Recording On Mz-nh1 With Mono Microphone

[victorhooi]

Hi,

Recording with a Mono Microphone

I've recently received a MZ-NH1, which I'm lots of fun playing with right now . Anyway, I also got a monoaural microphone, and I'm wondering what's the best way to use a mono mic. If I plug it in and attempt to record, obviously it only gives me sound in the L-Channel, with the R-Channel being empty.

Is there some sort of adapter I can get to duplicate the sound across both channels?

Or is there a mono recording mode in HiMD (I know there's the old MD Mono)? (this would be best solution, but I'v seen nothing to indicate this)

Or doesn't it matter due to the compression? (I'm not sure how HiMD compression works - will it just compress the emptiness in the R-channel into nothing, and use the leftover bitrate for the left channel? - I thought it was cbr?)

Analogue Line In

My next question is, when recording from a device which only has an analogue line out (ie stereo mini plug), should I just plug it into the microphone port? Or should I get some kind of adapter to plug it into the optical port? Which would give better quality?

Carry Pouch, Cords

My final question is kinda random, but for those with a portable MD unit in a carry pouch, how do you tuck your cords in? Do you fold it back and forth, like how it originally came in the box with a wire twist-tie, or do you just pack it all into a convoluted spaghetti mess?

Thanks,

Victor

PS: Anybody know where you can get rewriteable labels for MD disks? I always found it silly that the labels are just paper, and not rewriteable plastic, since the whole point of MDs is to rewrite them...

[victorhooi]

*shameless bump*

Does anybody have any idea about the best way to make use of the mono microphone?

Or is this the wrong place to ask these sorts of questions - if it is, could somebody please redirect me to a better place I should ask?

Thanks,

Victor

[A440]

You can get a mono-in, stereo-out adapter at any Radio Shack. There's no Mono recording mode on Hi-MD.

The white input takes either an optical input OR an analogue input with a stereo jack.

I actually wrap my headphone cord around the MD when not using it, figuring it will provide a little extra cushioning. For other cords, neatness counts of course.

And I'd think a rewriteable label would rub off in your pocket. The Sony labels peel off pretty easily, and you get plenty with each MD.

[victorhooi]

A440: Thanks a lot dude - you answered all of my questions . However, I've got another one .

Thanks for mentioning the adapter - it's only a couple of dollars, and I suppose it's a cheap solution. However, it might be better quality to upload and combine in an audio editor (your thoughts?)

For listening, I can use the adapter when I need to listen to the recordings (since it's weird to listen to sound in only one ear - that was my original reason for wanting a mono mode).

However, looking here and here, it seems that the codec *will* compress the no-signal in the R-channel to nothingness (or close enough).

Because of the playing time, Sony decided to leave out the mono mode in Hi-MD-mode. Plus, when you record a true mono signal to Hi-LP / LP2 / LP4, the sound quality improves compared to a stereo signal as the difference channel contains no data, leaving all bandwith to the summary channel.

Of course, that leaves out the 500/520...[

I have no idea what the 500/520 reference means?

Also:

It's a design compromise.

#1) very few people use mono modes for other than recording. So why have it on a downloader?

#2) since the new recording bitrates are joint-stereo, you can record a split-mono signal and basically get twice the bitrate's quality for the single actual channel. i.e. recording in mono using joint stereo is the equivalent of recording at twice the bitrate [all bits get allocated to the one channel of audio].

Mono in PCM mode would have been nice, but still, I see little purpose in the extra effort to implement something so few people actually need, let alone ever use.

Nonetheless, it's still quite annoying and I don't see why Sony didn't include it. It's a pain to listen back to your recordings in one ear only, the summary-channel isn't as good as having *true* mono mode, and how much effort would it have taken to include it? They had it in MD original, after all (i have an old md deck).

Any chance of a skillful MD afficiando putting out a firmware hack to add Mono in HiMD?

With storing cords, I still don't know which is best. Wrapping is good, except it means every time you want to listen, you have to take the whole thing out, unwrap it, then put it back in...whereas you can be lazy like me and just pack it all in on the top .

bye,

Victor