Upload Line/mic-in Recording More Than Once!

[Killroy]

Hi, MD fans!

I joined this site months ago as a 'passive' member and got a lot of precious information about MD out there in the meantime - thanks to you all!

But now, the time has come for me to share an interesting experience with you, that I recently made (rather by accident) with my MZ-NH600! I use this unit (also) to record my vinyl collection piece by piece to MD - first to be able to carry and listen to my favourite music whereever I go, and second to save my precious vinyls to a digital medium that is known to be one of the most reliable and durable ones because of it's magneto-optical technology. Occasionally, I transfer them also digitally to my PC with SonicStage (2.3), create WAVs with Sony's conversion tool and burn CDs out of it for use in my car's CD player.

What always bothered me doing this, was the dumb restriction of SS to allow the digital upload of my own(!) recordings just once, and - even worse: I cannot edit the recordings anymore afterwards on the unit itself, because they were rendered to be "Tracks Form PC" after the one and only upload.

But this times have gone now - at least for me!

I found out (and others too, there is a thread from user A440 regarding this), that the MZ-NH600 and other HiMD-models seem to have a firmware bug that may lead to an unplayable disc - and this is how it works:

1. Take any recording made from line/mic input (it should not matter that you will loose it :-)) and add a track mark at the beginning and the end of a part of it ('cut out' a track of the whole).

2. While playing back this 'new' track, use the 'edit - move' function to move it out of it's originating track.

3. Play back to the originating track, enter the 'pause' mode and skip forward (>>) to the track mark that now represents the 'hole' you created before.

4. delete this track mark (T.MARK/REC) to re-combine the splitted originating track.

5. press the 'STOP' button and let the unit write out the system file.

6. eject the disc, re-insert it AND TAKE YOUR HEADPHONES OFF!

7. after trying to read the TOC for a while, the unit will display 'CANNOT PLAY OR RECORD', alternating with 'CREATE AUDIO FILE? YES - ENTER NO - CANCEL'.

8. Press STOP/CANCEL!

Now you rendered your disc unusable by the unit, but it will still be read- and playable by SonicStage via USB connection! This will be your last ressort to still get your recordings from it!

You may believe that I was really pissed off when I first made this experience, but since I'm one of that 'we never give up' - style computer guys, I messed around with this a lot and made a funny discovery that finally enabled me to turn this bug into a real useful feature! I'd be really interested now, if this works with other HiMD units too - so please some of you, try out the following procedure and post your experiences - it's similar to the one I described before, but with a really surprising result (including a fully usable disc):

1. Take any recording made from line/mic input (it should not just be one of your most precious ones for the first try :-)) and add a track mark at the beginning and the end of a part of it ('cut out' a track of the whole).

2. While playing back this 'new' track, use the 'edit - move' function to move it out of it's originating track (best, you move it into another group).

5. press the 'STOP' button and let the unit write out the system file.

6. connect the unit to your PC, launch SonicStage and open the 'Transfer' Window.

7. give the NEW track (that one you 'cut out' a title (optional)

8. transfer the NEW track to 'My Library' (only ONCE, and DO NOT TOUCH THE ORIGINATING TRACKS.

9. Press the unit's STOP/CANCEL button ('EJECT DISC OK' will show up) and disconnect it from your PC.

10. For the following 4 steps, it is essential that the unit will NOT write the system file to disc in between for any reason (weak battery, STOP-button depressed accidentially, playback till the end of disc etc):

11. Play back the first ORIGINATING track, enter the 'pause' mode and skip forward (>>) to the track mark that now represents the 'hole' you created before by cutting out the uploaded track.

12. delete this track mark (T.MARK/REC) to re-combine the splitted originating track.

13. While still in PAUSE mode, skip forward (>>) to the beginning track mark of the track you recently cut out and uploaded to your PC.

14. erase this track ('MENU (for 2 seconds) -> EDIT -> ERASE -> title symbol -> OK') (confirm the 'Track From PC - Delete?' message too).

15. press the 'STOP' button and let the unit write out the system file.

16. The disc should still be usable by the unit!!! (eject and re-insert to confirm)

Logically, the disc should now contain the initial recording with a gap just where you cut out the now uploaded track before...

...but if you listen to this recording, you will surprisingly notice, that IT STILL SOUNDS LIKE IT HAS NEVER BEEN TOUCHED - THERE IS NOTHING MISSING!

The original line/mic recording is still complete, and it is STILL UPLOADABLE by SonicStage as well as any part of it you cut out again and again and again following the above procedure!

So, I hope this may be useful for some of you and I'd really appreciate to know if it works with other units too (perhaps even the 2nd-gen ones??)) - or if just I made "the luky punch" with my particular MZ-NH600 all alone -?

Cheers & Beers

Killroy