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smkranz

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Everything posted by smkranz

  1. It pisses me off that Season 4 of Monk (USA Network) is over, and that they consider a "season" to be only sixteen episodes. Sh**, that's only four months worth of programming in my book, but they stretch them out over 9 months (July to March)...gaaah! Whatever happened to the day when TV actors had to *work* for a living...like Star Trek's first season when they put out something like 29 episodes? And half the "regulars" on Monk aren't even on every episode, and I never see them on anything else - granted, I don't watch much other "new" television, but still...e.g. the Dr. Kroger character...he's only in like every other Monk episode, so what the hell else does he do?. If he can make a living on doing a few scenes for about 8 shows a season...now I'm pissed at that, too. Oh, yeah. I'm also pissed at the weathermen (that's with a small "w"). All of them. Why come? Because they can be dead *wrong* 100% of the time, with absolutely no adverse consequences to themselves...like, they never get fired for screwing up *my* weekend plans like they did this Saturday when it was supposd to rain/snow here but it was kinda on the sunny side instead, by which time it was too late for me to shift gears and brew a batch of beer out on the deck. This has been pissing me off for years. And... when I lose an auction on eBay at the last minute because I didn't have the stones to pony up what I knew the damn thing would go for, but was afraid of what the Spousal Unit would do to me in my sleep ...
  2. Here is a symphony recording I just added to my Gallery which will give you an idea of the type of response you should expect. I use a NH900 instead of the RH10 (and high sensitivity mics versus low sensitivity) but I think the recording parameters should be pretty close. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?act=m...cmd=si&img=2435 Depending on where I am sitting in the hall, I usually set the MD at manual recording level 11 or 12, and low mic sensitivity. Maybe if your mics are the Low Sensitivity version you could go a notch or two higher, maybe up to 15...I don't know how the differences in the low vs. hi sensitivity mics should be reflected in these settings. But if there are very some loud passages and you've set the levels too high, you could have some distortion which you will not be able to edit out. A440 is dead on about audience noise, too. Obviously, you can't control the dolts who will sit around you and make noise. But the in-ear mics make such a realistic recording that if someone behind you coughs or makes a noise, you might very well find yourself instinctively turning your head around while you are listening to the recording later in your own living room.
  3. Take a moment to have a good laugh if you haven't seen these yet: 1. The Bud Light Institute (finding ways to keep women occupied...) http://www.thatvideosite.com/view/1102.html 2. Tui Beer - distracting the boys from the task at hand since 1889 http://www.tui.co.nz/video.asp?action=showvideo&showid=tuiad
  4. Don't want to hijack this thread, but {guess I'll do it anyway } how does the E4 compare with the E3? I have the E3 and like them a lot (got 'em from Amazon for about $115) but wish they had better bass response. I've eq'd my MD the best I can, but they're still a little thin at the low end.
  5. I'm pissed at how I'm *never* going to be able to retire because college is so f'ing expensive, and because we probably can't afford to send my second kid to the school he wants to go to. All he wants to do is go to Penn State, for Christ's sake. But being an out-of-state resident, the tuition & room/board there is...over $31,000 [thirty one th-th-th-o-u-s-a-n-d dollars] a year. He has great grades and a great resume for what he wants to study there, but all he was offered was a pissy $1,500 school scholarship. Meanwhile (Rant 1, Part 2), here in the "Free State" of Maryland (free for some because the rest of us are taxed to death), they're about to approve using taxpayer money...MY money...to fund billions of dollars in stem-cell research, when they *could" use just a fraction of that money to help Maryland families send their kids to college, which IMHO is a hell of a better use of public money. Now, I'm not an anti-stem-cell zealot {though I gotta say that embryonic stem cell harvesting *does* make me very uneasy]. But IMHO that's what the private sector should be doing. Rant over...(still pissed, though). It's 7:44 AM here, so, since it's Noon somewhere, it's time for a BEER!
  6. That's funny (or sad, as the case may be), I just got done telling a recording buddy of mine that I might have to get a *second* job to justify buying this toy, for fear of torquing off the Spousal Unit .
