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Should I Dump My Himd Recorder? Switch To Neuros?

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lkawamot

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Well, after a few years of waiting, I finally bought myself the NH900 for Christmas. I've been patiently waiting for the USB upload ability and when the HiMD was announced, I was sooo happy. Then I found out that HiMD would record in PCM!! I thought, "this is frickin' awesome!!"

Then I opened the packaging and started using the thing. I record live performances of musical ensembles I belong to and (as a hobby) make CDs of our performances available to everyone in the group. As performers, you really don't get to enjoy your own performance as an audience does, so this was a nice thing for all of us. So it's not like I'm pirating or bootlegging... I don't understand Sony's paranoia and why I am NOT allowed to do a straight binary copy of my recording on the disc to my PC as a RAW file so that I can edit it and burn it to CD...

I wouldn't mind the EXTRA step we all have to take to convert from OMA to WAV, if the (not so) "high speed" transfer via SonicStage would just work... but NOOOO, there has to be a silly bug which could cause me to lose the recording.

After reading the many threads on here, I've even purchased Total Recorder and tried using it to make a real time dump of my tracks first... it works, but this was getting ridiculous... what I'm trying to do should be MUCH simpler.

So... after much thought, I'm almost ready to ditch SONY and go with an alternate Digital Recorder. Am I over-reacting? I've been an early MD user since the MZ-R3... I've a ton of discs with random music mixes I made from back when I had a couple portable players and an MD unit in my car. Ever since my car MD unit died, I've stopped using MD for listening to music and so I really don't see the point of putting up with all this crap...

Has anyone had any experience with the Neuros digital recorder??

http://www.neurosaudio.com/store/product.a...ct%5Fid=4010301

I've got a few digital stereo mics that I've been using with my MD recorders, but not much else in other equipment. Should I invest in a mic amp? It looks like the battery doesn't last quite as long during WAV recording -- should I get an external battery pack for it? It looks like this would give me what I need... raw WAV recordings with a USB interface to copy directly to my PC for immediate editing.

Is it time for me to wave "good bye" to my MDs? Wouldn't it be great if Sony at least released a new WAV converter tool which converted from the HMA file? Then we could copy directly from HiMD to PC via USB (which shouldn't trash the data like SonicStage) and convert our analog PCM recordings.

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Well, I have similar decisions to solve, and mine is - Sony. I've read too much posts at Neuros website about hardware failure (hard disc and battery are the most often one)...

Well, after a few years of waiting, I finally bought myself the NH900 for Christmas.  I've been patiently waiting for the USB upload ability and when the HiMD was announced, I was sooo happy.  Then I found out that HiMD would record in PCM!! I thought, "this is frickin' awesome!!"

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Well, I have similar decisions to solve, and mine is - Sony. I've read too much posts at Neuros website about hardware failure (hard disc and battery are the most often one)...

What about their non-HD models? What about other digital recorders in general? I think somebody on some other thread suggested an Edirol R-1 recorder...

http://www.edirol.com/products/info/r1.html

This one's a bit more pricey, especially after you include the price of a 2GB CF card...

You know, this is all just too bad, 'cause HiMD could be so good. I know Sony has got an interest in reducing piracy/bootlegging -- they've got a lot of artists signed on and they release a lot of albums. But come on, they're doing things to the point of frustrating people with legitimate use on these ALMOST perfect devices... *sigh*... this is frustrating...

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You know, this is all just too bad, 'cause HiMD could be so good.  I know Sony has got an interest in reducing piracy/bootlegging -- they've got a lot of artists signed on and they release a lot of albums.  But come on, they're doing things to the point of frustrating people with legitimate use on these ALMOST perfect devices... *sigh*... this is frustrating...

Absolutely... I can understand every word you've said... Can you imagine what popularity should "allow mp3, allow faster than realtime with no aditional software, allow acting as reasonably fast removable storage device" inject into HiMD format, and Sony's products as well?

Edited by mmilovan
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Welcome..First off, make sure you're using Sonicstage 2.3. Additionally, have you tried Marcnet's utility?

