MadMaster

Update: Today I finally picked up my brandnew MZ-RH10 at Sony Netherlands after my MZ-NH900 couldn't be repaired. Although it took several months for Sony to 'fix' the problem and replace the recorder, I think they handled well and gave a great service. Hopefully I will have more luck with the RH10 than I had with the NH900.

I thought I told already that Sony don't know what the problem is. I told them about the know issues (optical position of the laser) on some of the NH900's, mentioned on the first pages of this thread, but they can't confirm that's the problem and they surely can't repair it, probably because they don't know what to repair.... But if I hear something new from Sony, I'll keep you informed. Edit: Now I see I used the wrong topic for my update More info about the problems I (and other people) have had with drop-outs during recording with the NH900 can be found in this topic.

OK, thanks for the answers, I don't have any gumsticks for sale anymore... I only have to wait a couple of weeks before I will receive the RH10, Sony have to pick it up somewhere, they don't have it on stock... Unfortunately, during those weeks I should have been recording some concerts in the USA, which is not possible now...

Update (took some time...): After my first visit at Sony Netherlands I received a letter that they solved the problem and that I could pick up the MZ-NH900. When I picked it up they told me that they couldn't find any skips during their own recording with the unit, so it wasn't repaired at all. While I wasn't satisfied with that answer they called the engineer who had worked with the unit at Sony. He told he hadn't could find anything and in his opinion the unit was OK. They offered me 2 HI-MD 1 GB discs for the time it had cost. Maybe my discs weren't OK, they said... Off I went and I checked the unit at home. Same problem, several skips during several tracks and again no possibilities to upload those tracks with SonicStage. I brought the unit back to Sony and I gave them some of my discs with the skips during the recordings. I even gave me my microphones and my battery-box to test it. I demanded that they would find a solution, my unit was brandnew and I never ever made a perfect recording with it... Today I received a letter that they can't repair the unit and they offered me a MZ-RH10 as a replacement for the MZ-NH900. Although I liked my MZ-NH900 I think don't have any choice and I decided to choose for the RH10. Question: Does the RH10 use the same batteries as the NH900? If not, I do have some gumstick batteries for sale....

Well, Im Dutch, so I do understand what their lyrics are about, but for here it's irrelevant, it's about the recording itself. But probably you do know the music, it's based on 'No Sleep 'Till Brooklyn' from The Beastie Boys.

I just uploaded one track of the first ever recording I made from de Osdorp Posse (a Dutch/Amsterdam hiphop-group, their lyrics are in Dutch) in the Live Recording Archive. It's a 128Kb MP3 and because it's hiphop, the bass can be loudly heard. Used setup: MM-MCSM-4 Miniature Cardioid Stereo Microphones (20-20,000 Hz.) -> MM-EBM-1 Elite Battery / Filter Module -> Sony MZ-NH900 -> Cool Edit Pro (analogue transfer) Click here for the MP3.

I bought my brandnew NH900 at Ebay from the UK for £89 a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if you are in a rush to lay your hands on a Hi-MD, but from time to time NH900's show up at Ebay for reasonable prices...

Nope, on the picture you can't see it that good, but the mic's/windscreens are free and almost don't touch anything. The mic's are clipped on the inside of the upstanding collar of the jacket. In the two layered collar of it I put a piece of foamboard to leave the collar stand up at an angle of about 120/130 degrees upwards and outwards at the front (like the collar of the cape of Dracula). It was a try after I couldn't find a better option for my cardioids at that moment, but the recording came out great.

Here is the way I clipped my mics to my shirt (as I described on page one of this topic). I can't clip my mic's tot glasses, because my hairdress is model 'Kojak', so I can't hide the wires. Beside that, maybe croakies would be OK for me, but I start using contact lenses because I hated glasses....

I guess you have to contact your local Sony Servicedesk to let them fix the problem. If the MD is under warranty they probably repair it for free ..

Update: I managed to get an invoid from the Ebay-seller in England, he has his own shop with all kind of technical equipment. Today I drove to Sony Netherlands and they ask me for the original invoid which I could hand over. Now the MD is in repair and it will be back in about 2 weeks. If wanted, I will post an update after that.

I've got one Sony (as it came from Sony with the MZ-NH900) and 2 GP gumsticks (which I bought at a photoshop) and I haven't mentioned any difference so far.

Why did you make the trackmarks manually at the venue? What I did last time (I've been reading about it here before) was to set the default trackmark-time every 10 minutes on the MD at home, already before I went to the venue. On a 1Gb disc that will give you the maximum of 10 nice tracks (9 x 10 minutes + 1 x 4 or 5 minutes) with PCM/WAV-modus. During the concert I didn't even watched or touched any equipment....

That's why they introduced the so-called 'mic-check'... BTW: Nice stories, Paul!!

I already contacted Sony yesterday and they simply don't accept Ebay as a shop or a seller, because Ebay itself is only a intermediate. Sony says that I could have bought the MD second-hand and, in that case, I need the original receipt from the first owner so that they can check that the unit is still under guarantee. On my argue that it was brand new they told me I have to contact the Ebay-seller for a receipt or a guarantee form, which I did yesterday. I hope he will contact me. Otherwise I guess I have to pay the repair myself. To those who already let repair their unit: Does anyone of you know what the exact problem was? Something with the OP I've been reading, but what does it mean? When I called Sony yesterday they said they never ever heard about this problem. I pointed them to this forum and the guy on the phone said he would have a look at it Tonight I'm gonna do some tests with the MD, I will record a CD, using my mics in front of the speakers and will see if there will be gaps or whatever in the recording afterwards. I want to know if it is only a problem when recording in the fields where the MD is shipped and moved or also when its steady on a desk...

