save library to new laptop - help!

[mbhbaritone]

Hi there - any help appreciated.

I've got a new laptop through work and have to surrender old one.

Old one has all my HiMD recordings in the SS library. Just tried saving all those onto a portable harddrive and they seemed to save ok. But then when I try to play from that on my desk top PC (which also has SS installed) I'm getting error messages about Licencing?! These are my recordings of me! Can i not move my own stuff around?? Help Please.

Many thanks

[sfbp]

I'm hoping you are running the 4.3 version (it's a mere 4 years old or so) of Sonic Stage. If not, all bets are off, and it may be wise to upgrade SonicStage. Go very carefully, read everything on the subject and find Avrin's "Ultimate" or "Ultimate 2" (!) version.

1. Whatever you do, do NOT run SonicStage Backup Tool; or mess with the registry via System Restore or any utilities.

2. Go to the My Library display of Sonic Stage (the middle one) and look on the main menu under "Toole" for "Start File Conversion Tool". Select that.

3. A new program starts (SS closes), and when you get to a box which has a box labelled "Add copy protection" which will ALWAYS be checked, UNCHECK IT. (leave the top box about deleting old files UNchecked, too). Wait for the database to recalculate how long it will take to process your files (If you ever did it before the second computation will show a much shorter time than the first - however it sounds as if you didn't do this already). Now the box should still be unchecked. Proceed.

4. When you return to SS you should still be able to read your files in SonicStage (play some?), but their names should all show as ".OMA" instead of ".oma". You have just unlocked or decrypted your files. Repeat whatever you did to move them to the other machine, and they should now play.

It's advisable to run that decryption once a week or after every major upload. Otherwise you risk losing them when something bad happens to Windows. Keeping them on a different drive won't help, unless you decrypt them first.

Let us know how you get on.

Stephen

PS - note to sysops - if this description is concise and works well, should you sticky this? I know I have answered it in one form or another many times. Probably a rename of the topic might make it easier to find.

[ojos504]

Hi there - any help appreciated.

I've got a new laptop through work and have to surrender old one.

Old one has all my HiMD recordings in the SS library. Just tried saving all those onto a portable harddrive and they seemed to save ok. But then when I try to play from that on my desk top PC (which also has SS installed) I'm getting error messages about Licencing?! These are my recordings of me! Can i not move my own stuff around?? Help Please.

Many thanks

Hi!

Did you use the Back-up Tool from SS ? Otherwise you can't access the files. If you didn't, try it.

But the File Conversion method described above seems the safest, as it permits free access to the files with SS.

[sfbp]

Hi!

Did you use the Back-up Tool from SS ? Otherwise you can't access the files. If you didn't, try it.

But the File Conversion method described above seems the safest, as it permits free access to the files with SS.

I repeat, DO NOT USE THE BACKUP TOOL.

[mbhbaritone]

Many many thanks Guru I will follow what you say. Off for a few days but when i get back and try it I'll certainly let you know if successful.

Thanks again for your time - much appreciated

[mbhbaritone]

HI again. Just tried quickly before leaving. I see I'm on version 4.2SS.

I can see that the file conversion software seems to be part of that package but when I select it as you say via library and then tools then it says it will hav eto disconnect SS, do I want to, I say yes, it disconnects but then nothing - no file conversion appears. Grr

If I upgrade to 4.3 will all my library be auto saved across or do I need to protect that somehow first - I note your warnings about backup!

thanks for your help and patience

kind regards

[mbhbaritone]

sorry, just to add then when i try to run/launch the file conversion tool direct from All Programs it tells me that SS is running (even though it isn't!) and I have to quit SS to run file conversion. Sigh...round and round in circles

[sfbp]

sorry, just to add then when i try to run/launch the file conversion tool direct from All Programs it tells me that SS is running (even though it isn't!) and I have to quit SS to run file conversion. Sigh...round and round in circles

Hmmmm. Maybe you need to restart your computer (easy method) or go to Task Manager and see what is running that shouldn't be, and zap it. I've never heard of this particular problem but it may be true that you are running two copies of SS.

Did you check the requirement that you need to be a power user or administrator? Maybe that's a problem if this laptop is :tethered: to your work domain somehow.