  7. I'm looking to upgrade the camera bag I use for carrying my MD around for casual use, to have just the essentials including mic, earphones, remote, the battery box and a couple spare AA's, a disc or two, etc. and am wondering if anyone has used one of these: http://www.roadwired.com/store/Product.cfm...=4&Productid=57 Looks like they come in a multitude of sizes, varying number of pockets, pouches, etc. What about value & build quality. TIA...
  8. Yessir, I can see three (3) of these on my horizon, one for me (now, right away) and one each (maybe at Christmas-time) for my two musician-student-sons with their MAC laptops. The lack of a AA battery add-on is irksome, indeed, as I rely on this with my current NH900 for worry-free recording and playback capability on road trips, camping, music festivals, etc. where I don't always have the ability to recharge. I guess the solution will be to buy a second battery (grrr). Query: should we assume that US availability will be around the same as its European release?
  9. I was <<this close>> to ordering an RH10 from etronics.com for nearly free today using some AMEX points, but it seems the RH10 is unavailable from them at the moment. Sooo, I guess I can wait a little bit longer for the MZ-RH1 to hit the shelves, and hope that etronics stocks it.
  10. I would appreciate some feedback on the use of a pre-amp for the following live recording applications. After several years of live recordings (mostly classical orchestra concerts and live acoustic music, some amplified, some not), I think I need to expand my options beyond going simply mic-in with the NH900 and the SP in-ear binaural mics. Specifically, I'm considering trying a pre-amp/line-in. From my prior reading, I am concerned that the concerts I record are not loud enough to get a useable recording by using just a battery box/line-in. This past weekend, I recorded a live amplified string band (acoustic) concert. I just posted one of the songs as an example, in two versions: unedited and edited (after applying a filter to remove 50Hz buzz): http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?act=m..._album&album=62 Venue was a college auditorium. We sat in the front row. Maybe we should have sat farther back, but the amplification was not loud. My settings were low mic sensitivity, manual rec volume 12/30. Level meters on the NH900 seemed to be in my normal range, mostly bouncing just over the first hash mark, no topping out the meter that I noticed. My results were less than expected, considering some of the really good classical recordings I have achieved with the same settings. My biggest gripe is the overall bass-iness of the recording. It seems "boomy" where there was seemingly not that much bass coming from the performance. Some of this was considerably reduced when applying a bass filter to take out a low-level background hum...we did not hear any hum from the sound system...maybe this was some inaudible feedback from the stage monitors, or maybe noise from the NH900? I dunno, we didn't hear it during the show. I'm not overly concerned about the price differential between a battery box vs. pre-amp (though the Spousal Unit might think differently ). At Sound Pro's, it's essentially a choice between $50+ or $180. I just want to reliably record low-to-moderate volume level concerts with as little noise as possible and avoiding the risk of bass overload. I understand that this SP pre-amp ( http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/.../item/SP-PREAMP ) also has 9v plug-in-power for the mics, which would act as a plain battery box if I turn the gain down to -0-, for the instances in which I might want to record a loud concert. I also like the idea of its 3 gain settings for recording either loud, moderate or very quiet sounds. Am I on the right track by wanting to try a pre-amp for these applications?
  11. smkranz

    Connect store

    I have purchased music from the Connect store (very recently), but frankly I more often purchase from iTunes. Here are my general observations: Without having anything to really base this on, I generally seem to find more things I'm looking for on iTunes than Connect. For reasons which may have less to do with the store per se than general internet traffic issues, it just seems to me that the Connect store sometimes takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to load, whereas iTunes seems much lighter on its toes. If you put downloaded songs onto a minidisc player, you can just load them directly with Sonic Stage, whereas when I buy music from iTunes, I typically burn them to CD (for use in car or home stereo), then load to MD using Simple Burner. The kiddies can put the iTunes downloaded music onto their iPods. They typically maintain what they consider to be a safe distance from my musical tastes, but they do agree that Bele Fleck's music is pretty darn good. It is inexplicable that the last album I just bought yesterday (Bela Fleck) from iTunes ($10) was $12 from the Connect Store...and it's a SONY release to boot.
