC and then edit them into individual tracks and burn them onto CD. Does anyone have experience with this? Cheers.