[mbhbaritone]

Guru, you star, thank you!

Finally got the file transfer to work (just old laptop being v v slow) and it plays on new laptop.

Just two problems/queries if I may

i) I notice that all the album files copied over have had their tracks re-ordered alphabetically rather than as I'd carefully edited chronologically as the concerts were in reality. Why does it do this and is there any way of leaving as was or do I have to re-order?

ii) I see it hasn't copied the pink logo albums which I think were playlists I created and usefully edited recordings. Again, why and any way around this?

Many thanks again for your kind attention and help.

regards

[sfbp]

i) I notice that all the album files copied over have had their tracks re-ordered alphabetically rather than as I'd carefully edited chronologically as the concerts were in reality. Why does it do this and is there any way of leaving as was or do I have to re-order?

Only way I know is to start each name with a number string. Careful here. If you have 10-99 tracks then a 2-digit string works, if you have 100-999 tracks or more you need 3 digits (leading zeroes).

ii) I see it hasn't copied the pink logo albums which I think were playlists I created and usefully edited recordings. Again, why and any way around this?

I think you can probably retrieve the playlists but they likely point to entries in the existing database. It's just possible they could be revived using the Backup Tool, but I wouldn't place much hope there. On the whole I suspect you're out of luck. Sorry.

If it were me I would try to analyze the database structure by opening those files in Excel 2003. It might be more trouble than it's worth, though.

[mbhbaritone]

Thanks again Guru

I'm still clinging on to the old laptop til I've tried everything to get it all on the external hardrive/new laptop. So I still have some options by the sound of it.

On i) Noted on the numbering. So delete the ones that have re-ordered, go back and rename (with leading numbers)tracks on old laptop and retransfer. ok.

I think that's quicker than re-ordering on the new as there are too many little similarly named bits of applause etc between songs that have beeen jumbled up.

On ii) Hmmm, it's a shame if I can't transfer as these are compilations from other 'albums' (concerts) made to then create CD's from. I guess I should just make the CD and rely on that as my source going forward. My concern was that i would then be saving the music in a poorer quality form?

I'd be interested to know what other classical/any musicians do about keeping their recordings ie what format they keeep them in as a kind of 'mastertape' (not that my stuff merits archiving for posterity but...). WAV or oma/OMA etc (I'm really ignorant on these things). Is there any place this has been discussed on this site?

kind regards

[A440]

Before you get into all the renumbering, see if you can get the files to re-order themselves by clicking the Date Modified (or whatever it is) header in Sonic Stage.

For archiving, OMA files will get bigger but not better (although not worse either) as .wav files. You can convert to .wav from SonicStage. But another good way to archive them would be to also save them to .Flac., which is also lossless like .wav, but makes smaller files.

I'm not sure, but I think Marcnet's free Hi-MD Renderer will do that.

http://www.marcnetsystem.co.uk/

The advantage of converting to FLAC is that eventually a Windows will come along that doesn't support SonicStage or .OMA files, while lots of other programs can play FLAC. But save the OMA's too, and listen back to some of the FLAC conversions to make sure they're OK.

[mbhbaritone]

A new and bad problem - help please.

It seemed that all the tracks had loaded well after doing what you suggested later Guru (thanks again). BUT when I came back to listen later major problems.

i) Every time I click on a track in any album it comes up with an error box:

The music file for the track is not found

Specify the music file to restore track playback

etc

If I then laboriously go to the drop down and find the track in C drive and press 'go' it does then play it....but that means that I have to do it track by track for every track in every album...!!!

And the thing is I suspect that if I turn off and turn on tomorrow the same will happen because they were playing ok on the day I imported from external harddrive.

Anyone have any idea what is going on? It's driving me nuts.

Thanks for your patience

[mbhbaritone]

To add.

I'm inporting from the external harddrive (and playing) ok while it's plugged in but I see once I remove it the track error message comes up when I try to play from library?! So it hasn't really imported the tracks at all - it's just playing them from the external drive. How do I properly save them.

I'm going to

Music Source

Import Folder

finding the album(s) on the ext drive and saying yes

It shows them saved in library but clearly they aren't!

Help please.