  12. The Hidden Land by Bela Fleck & The Flecktones BTW, I find this quite curious: I downloaded this album from iTunes ($10). It is a sony label release. The Connect store has the same album for $12. What the...?
  13. Do you use that Novii Remote software for that? How's it work? I tried it out on the Palm Tungsten T but it was pretty quirky, and that particular device had a very limited range. The idea seemed more of a novelty that something really useful, so I haven't tried it since.
  14. Man, that was some funny shit to read. Trig made a whole lotta sense to me at the time, but since then I've about lost it all. Best I could come up with was A(squared)+B(squared)= C(squared). I'm soooo glad my kiddies are going into music.
  15. I'm in heaven today... Came home to a nice Old Fashioned (well...two). Dinner was a Sauerbraten, mit Spaetlze und red cabbage (my Deutsch is failing me...) This weekend, I'll be baking some more German "lye" pretzels...OMG
  16. Agreed that the Sennheiser PX100s sound terrific. I prefer customizing the eq. to a u-shape curve, a little lighter at the bass end than the treble since the PX100s are strong on bass. Only downside to them is that they are inefficient compared with other headphones/buds, i.e. they don't get as loud and they let in ambient noise if you are listening in a noisy environment. For that circumstance (like, a trip on the parents' bus to a marching band competition ), I like the Shure E3c with the yellow foamy buds. Sure (no pun intended) to tune out any ambient noise, including a yakkety Spousal Unit. The Shures are plenty loud but need as much bass as you can give 'em, so adjust the custom eq curve accordingly.
  17. Am on my 5th Palm device, currently a Tungsten T5 (prev. IIIxe, M130, M515, and Tungsten T). I noticed today on the Palm site that they have now taken the T5 off as a current device...too bad, I think it is *the* perfect all-around combo of size, speed, capacity. One day I'll try the Wi-Fi card. Never had a Windows Mobile/Pocket PC device. I suppose it's a matter of preference and familiarity. I started with a Palm device and never looked back, their connectivity with PC and virtually any type of desktop document is astounding (I am, after all, easily amused). I use the T5 every day at work (calendar, contacts, checking personal email via bluetooth & cell phone connection, and of course, playing games). Other apps which receive frequent use are: - Documents To Go - excel and Word documents synch seamlessly between PC and handheld; - SmartList To Go - database app which I use for many purposes including a password and account info database, brewing beer, our vehicle maintenance records, shopping lists, and of course, tracking my Hi-MD music collection on multiple discs. - Mapopolis TripCard - awesome mapping & driving direction info for the entire U.S. on one SD card. - Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide - Oxford Dictionary - Media player for watching flicks, clips and TV shows I've recorded on desktop and put onto a SD card - games - current faves are Four by 4 (a Connect Four clone, really really addictive, well done and free); Billiards; Three Peaks, and Yahdice (a free and well done Yahtzee clone). Bejeweled 2 and Monopoly are up there, too. I used to mess around with putting music files onto a SD card for listening at work. It works fairly well, but I just don't any more...people here then would *know* by the headphones that I'm just screwing off, as opposed to just thinking so without proof .
  18. .....snnnxxxx.....it's all getting a little too boring and high-minded for me on this thread. I agree with Kurisu that no good can come from this topic, so I'm going to go back to dwell in my cave, to do some hunting and gathering for my woman and precious kiddies. But before I do ... 1. I generally keep my nose out of political debates such as these in public forums, but when invited to weigh in, I hardly call it a flame. As some famous lawyer (so famous I forget who the heck he is) once cautioned, never ask the question you don't already know the answer to. 2. Even more baffling and humorous ('cept that it's true) is the intolerance and name-calling that comes from the political left, the self-appointed guardians of civil liberties except for those who disagree...