Thanks kurisu,

Yes -- the first thing I did after installing the software was check for an updated version. I have SS 2.3 installed on my machine. I've not yet tried marcnet's util, but as far as I understand it, it's simply a replacement for Sony's wav converter tool... so unless there are new features I haven't read about yet, I don't think it will solve my problem. I don't think my problem can be solved, unless Sony changes its mind about a few things...

mmilovan,

I checked out the Neuros website and found the forums... ugh... I'm soooo disappointed again. That idea has now been quickly flushed down the toilet. So it seems that HiMD is, in fact, going to be my choice for a while longer... I wish Neuros survives the slew of issues and comes out a winner. I think I will have to wait until then to make my switch from the MD world...

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There are other digital recorders. Edirol makes one, Mayah makes one and so does Marantz. They are more expensive than MD, however, and they are designed for professional use... but hey! At least they fscking WORK! dry.gif

The speed of Hi-MD write is limited by MO drive write speed.

I won't comment on anything else as my opinion is tainted and I'm still rather amused by Sony's continued efforts to shoot themselves in the foot. laugh.gif

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Have you actually lost tracks whilst uploading with Sonicstage 2.3? I have not [yet], Dex hasn't either..

kurisu-

No I haven't lost any tracks yet, but unless we can see a proven track record, I don't feel safe using SS 2.3 to u/l if my original recordings are going to get lost. When SS messes up the u/l process, is the original track preserved and playable? If so, then I could always resort to a real-time dump via Total Recorder.

ROMBUSTER-

yeah that's what I think I'm going to end up doing... but for now, I've resolved to continue my HiMD usage for recordings...

aeriyn-

I'm not quite ready to drop 1.5k on a digital recorder yet... the recording projects are more of a "hobby" thing for me... Maybe if I get frustrated enough I'll start saving for pro equipment.

Thanks guys for the feedback and support... really appreciate it.

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aeriyn-

I'm not quite ready to drop 1.5k on a digital recorder yet... the recording projects are more of a "hobby" thing for me... Maybe if I get frustrated enough I'll start saving for pro equipment.

Is this price tag for Mayah recorder? I think I saw somewhere on the web that device with price listed above 1K.

Now, Edirol... I think it's around 450 EUR or so...

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None here, ever, on any version. After maybe 20-30 uploads, most over an hour in length in Hi-SP.

...so it sounds like it's "safe" for us to u/l tracks from HiMD->PC via SS 2.3 Again, my question is, IF SS decides to choke and kill the track, is the original on the disc still playable and, therefore, recordable in real-time via Total Recorder?

1.5k was just a number I pulled out based on prices I've seen on other "pro" digital recorders... the marantz may or may not be near 1.5k in price.

I'm glad that people are starting to revive my confidence in SS 2.3... I guess this might not be that bad after all...

smile.gif and today is Friday... what a nice start to my weekend... too bad I have no performances this weekend, I'm actually excited about using my equipment soon.

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Just to throw another hat into the ring: I got an NHF800 unit for Christmas and have successfully uploaded & converted four 50+ minute PCM recordings so far with SonicStage 2.3 and MarcNet's utility (running Windows XP). I haven't yet tested Sony's WAV converter.

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lkawamot:

"IF SS decides to choke and kill the track, is the original on the disc still playable and, therefore, recordable in real-time via Total Recorder?"

Yes, you can play the track through SS and record in real-time. But don't try to upload via SS anymore for that track, cuz if you do, it will fail again and it will delete the track off the disc. In other words it's 2 strikes and you're out. My peeps correct me if i'm wrong on this.

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Yes, you can play the track through SS and record in real-time. But don't try to upload via SS anymore for that track, cuz if you do, it will fail again and it will delete the track off the disc. In other words it's 2 strikes and you're out. My peeps correct me if i'm wrong on this.

Cool... I'm feeling MUCH better about all this now. Thanks guys... all y'alls rock!

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I lost 1 original concert recording in SS 2.2 but I have since figured out that tracking my larger PCM files into smaller tracks has kept me out of trouble. Also, I did not know that I should try to reattempt the upload once Windows rebooted and I found the track was still there. It deleted the file when I reattemped the upload. Now, I know to forget the upload IF I have an error and just run an analog connection from my NH900 to my Creative Audigy2 ZS, etc.

So, in other words, when I had the 2 errors, I still had the tracks on the Hi-MD. I only lost the first recording because I tried to re-upload which is a big error and just sad that Sony doesn't even give you a warning,etc.

No problems yet with uploads on 2.3.

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