Track marks

[sfbp]

Well I did my first non-live recording into HiMD today. Thereby hangs a tale of sorts - we recently lost most of the programming that the audience actually wants, on CBC Radio 2, about a week ago. Sunday appears to be one of the only holdouts, so I attempted to record a couple of shows that I really like, off the air.

To do this, I wired up my MD deck to act as A->D (input being FM radio) and then fed the optical output into my NH600. I had to use HiMD because LP2 doesn't cut it and 80 minutes wasn't enough since I was going to be gone for most of the broadcast, and couldn't change the disk.

Obviously I wanted to divide it up into tracks, and delete the guff that I didn't want out of the 8 hours of music.

Problem #1: Digital recording won't let me insert track marks whilst recording

Problem #2: you cannot put track marks automatically when digitally recording.

Problem #3: to fast forward through an hour at a time is way too tedious, it goes about x10 but there is no way like on the SP decks to move the divide point by large amounts.

Here's the question:

a. Has anyone found a clever way to do this? I figured one trick might be to record a short track on the END, then fast backward through the track mark to cut off the last 5 minutes of the long track.

b. Does the HiMD deck from Onkyo get around this, and allow fast editing?

Interesting aside: the fact that I can split a digital track AT ALL means that there is nothing terribly clever about how they are protecting the sounds (see several other threads about this, if I have energy I will crosslink them later).

Stephen

[sfbp]

Sorry to answer my own post but I found that cutting off the digital signal for more than 2 seconds worked quite well. To do this I simply pressed "stop" on the MD deck, and then the record again to turn on D->A once more.

I'm a bit surprised, given that the SS software will play a track for you, that you cannot do the seek using the slider bar, and then press track mark on the recorder.

But I'm sure there's some good reason why you cannot. I'd still like to know about whether you can do the careful editing easily with a HiMD deck.

Added much later: I stumbled upon how to skip forward fast in a long track. If you pause it first during playback, holding the fast forward key now RACES through the recorded sound (no samples, but you cannot have everything) and easy to get to where you want. Congratulations, Sony!

[Hungerdunger]

I stumbled upon how to skip forward fast in a long track. If you pause it first during playback, holding the fast forward key now RACES through the recorded sound (no samples, but you cannot have everything) and easy to get to where you want.

I hate to say this, but that has been a feature of every portable I've owned - I'd have been lost without it.

Just out of interest, have you compared an analogue recording of FM radio direct to your NH600 to your method of doing a digital recording? My ears aren't all that good, but I can't tell the difference, and if you'd gone for analogue you'd have no problems with track marks.

[sfbp]

Well no; but I seem to get a lot of hum loops (generally on other equipment), since our mains power is so bad (old house, no ground on the sockets which the stereo is on) - optical seems a great way to avoid this. So far, so good.

I find the analog level sync doesn't work at all.

Funny but I couldn't find that feature in the manual. Until recently I did most non-miked recordings on a deck, so the problem never arose.

[Hungerdunger]

Funny but I couldn't find that feature in the manual. Until recently I did most non-miked recordings on a deck, so the problem never arose.

You're right - it's not documented in a couple of my manuals. However I did find a mention in my British manual for the R90 / R91 on page 10. But it's easy to miss.

[sfbp]

You're right - it's not documented in a couple of my manuals. However I did find a mention in my British manual for the R90 / R91 on page 10. But it's easy to miss.

Hmm the only manual I have is online, the PDF, and it says GB at the bottom of each page (was a UK unit I purchased from a recent immigrant here). No sign there on page 10 or anywhere else.

But it certainly works on that (the oldest portable I possess) machine and also on the RH1, so presumably on everything else in between. Brilliant!