greenmachine

You're certainly right, i guess we were talking about different subjects - you seem to be more into spontaneous ambient location recording or whatever people may call it - usually short clips with different level settings each time, while i've been talking about recording music, shows, concerts as a whole. It can be counterproductive to change levels during recording there.

There's nothing wrong with it as long as you're in the experimentation stage, but it can be very irritating when you're listening to it afterwards. Did you ever see a sound engineer fiddling with the levels during an important recording? It's propably smarter to leave a healthy amount of headroom than running it too hot and having to change levels constantly.

To 1) To be honest i have no idea what SS can do, i use it exclusively for uploading/wav converting. There is more powerful software for editing (incl. Audacity). Besides, i don't trust SS.

A baffle is a physical barrier between the microphones in order to block sound waves coming from one side to directly hit the opposite mic. The baffle can be flat (j-disk), spherical (head) or anything in between. Other variations are possible. Here's an extreme example of a baffle: http://www.kimber.com/IsoMike/

1. I usually upload the recordings without any pre-editing and it worked without problems so far. 2. Whatever you prefer 3. ? 4. You have to highlight a section before you can edit it. The online manual is to be found here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/ a downloadable version here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/audacity-manual-1.2.zip

Just use high bitrate mp3 / vbr and you'll be fine. About manual levels: it needs indeed some practice until you get to know your equipment good enough to estimate a good level. But if you know how loud it'll be (if you're recording your own music for example), there's nothing easier than setting the right levels. Avoid to change them during the recording whenever possible.

No, firstly it won't fit into the mic-in jack because of additional connectors for information transfer, secondly a digital volume control with up/down keys would be useless - all it does is to control the volume output of the unit, there's no passive attenuation - there need to be suitable fixed or variable resistors inside in order to do the job.

I've been messing around with different stereo recording techniques for omnidirectional microphones out of interest and recorded some samples to be compared directly. 1) microphones 1" apart, no baffle in between 2) microphones 6" apart, no baffle 3) microphones 20" apart, no baffle ('split omnis') 4) microphones 6" apart, human head as a baffle ('hrtf') 5) microphones 6" apart, human head as a baffle, placed inside the pinna ('binaural') 6) microphones mounted directly to the surfaces of a small jecklin disk 7) microphones 6" apart, small jecklin disk in between 8) microphones mounted directly to the surfaces of a large jecklin disk 9) microphones 6" apart, large jecklin disk in between opinions/preferences wanted .

You seem to be used to listen to compressed music. Average consumer playback equipment often can't handle the large dynamics of an uncompressed live recording, maybe this is why you think it would sound weird. We'd love to hear some samples, even if they're shortish.

Dynamic mono mikes will work since they don't need to be powered at all, but since this one seems to use xlr connectors, you'll need an adapter to connect it to the MD and you'll propably only get a signal on one channel (usually left) without a special mono to stereo adapter - not a real problem if you plan to edit it afterwards anyway. Phantom powered ones won't work because they need a high voltage to operate, usually 48V. Before spending too much on adapters and other accessories, you might consider to get a commonly used, simple to operate electret mic. They're usually inexpensive and might easily surpass yours in sound quality. If you already do have adapters, just give it a try.

Depending on your quality demands, together with a good microphone it might be overkill for speech only (in price and complexity). How important is sound quality for you? Maybe a dictaphone or mp3 player with built-in microphone would fit your needs.

Line-in and mic-in serve whole different purposes and thus can't be compared directly. Mic-in provides way more preamplification than line-in and thus naturally some noise will be amplified along with the signal. That doesn't mean the Signal to Noise Ratio will be worse in the end. Don't expect to use line-in universally for all purposes, it's pretty useless for quiet daily life sounds, all you'll get is a very quiet signal not significantly above the noisefloor. But for recording really loud sounds such as indoor rock cocerts the mic-in would overload easily, using the line-in works best there.

The 'Standard' or 'Loudmusic' setting will affect the way the AGC works. If you want to use AGC, use the loudmusic setting, if you use manual levels, the setting has no effect, but you'll need to set the levels manually. You'll get better, dynamically uncompressed results with manual levels, but it needs some practice to set them correctly. Read this live recording usage FAQ: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=9045

I couldn't find an affordable quality recording solution besides MD yet either although i've been looking. I thought a Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 could be a good substitute, but besides other drawbacks such as size and battery i'm not impressed with its AD stage quality. For playback primary however there are countless good substitues for MD.

Well, that's a tough question. It depends on how you want the sound to be. Close miking will give you a pretty dry, direct, often rather monotonic sound, while far miking involves lots of room acoustics, reverberations, gives you a sense for being there. I'd go for close miking if you plan to use your recordings for playback through loudspeakers primarily, while far miking should be more enjoyable for listening with headphones. Anything in between as a compromise if you can't decide. You need to experiment what suits you best.