I guess everybody with a Hi MD use 1Gb discs, at least I do. 13-30 Seconds for finishing a disc doesn't seem to be that long, I thought it took longer. But 10 seconds to switch the disc and being ready to go on recording is faster than lightning... You have to open the MD, remove the written disc and store it somewhere, insert the new disc and wait 'till it's ready, press 'pause/record', then the Menu-button for some seconds, turn the jogdial to RECset or press 'down' 5 times, press 'enter', press 'down' 1 time, 'enter', 'down' and 'return'. After that you have to hit the pause button to start recording. Hopefully the bands I will record have an encore-break for a couple of minutes at around 80-90 minutes of the show, switching the disc between 2 songs seems a mission impossible to me.

Yesterday I recorded in PCM/WAV-format, while the concert should only be for about an hour. But the guys had fun on stage and came back for an encore and another and another.... I ended up with only 4 minutes recording-time left.... Because of that I have a question about a disc-change: How long does it take to stop the recording, wait untill the disc data has been written, remove the disc, insert a new disc, set the REC-volume to manual and finally, start recording again. Especialy the time that the disc data writing takes after you have stopped the recording makes me worrying to use PCM/WAV-format for longer concerts, which I will visit in the near future...

Nice posting, neighbour!! (I'm from the Netherlands) I did my first ever stealth live-recording also yesterday. I had my NH900 Hi-MD and a second battery for it in a small camera-bag which could be clipped to my belt, a batterybox which have a beltclip as well and my mic's, MM-MCMS-4 cardioids with me. It was an open-air free concert from the Osdorp Posse, an Amsterdam hiphop-group. I thought it would be a nice event to try out my stealth equiment. While it was low-secured there was no search by security at the gate for anything, so that was a very easy part. My gear was hidden at the bottom of a bag with several pockets and was covered by candy, apples and other stuff I never would use, but I didn't knew before that the security should be at such a low level. I was wearing a black polo-shirt with a high straight-up collar and a black zipped sweatshirt with a high collar also. At home I had put a piece of foamboard between the two layers of the collar of the sweatshirt, so that it would stand up all the time, like the collar of the cape of Dracula, but not that large. At the venue I went to the mensroom, clipped my mic's (including windscreens) on the inside of the collar of the sweatshirt at my neck/shoulder-position and let the zipper of the shirt half open, so that the collar (due to the foamboard) made a nice 120 degree angle outwards. The front of the mic's were completly free. I clipped the MD and the batterybox onto my belt, set the recordvolume to 18/30 (line in) and went out to a spot just right behind the soundboard (25/30 meters away from the stage), no screamers, dancers or clappers were there. While everything around the mic's was black, including the windscreens, and due to the upstanding collar I was amazed how hard the mic's could be seen. Even when I stood in front of the mirror at home I hardly could see them myself. With the mic's still on and the shirt/collar open I spoke to several people after the concert and even bought a T-shirt at the merchandise-shop and watched for the reactions of the people in front of me. Nobody even gave a wink.... The recording itself came out better then I had expected, the lyrics could be heard even better then at the show itself. It was a hiphop-gig, so it had a lot of booming bass, but even while I didn't turned on the bass roll off of the batterybox, it sounds amazingly. The only problem I had were some skips (for 1 or more seconds) on the recording, so I couldn't upload the show by using SonicStage and used the line-in of my PC to upload it manually/analogue. See this topic for more info about that problem. Luckely most of those skips are during the breaks between 2 songs, except for 2 during one song, so after all it isn't that bad.... Tonight I will check the recording on my PC once more and will do some normalizing/equalizing if necessary. Thanks for all the info about live-recording here at the forum, it was a great support to me!!!

Same problem to me today on my NH900. I had several gaps in my first ever live-recording (beside the tests I did before) in PCM-format. When trying to upload the tracks with SonicStage it gave 'Internal Errors' on those tracks and didn't upload them to the Library and neither made WAV's of it. All other tracks worked out OK. Now I uploaded the recording analogue straight into Cool Edit Pro over the soundcard and edited the skips out, which, offcourse, made some weird 'gaps' during the songs. My problem is that I bought the Hi MD at Ebay from England (I'm from the Netherlands, but the MD was brand new when it arrived) and don't have a receipt from a store or something, so no guarantee from Sony (I already asked them). Does anybody know what it would cost if I would bring my MD to Sony and let them repair it? Thanks in advance!

Hi, first post here and I would like to take the opportunity to thank everybody for the great information that I found here on the forum. Beside that, does anybody know if this attenuator (or some kind of equivalent) is available in Europe, beside the U.K.? It's not possible to us, Europeans, to order at RadioShack and probably the shipping-/handling-costs from the USA to Europe will be as high as the price of attenuator itself... I'm from the Netherlands and searched for it at Google, but couldn't find anything. Anyone? Greetz, MadMaster, Amsterdam