greenmachine

It doesn't sound to me as if the mic was overloading too badly. The mic may have been relatively close to the subwoofers and far from the full range loudspeakers, thus the unbalanced sound. Try a spot near the soundboard or wherever it sounds good/balanced to your ears next time. Aside from placement you could further improve your recordings by using a stereo mic. Here's what the member "The Low Volta" got in 2005 (same band, same song) using a pair of mics and battery box made by me: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?autom...si&img=2974

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The R700 lacks a low sensitivity switch for the mic input. Depending on the microphone you use, the input may be too sensitive.

NetMD walkmen allow transfer in one direction only via USB (PC to MD). http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7070

Why 2.2? Most people will tell you to stay away from versions prior to 3.2.

When you don't use the unit for several weeks, remove the battery to avoid deep discharge.

You can use Audacity for recording. In Audacity, set the output slider to maximum, the input slider to minimum and choose stereo mix as the source to record from. In the lower left corner, choose the sample rate - 44100 is the default and suitable if you want to burn it to an audio CD. In the preferences, set the amount of channels. Youtube is 1ch (mono) only as far as I know, but if you are going to burn it to an audio CD, you could as well use two channels, which would avoid later conversion. In the quality tab, choose 16bit. If you want to save it in data mode on a CD you could as well record in Youtube's native format, which is one channel, 22050 Hz as far as I know. Set the Youtube volume slider to maximum. Start recording by clicking Audacity's red record button. Start the video. When finished, use the yellow stop button to stop the recording. Audacity is also an editor and you might want to edit the file before exporting (cutting, etc.), but I won't get into details here. There's a manual included. Once you're done, choose export from the file menu - WAV format if you want to burn an audio CD or any other format if it's going to be a data CD. Fire up the CD burning software of your choice, import the file(s) and burn.

Use the audio recorder software of your choice to capture from the soundcard. No need to use an external device. You may need to adjust your soundcard settings accordingly.

The RH1 and NH1 both use the same expensive battery (LIP-4WM). Only the RH910 can be powered by gumstick/AA. NH1 is first generation HiMD, RH910 second and RH1 third. NH1 cannot play mp3s, RH910 with a bug, RH1 mp3 playback is ok. The differences in recording quality are said to be marginal.

Only the RH1/M200 is slightly faster than USB 1.1. All other models are not. But although the speed isn't great, they're at least compatible to USB 2.0 ports.

Hey, thanks for letting me know - excellent review. Good things take time I guess.

The MZ-RH1 (MZ-M200) would be your only choice for USB faster than realtime transfer, otherwise: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7070

http://www.xe.com/

What you're looking for is probably a medium or large diaphragm condenser cardioid mono studio mic. Most of these require phantom power (~48V) and come with XLR plugs, so you would need an external power supply as well as adapters to use it with a MD recorder.

Do you want to record voice + ambience (room reverberations, etc., more like from the listener's perspective, distant miking with a stereo set) or just the voice alone (very dry and direct, close miking with a single mono mic, and add effects in post processing if necessary)? Live and studio recordings may require different setups.

What kind of charger do you use? New or unconditioned rechargeables need a few charge- discharge cycles until they reach their full capacity.

http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7070

I'd use the 2.2uF and 4.7k's, but the other parts should work as well. Electret mics need a small voltage between 1.5 and 10V typically for the FET. The battery box just supplies power and does not preamplify. Use the line-in for recording loud sounds or the mic-in (preamplified) for quiet sounds.

The .oma's are copy protected by default when you upload them from your Hi-MD. The copy protection can be removed by using the file conversion tool, but they'd still be in the proprietary .oma format. Removing the copy protection of compressed ATRAC recordings (Hi-SP/Hi-LP) instead of decompressing can make sense, but why would you want to keep a proprietary format (.oma) instead of an open structure (.wav) for pcm recordings? The content is the same, but .wav can be used by most audio applications, whereas .oma is Sony only.

Try lossless compression like flac, about half the size of wav and can be fully restored if necessary unlike mp3, which is a form of lossy compression.

The USB transfer of NetMD portables is restricted to one direction - from PC to MD. You would need Sony's latest model, the MZ-RH1 to upload via USB or you can do a realtime analog transfer out of the headphone output into your soundcard's line-in. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7070

You should be able to use the "Safely Remove Hardware" button when SonicStage doesn't run. Just close SonicStage before trying to safely remove.

The vast majority of the portable units has no digital output. Some of the earliest models and some decks do.

Try lossless audio compression - about half the size of wav's.

Never rely on a single medium for important data.