Thanks

[sfbp]

Sorry missed your first post... the Library IS only a database, it doesn't copy files, just holds the data about where files are. If you disconnect the drive where the tracks are, maybe the DB gets marked as "not present" for that track.

SonicStage also has a courtesy feature if you import across a network, to copy the files to your "local" db. But most people are using an external HD because they ran out of space. "External" probably doesn't count as "across a network".

If the tracks are on another ****machine**** eg. \\livingroom\ddrive\sonicstage\importedfiles\<blah blah> then what's in the database should survive almost anything.

However if you have the external drive on USB or Firewire, perhaps it is changing its drive letter. There's no magic here.

As I said, perhaps now is the time to go in and look and see where the DB really is pointing. Do you have Excel?

Finally (now I read your other post), maybe now is the time to start using something else to organize tracks. Windows Media Player will work quite fine, but you have to do some fancy stuff (once) to get set up that .oma will show up in the list of files to be scanned and/or opened. After that, it's trivial.

Stephen

[mbhbaritone]

Sorry missed your first post... the Library IS only a database, it doesn't copy files, just holds the data about where files are. If you disconnect the drive where the tracks are, maybe the DB gets marked as "not present" for that track.

SonicStage also has a courtesy feature if you import across a network, to copy the files to your "local" db. But most people are using an external HD because they ran out of space. "External" probably doesn't count as "across a network".

If the tracks are on another ****machine**** eg. \\livingroom\ddrive\sonicstage\importedfiles\<blah blah> then what's in the database should survive almost anything.

However if you have the external drive on USB or Firewire, perhaps it is changing its drive letter. There's no magic here.

As I said, perhaps now is the time to go in and look and see where the DB really is pointing. Do you have Excel?

Finally (now I read your other post), maybe now is the time to start using something else to organize tracks. Windows Media Player will work quite fine, but you have to do some fancy stuff (once) to get set up that .oma will show up in the list of files to be scanned and/or opened. After that, it's trivial.

Stephen

Stephen,

Many thanks as ever for your time and taking the trouble to reply. I do appreciate it.

What I don't understand is that if I search the new laptop C drive with windows explorer I eventually find oma files but not in the sonic stage folder where I would expect to find them (given I imported them through the SS screen.

And if I click on them they then open and play...automatically opening up SS to play themselves. BUT when I'm in SS and wanting to play them - compile playlists to make CD's etc - I see them listed but when I click on them won't they play (giving the error message I refer to above).

To my complete laymans eye it's as if the files can link to SS but SS can't link to the files?! This is all with the external hard drive disconnected by the way.

(The external drive is a portable Seagate thing I bought with USB connection- big capacity - that comes up as an E drive when connected.)

I note what you say about the way forward may be to manage files with Windows Media. If that doesn't alter the sound quality then maybe that's the answer. I'm slightly perturbed by your reference to having to do "some fancy stuff (once) to get set up" though. holds head in hands and emits nervous laugh. If there's a link to a thread explaining what to do I'll give it a go but I fear it'll be beyond me.

Just to be clear what I'm using my HiMD for is mainly just to record (own) concerts. I then want to be able to edit the recording into songs (cut out intervals/applause etc) and make compilation CD's. I've spent ages on old laptop carefully dividing up the recordings and titling them and hence want to keep all that. I'd always thought that maybe I could try and edit more - cut out annoying inetruptions from passing sirens etc but that proved way beyond me. Also I guess I'd like to be able to turn the tracks into other formats that I could send as attachments or put onto a web page etc. Again if there are threads that might guide me please do point me in the right direction.

I'm hoping that one day someone will bring out a reasonably priced recording device that will allow simple souls like me to record and then drag and drop files and really easily create. Maybe it's already out there? As best as I understand from posts over the years HiMD has always been considered not very user friendly but people have put up with the hassles for the sound quality?

Many thanks again for your kind patience.

Regards

Mark

[sfbp]

Let's deal with this in chunks, you raise too many issues.

What I don't understand is that if I search the new laptop C drive with windows explorer I eventually find oma files but not in the sonic stage folder where I would expect to find them (given I imported them through the SS screen.