You're right, a 9V power supply improves the mics' dynamic range, makes them suitable for recording loud sounds through line-in, where the mic-in would overload. However, through the line-in there's no bias voltage from the recorder. Electret microphones don't work without that dc voltage though. To supply it is the job of the battery box. The electrical circuit of such a box is a very simple one, all there is needed is a condenser and a resistor for each channel. Although i didn't test these two models, there shouldn't be much difference in sound quality, if any at all. Just pick up the one which fits you better (built quality, size, price). Both should do their job quite well. Or build your own if you feel skilled enough. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showt...indpost&p=50298

I see a bright future for flash cards, but there's still a place for mechanical media such as CD, HD or MD as long as they're rather expensive and limited in capacity. Time will change this.

There's a simple coherence that you should realize: You can have the qualitative best, perfectly calibrated and set up equipment, but if you don't have a good source to begin with, you'll never get to exhaust your equipment. If you're recording from a stack of speakers, the best you can get is the original sound of these. If they don't sound good, your recording won't either. Don't expect miracles. Try to record unamplified acoustic instruments to compare, and you'll see what i'm talking about. You'll be amazed about the potential of your new equipment. Don't expect to easily improve a mediocre recording with post processing. Instead try to get it as good as possible to the recording medium prior. Post processing should be only some kind of fine tuning, if needed at all.

http://www.headwize.com/projects/equal_prj.htm For me, it wouldn't be worth the effort, maybe for you.

Yes, it strongly depends on the mic if high or low sens. works best, although there's propably not much difference if you're using low sens. with a high level setting or hi sens. with low levels, if at all. I'd like to hear your opinion about this recent recording of mine. I'm a noob in this genre.

As A440 says, besides the characteristics/quality of the microphones themselves, their placement is by far the most critical thing.

Maybe one day you'll tinker with Hi-MD and almost 8 hours continuous Hi-SP mode.

How to build a high quality stereo / binaural miniature microphone: In the US, you can get most of the parts at www.digikey.com - in Europe, consider www.conrad.de (cable, all other parts) and http://www.schlotzhauer-versand.de/ for mic capsules. Required parts: 2 miniature electret microphone capsules (get the best ones you can find - your selection will have a major influence on the sound quality - recommendation: Panasonic WM-60/61, Monacor MCE-2000/4000/4500). (article about directional vs. omni-directional mics)3.5 mm (1/8") stereo plug with cable, preferably angled and shieldeda few cm / inches of heat shrinkable tubing, slightly larger diameter than the capsulesAdditional requirements:soldering iron + solderhot melt glue + gunscissorsWarning: Be very careful when applying heat to microphones, it could irreversibly damage the diaphragm. Keep the procedure(s) as short as possible. 1) Skin and solder the cable to the capsule, the shield to the outer shell of the capsule, keep soldering time as short as possible. Use some sort of heat sink where available. 2) Bend the cable and add some hot melt glue. (heat) 3) Cut suitable pieces off the heat shrink tube (about 1/2 inch) and put it over the capsules. 4) Heat it with a lighter or similar tool for a short time just until it doesn't shrink any further, remove leaking glue as long as it is fluid. This process requires some experience. You may want to practice first on other objects before ruining your capsules. Never apply excessive heat to a single spot, keep the heat source moving. Constantly cool the capsule by blowing against it for a few seconds directly after heat has been applied. Do not touch the hot glue with your fingers. When using omni-directional microphones, for a realistic stereo image it is important to separate the mic elements about 6-8 inches (15-20 cm) and preferably have a separator in between, which is ideally your head. You can attach the microphones to the rim of eyeglasses using the same heat shrink tube method, put them into eye glass retainers (croakies) or just use black electrical tape. Don't mount them too far up front or you'll loose a great part of the head's separating characteristic. Having them as close as possible to your ears is ideal. Matching: (advanced) If you want to make sure to have no significant channel differences, you need to match the capsules before assembly. As with any electronic part, no two capsules are exactly the same, but you can minimize the differences by picking a pair with close to identical characteristics. To do so, solder a random pair of mic capsules to the plug with cable. Download the test tones here: test_tones.zip Play the tones through a Hi-Fi loudspeaker at a moderate volume. Hold the mic capsules very close together and monitor the level indicator on your recorder while slowly moving the capsules back and forth from the loudspeaker. Both channels should read about the same, otherwise try different capsules. The test tones are 100Hz and 1000Hz (1kHz) sines in mp3 format.

guitar effects are usually monoaural (one channel) - not suited

It's the capacity - generally speaking - the higher, the better. You'll get significantly extended operation times with higher capacities. It's really cheap from Sony to deliver it with such a weak battery.