"upgrading" My Audio Recording Equipment

[aeiseleusa]

The edirol would be great but the cost is about 400 Euro. An MD you can get for 100. Big diffrence.

[Yverish]

My battery box is seperate and I use a 9 volt battery in there, the md does have a powered input but I use the battery anyways. The battery box has the bass-roll circuitry in there....so in otherwards I can't turn that part off. This hasn't been a problem yet, and not sure if it will be?

Another couple of questions for you Duane, you are using the mic+battery box in the mic-in. Normally you could have left out the batterybox, don't you, because the mic in supplies it's power to the mic. You have recorded the Kiss concert in PCM I presume and then converted it to mp3?

To every other person (also including Duane of course): are normal MD's considered lossless or not? As they can only record in ATRAC3, which is a form of compression. I'm asking this because the Hi-MD's are more expensive than the normal MD's, but when it makes no "real" difference, I might stick with the cheaper option...

And can you upload everything from your MD to your pc without needing it to be hacked? I read that some files could not be ripped from MD to pc...

Sorry for all the questions, but I like to be well informed before buying stuff now

[CreepingDave]

How about Edirol R-09. You can record 24-bit/48kHz (or 44.1kHz) linear PCM. Has Mic and Line inputs. Guide.

The Edirol R-09 or the Microtrack would be the two best hard disk recorders, both support 24 bit 96 khz recording, and essentially not really that expensive. You can find them for around $325, which isn't too bad.

Personally I use an Iriver h120, also a HD recorder which is even cheaper but can produce excellent results also. I would get one of the above two recorders, but since I mostly stealth, I really like the ease of the remote on the iriver, so I wouldn't have to take it out my pocket and expose it for it really is. With the iriver I can always say its an mp3 player, because thats what it mainly is, whilst you may not get away with that excuse with the others. I have made some great recordings with these devices (i've had more than one ), but it really does depend on the mics.

Currently im using sound profesional mics, and im really satisified. $150 or so mine cost, SP-CMC-2 I think they are. I do recomend Church audio preamps and mics, which you can find more info at taperssection.com. I've been thinking about converting to these, or at least get his preamp.

I've never really needed a battery box, I used one for a couple of shows, but I didn't notice a difference in my recordings, but it might save more battery power on the iriver if I did.

I had an MD to begin with, and created some quite good recordings, even with my old mics, but it is definately lossy and generally not very recomended. I can't say I know too much at all about Hi-MDs, but from what I hear they are better and more lossless.

Ultimately I think the mics are more important to get a good sound, lossless or not aside, you need good mics and sufficient power for them to be able to get a good sound.

Hope that helps.

[Yverish]

Thanks Dave,

That clears some things up. So you always plug your mics directly into the mic-in on your iRiver (for what I understand of it, you don't use a pre-amp or batterybox yet)?

What would be a reasonable price for a 2nd hand iRiver H120 then? The cheapest 2nd hand Hi-MD I've come around so far is €130. There is one H120 up for auction on marktplaats.nl but there is no starting price mentioned...

[Duane]

Well for some reason I couldn't seem to get the line-in to record without a battery in the batterybox? I also have a locking switch on the battery box so you can't turn the mics off during the concert.....they may have been the problem.
Plus I did all my experimenting with the mic plug in/battery box with battery in. I was very nervous to try new stuff before the concert and risk screwing anything up because of the importance of this Kiss show (3 shows in summer tour, debut of "All American Man...etc).
I can`t get Hi-MD`s in my town so I use regular md`s, which are also rare in this area. I used the Sony Sound Stage to upload the md file to the hd in .wav format......I don`t know if it becomes lossy or not. That fight continues...who knows.
I will record Alice Cooper this Saturday but I have first row tickets, so I`m not sure how that`s going to go. Here`s the link to my stealth mics if you`re interested. He has some sound samples with a Sharp md and his mics at the bottom of the page.
http://www.giant-squid-audio-lab.com/gs ... ttery1.htm

This place has the best deals in Canada for recorders. It`s where I bought my md.

http://www.minidisc-canada.com/shopdisp ... sc+Players

[CreepingDave]

Thanks Dave,

That clears some things up. So you always plug your mics directly into the mic-in on your iRiver (for what I understand of it, you don't use a pre-amp or batterybox yet)?

What would be a reasonable price for a 2nd hand iRiver H120 then? The cheapest 2nd hand Hi-MD I've come around so far is €130. There is one H120 up for auction on marktplaats.nl but there is no starting price mentioned...

Yeah I always go mic-in into the iriver, it seems to work fine for me, so I didn't/don't want to mess with a system that works for me! A batterybox maybe helpful but for not I just leave it.

I think this seller from America is quite recomended: http://cgi.ebay.com/iRIVER-IHP120-20GB- ... dZViewItem

Quite good price at $150, I think the ones I bought were more than that, but this technology is getting a little old and little interest as a mp3 player these days. I don't know if its a problem buying from America or not. Generally i've seen them go anywhere between $100 and $200, but probably a lower price these days!

I don't want to push or promote this too much on you, its your decision obviously and you should decide what will work best for you.

[Yverish]

I don't want to push or promote this too much on you, its your decision obviously and you should decide what will work best for you.

No problem duder,

I just want to see which alternatives there are for which costs. The iRivers have a HDD, isn't there a chance of crashing it when the device is several years old and used a lot... I guess you don't have those issues with (Hi-)MD, because you use a new storage medium every time.

I'll be talking to my parents to add some cash to the project for my upcoming birthday (on sept. 16th that is, but there might be some interesting stuff to record before that date ). That might make the decision easier. I'll be mailing the Dutch dude for the price he wants to have for his iRiver, I'll be waiting for that.

[Thierry]

The NH600 doesn't have a line-in with volume control, so that one is not an option. Your sample of the NH700 sounds good (mics play a big part in it though), can you set the volume of the line-in during recording?

You definately need a HI-MD recorder (which I have too) - with a mic-in option, so you can arrange the recordingvolume.

[Yverish]

The NH600 doesn't have a line-in with volume control, so that one is not an option. Your sample of the NH700 sounds good (mics play a big part in it though), can you set the volume of the line-in during recording?

You definately need a HI-MD recorder (which I have too) - with a mic-in option, so you can arrange the recordingvolume.

Can you tell me which Hi-MD recorder you have? Is it easy to transfer the recorded files from the MD to your pc?

I can get an almost new (as in used 2 times for recording an interview) Sony MZ-NH700, the same as Duane has, for €130. (This one: HERE) Now I need to talk to my parents into paying a bit of it too

[Pete-Rock]

i have a Sharp MD - MT 770 and is awesome!... anyways people is still saying that DAT is a lot better because is real lossless, my recording are checked and they are lossless but i always tape in LP2.... 150 min mode.

Sorry to say that, but this is nothing but nonsense. MD is lossy, LP2 even more and nobody can label that lossless - which means WITHOUT loss. Normal MD use the ATRAC codec, which is lossy, thats a fact, sorry.

Theres a good explanation on Wikipedia, I copied it:

Compression
The audio on a MiniDisc has traditionally been compressed using the ATRAC format (Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding). ATRAC was devised for MiniDisc so that the same amount of audio a CD can carry can fit on a disc far smaller than the CD. These days ATRAC is used on nearly all current Walkman devices, in addition to other formats. A CD, by contrast, contains uncompressed 16-bit stereo linear PCM audio. In MiniDisc's latest progression, Hi-MD, uncompressed CD-quality linear PCM audio recording and playback is offered in addition to ATRAC compression of varying bitrates—placing Hi-MD on par with uncompressed, CD-quality audio for the first time.
For the full Article CLICK HERE