And if I click on them they then open and play...automatically opening up SS to play themselves. BUT when I'm in SS and wanting to play them - compile playlists to make CD's etc - I see them listed but when I click on them won't they play (giving the error message I refer to above).

1. You should set up WMP to be the default player, NOT SonicStage. You should know how to do this, if you don't I can walk you through it. Start by rightclicking a file and "open with", select "Choose Program" and then set your choice to be the default. Doing this will NOT affect your ability to open SS and play as you are used to.

2. The quality is independent of the application used to play files. The two progs are just front ends to the guts of OMA playback.

3. It's necessary/advisable to decrypt your files (I can't remember whether it was you asked about this) so that the next time you do something significant to your 'puter you don't lose the lot. Just because WMP will play them does NOT free them from encryption.

When you are comfortable with playing file in WMP, I can show you how to set up WMP to allow you to easily open directories and files and make playlists. But it requires a bit of "magic" so let's wait until you've done the first part.

Stephen

[A440]

The good news is that you have decrypted your files already when you did the file conversion. So you should be able to move them around.

To play them, however, you still need SonicStage installed because SonicStage has the codec (coder-decoder) to play them. Windows Media Player should find that codec, but if you uninstall SonicStage the codec disappears with it.

Now about your file location. SonicStage has made a database telling it that your files are on the external drive. It can play the files if you find them on the C: drive, but it's too stupid to find them itself.

So tell it where to find them, which is what SonicStage means by Import. You are not importing the files themselves. Probably a translation problem from the Japanese.

Disconnect your hard drive--or whatever you have the actual files saved on, so it can't mess with them--and go into SonicStage's library. Look at a file, right-click on it and click DEL. You'll be given a choice, typically garbled by SonicStage--do you want to delete the listing (delete the selected album and all files from My Library) or do you want to delete the actual files from the computer (there's a checkbox). Leave the box unchecked, just delete the listing. Then under File, you can Import the files again from where you want SonicStage to find them.

Now about a new recording device to end all this nonsense. The Sony PCM-M10. You can find it between $200 and $250 in the US from places like www.jandr.com, www.bhphoto.com, www.beachcamera.com or www.adorama.com . It will record .wav and .mp3 files either onto its 4G internal memory or a microSD card (up to 32GB at least ,maybe more as microSD cards grow). It has good built-in microphones and will work with whatever mics you are using with the MD unit. You can make track marks with a button on the machine or the remote. No more uploading, decrypting, decoding or SonicStage. (It comes with a Lite version of Sony's serious Audio Studio sound editor, but you don't even need it.) Just good old drag-and-drop. And the quality is excellent.

.

Edited November 9, 2010 by A440

[mbhbaritone]

Let's deal with this in chunks, you raise too many issues.

1. You should set up WMP to be the default player, NOT SonicStage. You should know how to do this, if you don't I can walk you through it. Start by rightclicking a file and "open with", select "Choose Program" and then set your choice to be the default. Doing this will NOT affect your ability to open SS and play as you are used to.

2. The quality is independent of the application used to play files. The two progs are just front ends to the guts of OMA playback.

3. It's necessary/advisable to decrypt your files (I can't remember whether it was you asked about this) so that the next time you do something significant to your 'puter you don't lose the lot. Just because WMP will play them does NOT free them from encryption.

When you are comfortable with playing file in WMP, I can show you how to set up WMP to allow you to easily open directories and files and make playlists. But it requires a bit of "magic" so let's wait until you've done the first part.

Stephen

Thanks again Stephen. I will do as you say in 1) tomorrow when back on the laptop and try and play with WMP and then ask you further about the "magic".

And yes it was me that you advised about decrypting - rest assured I did do that and then, when I hit the other problems I outlined, I did it all again (just to be sure) with originals and re-imported the whole lot a second time.

I'll have a go with WMP as you suggest.

Many thanks

Mark

[mbhbaritone]

Many thanks for your reply A440 I've inset a couple of comments below. kind regards

The good news is that you have decrypted your files already when you did the file conversion. So you should be able to move them around.

To play them, however, you still need SonicStage installed because SonicStage has the codec (coder-decoder) to play them. Windows Media Player should find that codec, but if you uninstall SonicStage the codec disappears with it.