  19. A topic that was no doubt started at the risk (or intention?) of eliciting contrarian replies, so I suppose I'll bite. I have nuthin else to do today...and I didn't start this, so I accept no blame... Nah, I'll pass on this flick. I am not ashamed that my response to watching two men "in love" is personally revolting. That's not from a Christian/religious POV, that's just my own personal gut reaction. [Now, I will have to admit that watching two disrobed women "in love" certainly can have some entertainment value . Call it a double-standard if you will, that's alright with me.] Yes, I too know some gay people. Big whoop... Sure, people should be allowed to love who they like. No, they're not hurting me, and if they just keep their thing to themselves, I don't care. But my hackles get raised when demands are made that society change its standards of morality and its definition of "marriage", and that I change my belief structure and allow our schools to indoctrinate my kids in the catechism of political correctness, just so that a tiny minority of folks can booger each other and have everyone else consider it "normal". Sorry, I just can't do it.
  20. I don't consider myself a whiskey connoisseur, but based upon my pedestrian consumer impressions I would say that Crown is considered tops in its field of blended whiskeys. It is billed as the top selling Canadian whiskey in the U.S. I drink it in Manhattans or Old Fashioneds (both very medicinal drinks), or on the rocks. Cannot drink scotch...for some reason, even 25+ years later (a clue to my age, there), it still makes me want to hurl .
  21. Volta, your patience is remarkable...aging a bottle for 5 years would make my head explode. I'd love to do a side-by-side comparison of a 5 yr. old Duvel next to a fresh one. The longest I've ever kept a bottle of fermented beverage was about 3 years for a bottle of mead (a wine of medieval origins made from honey instead of grapes) from a local Maryland winery ( http://www.linganore-wine.com/homepage.html ). Their mead is too sweet for my taste, but after 3 years on the shelf it was very different, and much for the better. And now, I'll have to scout around for a bottle of Brut...never heard of it before so I have you to blame when it comes time to reconciling the bank account. There are a few reviews of it here: http://www.ratebeer.com/Beer/deus/18912/
  22. One more vote for the 3-step Novus plastic polish & scratch removal product. I had a couple of grody scuff marks smack in the middle of my RM-MC40ELK remote's display. Cleaned first with the #1 cleaner (which is a clear liquid). Then applied a small dab of #2 polish/fine scratch remover (a tan lotion-like consistency). Scratch was better but still there. Repeated process with the same #2 but applied a bit more pressure (instead of moving up to the #3 heavy scratch remover). Scratches be gone, and display is crystal clear once again. Here's the place I bought it...cheaper than Amazon and "free" shipping (if you don't count their $2.50 "handling" charge). http://www.spadepot.com/products/005novus.htm
  23. Yes I use Simple Burner frequently. I love having the ability to burn a CD directly onto a minidisc rather than first having to put it into yet another "library" on my desktop.
  24. No (well, truth be told, I don't know), the error message I recall we were getting on the DS was that it couldn't find the computer's IP or DNS address or something like that. I agree that the software also seemed to hog resources when it was running.
  25. My oldest kid has an Apple iBook laptop that is 1.5 years old. It wouldn't boot up, could neither restore it or erase the hard disk to reinstall the OS...Apple Care could not further diagnose over phone except to say it was *probably* the hard drive, which would be covered by the Apple Care plan we had bought when it was new. Took the machine in to the Apple Store near Baltimore (Towsontown Center mall) at about 1:00 pm this past Tuesday. The place was mobbed. But there was a manager-type walking up the line pulling out service-related customers, so we only stood there for a coupla minutes. They have an in-store tech desk, and we got an appointment for about an hour later. Wander mall...return. Appopintment was on time...they have a wall-mounted monitor where you can see where you are in line...iPod problems and computer problems have different queues. Tech determined the drive was hosed, could not replace in-store and would have to ship it. That was Tuesday. Wednesday, kid received an email from Apple advising they'd received the iBook. Today is Thursday...iBook arrived with new hard drive earlier this afternoon. I am easily amused, and I suspect that a hard drive replacement is probably one of the easier things to do, but I think that's outstanding. My second kid will be going to college next fall and I will not discourage him from wanting an Apple laptop, tho I think he'll probably want a Powerbook rather than the iBook.
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