KJ_Palmer

In terms of portables, only the original, the MZ-1 had optical out. You might find one on eBay. Plenty of full size home decks have optical outs, one of the most recent being the MDS-JB980. None of the more recent Hi-MD units have optical out (yet), though they can (just about) upload digitally to a PC...

Wow, sounds exciting. Good luck in your new career, and pop your head in here occasionally if you get time... :smile: Cheers

Hi. Is your mic a stereo microphone and does it have the right connector? IE., does it have a mini jack-plug - it should have 3 sections on the jack plug to be stereo - if it has 2 sections it's a mono mic. So, if it's stereo, you'll be recording to both channels by default. If it's mono, you can use the mono mode on the recorder for recording to record the same thing on both channels (otherwise only the left channel will record). I'd say you probably won't need an external amplifier or battery box, the Sharps internal amp should do just fine for your interviews. Certainly your boosteroo won't be of any use - well probably not. It's designed to amplify headphone output signals for listening, not microphone input signals.

The G750 remote should fit the NH1's socket - well, it fits the NH900's and I believe they're the same size. And the basic MD functions work - play forward, reverse, etc. Unfortunately the radio doesn't work, no doubt due to the power supply issue mentioned by Qwakrz above. It's possible the radio may work with the NHF800, but then if you had that you should already have a radio...

You could, if you had a mind to, make a digital CD-R recording of your master MD, and make all further dupes from that. You'd need the equipment of course. I think that would be 'lossless', or am I mistaken...

It's just 'bad' (in users terms) design/ergonomics - no-one thought of it or bothered to implement it if they did. Too bad, maybe the next generation will have it, maybe not, after all there already is a pause button on the unit, quite a big one on the NH900...

No problems, dex I'll do that at the weekend. When were you here? Maybe Hyde Park Corner would be good. Not sure what to do with the recording though - can I email you a winzipped Wav file or something?

Hi. Are you using an optical link? If so, there should be a red light coming out of the cable which you should be able to see before you plug it into your R900. Otherwise you'll get the "No signal" message. If you're using an analogue link, make sure all the plugs are pressed in firmly before recording. And it might sound a bit obvious, but make sure you're using the right kind of cables and input/output sockets, ie. the "out" on your soundcard should go to the "Line in/Optical In " on your R900, etc. I hope that helps...

I don't really use the 5 way control thing much on my NH900, it's far too fiddly. Mostly use the remote to start/stop etc. and my headphone's in-line volume control for, er, controlling volume...

Minidisco has the DR420, or so it seems, and they do international orders. Unfortunately you'll have to up the budget a bit. Not sure why they're so expensive, I bought mine a lot cheaper in the UK (around £100), but they're hard to come by here as well...

I can do a recording of the London traffic, or maybe the underground, parks etc. if that's of any interest. Or maybe my music lessons... Which format - MD or Hi-MD?

Like Hyena, no-one I know is particularly aware of MD, unless they see my portable and are curious enough to enquire about it. In fact, most people don't seem to be that interested in portable music at all. We have one iPod in the office, a couple of PCDPs, an old tape player or two and me with me NH900... It's easy to be an MD guru in my place... :rasp:

Which MD player have you got? If you have a line out mode then use that for analogue transfers, as you imply the signal should be cleaner than one in headphone mode. If you have a 'hacked' line out, on say a Sony MZ-R700, the 'line out' would be the same as turning off the sound mode and maxing out the volume. That wouldn't be too bad either - there's possibly not that much difference between the two methods anyway, neither is quite the 'true line' out that you'd get from, say, a deck...

Hi. I'm using the RM-MC10L remote with my UK NH600, if that's any help. The MC11EL and 33EL also worked fine with the NH600. I imagine they would also work with the NH700 - Sony remotes are more or less universally interchangeable...

Hi. In terms of recording, the 1 to 30 scale controls the level of signal being recorded onto the disk, which is in turn shown on the other scale marked dB. The important thing is to adjust the 1 to 30 level so that the recorded signal doesn't go above 0dB (too far to the right) - otherwise you'll get distortion recorded. Try looking at soundprofessionals.com or microphonemadness.com for an idea of the range of mics available.

Just to back up Qwakrz's comments really - I have the NH900, and connect it via "line out" to my Denon Amp/Mission speakers separates setup. It sounds fabulous, especially with PCM recordings, and Hi-SP sounds very good too. I expect Hi-LP might show its weakness through a half decent setup though...

1 second is the required length of recognisable silence on Sharp recorders for track marking when analogue recording. Probably best to put 2 seconds silence in just to be sure if you're doing it that way. By the way Livia, make sure auto track mark is on (AUTO MARK shows and not MARK OFF) before recording. Hope that works...

You can put tracks into groups either using SonicStage (or MD Simple Burner), or on the MD recorder itself via the menus. Each track can only go into one group, though. It's rather like a folder in Windows (but only has one 'level' to it). You create a new group, name it and 'drag and drop' the tracks you want into it, or you can record tracks directly into a new group.... I think you can bookmark all the tracks on a disc, it doesn't seem to say explicitly in the NH900 manual...

Hi and welcome to the forums. Currently, this is the 'popular' way to upload Hi-MD recordings (including PCM) to PC in .Wav format. We're also waiting for Sony to release an official "Wave Converter" add on to SonicStage which they've promised (well, sort of)... By the way, try using the Search button (I'm supposed to say this as a mod)...

Other use: If and when they bring out a proper Hi-MD deck and freely available 1GB disks, I'll seriously consider recording my CD (and other) music collection to Hi-MD in PCM format, probably by digital optical link (hence the "Other"). Until then, I've just been dabbling a bit with PCM and Hi-SP, recording bits and pieces here and there. I may make a few live recordings and try a bit of uploading at some time, but I'm still happy with old-MD for that. Not even thinking about a computer-based DAP, can't stand the idea of me & my audio being PC-bound... My faith is still in MD...

I'd stick with the NH900 for the battery life, including adding an external AA. If you need time and date stamping or a slimmer/lighter model, the NH1 would be the choice. Mind you, even the budget NH700 would do the job without the thrills...

I voted "Off". Well, I've never had to use backlighting - I guess I don't stumble around too much in darkened rooms these days, or feel the urge to show off... Talking of which, I've got a couple of backlit remotes that I'd be happy to swap for non backlit LCD remotes if anyone's interested...

Sony MD recorders tend to be noisier in operation than Sharps due to some battery saving buffer reading/writing features. The MZ-NH1 will probably have a lower noise level than the NH700 when recording (perhaps an owner will confirm), as is usual with the higher-end, metallic models (eg. my N1 is quieter then my N707). But it's still likely to be noisier than the Sharp. I would have thought a short extension cord was a small price to pay... Not sure what you mean by chewing the disc - do you mean physically like a tape gets chewed? Certainly a faulty machine - some older Sharps eventually developed TOC error problems which killed disks. Even then such a machine could be used for playback only. Perhaps you could check with the previous owner if bought on eBay etc....

I believe you should only use a non rechargeable AA (preferably alkaline) in the external case if also using a gumstick, as otherwise they will be trying to charge each other, potentially wrecking them both. If you don't have the gumstick in, you could use a rechargeable AA if you wanted.

Hi. Sony MD recorders do in fact sync rec in analogue, as long as they can detect a long enough period of 'silence', ie 2 or 3 seconds below about -90dB (I think). For digital transfers, track marks are sent explicitly with the signal, which is what the sync-rec function uses to add track marks on the recording.