Yes, I did decrypt as you say but yes also - I did also install SS on the new laptop - version 4.3 ultimate.

Now about your file location. SonicStage has made a database telling it that your files are on the external drive. It can play the files if you find them on the C: drive, but it's too stupid to find them itself.

Ah ok, noted thanks.

So tell it where to find them, which is what SonicStage means by Import. You are not importing the files themselves. Probably a translation problem from the Japanese.

Disconnect your hard drive--or whatever you have the actual files saved on, so it can't mess with them--and go into SonicStage's library. Look at a file, right-click on it and click DEL. You'll be given a choice, typically garbled by SonicStage--do you want to delete the listing (delete the selected album and all files from My Library) or do you want to delete the actual files from the computer (there's a checkbox). Leave the box unchecked, just delete the listing. Then under File, you can Import the files again from where you want SonicStage to find them.

Ok, but this sounds worryingly like I'd have to do it album by album? Is it possible to give it one instruction to look for all albums on the C drive? I'll have aplay with this tomorrow but hoping it is.

Now about a new recording device to end all this nonsense. The Sony PCM-M10. You can find it between $200 and $250 in the US from places like www.jandr.com, www.bhphoto.com, www.beachcamera.com or www.adorama.com . It will record .wav and .mp3 files either onto its 4G internal memory or a microSD card (up to 32GB at least ,maybe more as microSD cards grow). It has good built-in microphones and will work with whatever mics you are using with the MD unit. You can make track marks with a button on the machine or the remote. No more uploading, decrypting, decoding or SonicStage. (It comes with a Lite version of Sony's serious Audio Studio sound editor, but you don't even need it.) Just good old drag-and-drop. And the quality is excellent.

Wow, ok noted thanks. So the quality from this will be just as good as my HiMD? It sounds much more user friendly. I must admit that after all the un-user-friendliness of SS over the years I had kind of vowed never to buy anything from a certain manufacturer again but perhaps I shouldn't say any more given this forum seems now to be hosted by...

Many thanks for your time and consideration.

Mark

.

[sfbp]

Comments (mostly factual, some opinion) in random order, on the above:

- it's quite possible to play back both HiMD and LoMD (sorry new term I invented on the spur of the moment because I'm sick of explaining that NetMD has to do with the transmission, not the data itself) on the PC WITHOUT installing SS, once the files are decrypted. For LoMD you simply need a codec or two that are publicly available. For HiMD you need a vastly reduced subset of the Sonic Stage install, Avrin has already documented this. In addition ffmpeg (on linux at least) will play all (possibly except AAL) formats. However as you still need to decrypt things, stick with SS until the #linux-minidisc project is ready.

- my own preference for a replacement is the much cheaper ICD-SX750 (and it has bigger brothers with more memory too). It doesn't have a removable flash memory card - but said flash memory cards have become quite unreasonably expensive lately. I did a nice recording (at CD quality) of the choir I play for yesterday afternoon and the result is amazing. It has built in mikes and stand, 2GB memory, weighs 2oz + two AAA's, fits in a shirt pocket and has otherwise all the features (including recharging the AAA's via USB) of the PCM-M10 for about $120. It plays back MP3 but for compressed recordings its LPEC (STHQ setting, 128kbps) beats ATRAC especially for voice, and I am sure that would include your application.

- SS isn't that unfriendly when you consider the several technologies it has to bridge.

- here's a start on what you need for the WMP setup (and you might well want to read all of the folloeing thread to convince yourself that what lies below here is not in the least harmful)

1. Start by adding the atrac1.zip file (download it, unzip it, and then double click on atrac1.reg to enter it in your registry).

2. Open up the registry editor and take a look at (it's possible it's numbered something else instead of 1)

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\Descriptions]

The first entry should look a lot like this. Add in ";.oma" at the end before the ")", note I am using quotes as delimiters, so don't reproduce my quotes, only what is between them.

"1"="Audio file (*.wav;*.snd;*.au;*.aif;*.aifc;*.aiff;*.wma;*.mp3;*.oma)"

3. Now look at this key (it's possible it's numbered something else instead of 1)

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\Types]

"1"="*.wav;*.snd;*.au;*.aif;*.aifc;*.aiff;*.wma;*.mp3;*.oma"

Similarly add ";*.oma" (no quotes, should be right after mp3) on the end

You could do all this (except steps 2 and 3) by poking around in WMP, I think but best to be sure.

Just below is the registry file. I pasted the text before I could figure out how to upload it (duh!). Rename from .txt to .reg once you have satisfied yourself it won't do anything harmful (it shouldn't). Then double click the file in Windows and it will get entered to your registry.

Stephen

atrac1.txt

PS there's nothing mysterious about this. I simply searched the registry for everything containing ".oma" (except the bit you need to look at and edit by hand, above) then gathered it all up into a single text file.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.oma]

@=""

"Content Type"="audio/oma"

"PerceivedType"="audio"

"MP2.Last"="Custom"

"MPlayer2.BAK"="OpenMG_Oma"


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.oma\OpenWithList]


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.oma\OpenWithList\wmplayer.exe]


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.oma\OpenWithProgIds]

"omaFile"=hex(0):


[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\.OMA]

"Runtime"=dword:00000007

"Permissions"=dword:0000002f


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\mplayer2.exe\SupportedTypes]

".oma"=""


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\wmplayer.exe\SupportedTypes]

".oma"=""


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{CE3FB1D1-02AE-4a5f-A6E9-D9F1B4073E6C}\SupportedTypes]

".oma"=""


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F1B9284F-E9DC-4e68-9D7E-42362A59F0FD}\SupportedTypes]

".oma"=""


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MIME\Database\Content Type\audio/oma]

"Extension"=".oma"


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Applications\mplayer2.exe\SupportedTypes]

".oma"=""


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Applications\wmplayer.exe\SupportedTypes]

".oma"=""


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{CE3FB1D1-02AE-4a5f-A6E9-D9F1B4073E6C}\SupportedTypes]

".oma"=""


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{F1B9284F-E9DC-4e68-9D7E-42362A59F0FD}\SupportedTypes]

".oma"=""


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\MIME\Database\Content Type\audio/oma]

"Extension"=".oma"


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\MPlayer2\MIME Types\audio/oma]

"AlreadyRegistered"="yes"

"ReplaceApps"="mplayer2.exe|amovie.ocx"

"Extensions.SpaceSep"=".oma"

"Extension.Key"=".oma"

@="ATRAC Sound"

"UserApprovedOwning"="yes"

"Extensions.CommaSep"="oma"


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\MIME Types\audio/oma]

"ReplaceApps"="wmplayer.exe|mplayer2.exe|amovie.ocx"

"UserApprovedOwning"="yes"

"Extensions.SpaceSep"=".oma"

"AlreadyRegistered"="yes"

"Extensions.CommaSep"="oma"

"Extension.Key"=".oma"

@="ATRAC Sound"


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\AllowedDragImageExts]

".oma"=dword:00000001


[/code]

[sfbp]

<benefits of PCM-M10>No more uploading, decrypting, decoding or SonicStage. (It comes with a Lite version of Sony's serious Audio Studio sound editor, but you don't even need it.)

I almost forgot to mention - for the price of the SX750 you also get this EXCELLENT piece of Software from Sony (retail $54 online). It handles ALL the formats including MP3, WAV, the new LPEC but most of all ATRAC, ATRAC3, and ATRAC3+. It's worth it for the conversion ability alone, in my view. The editor is very solid - about the only thing I know of in the "pro" version that might be useful is BATCH conversion. But you have that with SonicStage anyway, provided you can tame the beast. But Sound Forge 9 has already rescued me and some tracks of mine from a tight spot or three.

Stephen

[A440]

If you have all of your music in one place on the C: drive, like a separate folder, you may be able to Import the whole thing. Try it--you've got nothing to lose. As you know, Import only creates pointers to the files--it doesn't affect the files themselves

The PCM-M10 is higher recording quality than minidisc. MD, I think, is 20-bit. PCM-M10 is 24-bit if you use .wav I haven't tried Stephen's recorder, but I think the PCM-M10 is pretty great.

Technology has advanced. Your recordings will sound excellent, especially if you use .wav--and now you can, since there is enough storage for them.