Minidisc recorders: what are my options?

[HouseFinch]

Due to the conversation I've had in the "Microphone Q's" thread, I've now considered the possibility of buying a minidisc recorder for use in the field. What is the best option for a tight budget? I've thought about looking on Ebay, but I want to know what the best types are first.

One issue that concerns me is that minidiscs can only be used once, or at least that's what I've gathered from reading about them: are there no minidiscs which can be rewritten, rather like a CD-RW? If not, are minidiscs very expensive, and where can they be purchased?

[postcardcv]

One issue that concerns me is that minidiscs can only be used once, or at least that's what I've gathered from reading about them: are there no minidiscs which can be rewritten, rather like a CD-RW? If not, are minidiscs very expensive, and where can they be purchased?

Minidiscs can be used and reused as many times as you like - it's a great format, delivering good sound quality that doesn't degrade no matter how much a disc is used.

I changed my MD recorder last year to buy a HI-MD recorder, this is great as I can get 13 hours of recording on a standard disc or 45 hours on a HI-MD disc. Best advice on buying is to shop around, I ended up getting mine from a local retailer who was about 50% cheaper than the best online price I could find. I've had three MD recorders, all have been Sony and I've been happy with all of them, so would high recommend a Sony MD recorder.

A lot (if not all) of the current MD recorders can be connected to a PC allowing you to move files between the recorder and your PC (look for ones listed with MD-net). This is very useful as it is much easier to edit recordings on a PC than on the actual recorder. You can also use the MD recorder as an external drive and can back up files onto MD.

[HouseFinch]

Minidiscs can be used and reused as many times as you like - it's a great format, delivering good sound quality that doesn't degrade no matter how much a disc is used.

I changed my MD recorder last year to buy a HI-MD recorder, this is great as I can get 13 hours of recording on a standard disc or 45 hours on a HI-MD disc. Best advice on buying is to shop around, I ended up getting mine from a local retailer who was about 50% cheaper than the best online price I could find. I've had three MD recorders, all have been Sony and I've been happy with all of them, so would high recommend a Sony MD recorder.

A lot (if not all) of the current MD recorders can be connected to a PC allowing you to move files between the recorder and your PC (look for ones listed with MD-net). This is very useful as it is much easier to edit recordings on a PC than on the actual recorder. You can also use the MD recorder as an external drive and can back up files onto MD.

All of that is great to hear: I was under the impression that minidiscs are like CD-Rs, which can only be used once. How are the MDs erased, just with the recorder itself?

Does anyone recommend a specific model of Sony Minidisc recorder? Just looking at Amazon.com right now, and the choices are overwhelming. 8-P

[postcardcv]

All of that is great to hear: I was under the impression that minidiscs are like CD-Rs, which can only be used once. How are the MDs erased, just with the recorder itself?

indeed you can simply delete either sinlge tracks or a complete disc using the recorder.

I use the MZ-NH900, which may not be a current model (it's amazing how quickly they seem to change) and am very happy with it. To be honest I think that they are all fairly similar, probably just a matter of deciding if you want a built in radio...

Just had a quick look on Amazon, the MZ-NH600 for $85 (new form a seller) looks like a good buy. It's a decent recorder (though not one of the newest models) and at that price won't break the bank.

[HouseFinch]

indeed you can simply delete either sinlge tracks or a complete disc using the recorder.

I use the MZ-NH900, which may not be a current model (it's amazing how quickly they seem to change) and am very happy with it. To be honest I think that they are all fairly similar, probably just a matter of deciding if you want a built in radio...

Just had a quick look on Amazon, the MZ-NH600 for $85 (new form a seller) looks like a good buy. It's a decent recorder (though not one of the newest models) and at that price won't break the bank.

The MZ-NH600 doesn't seem to have a microphone input(I looked at 'Technical Data')I'll have to look around and be sure that the recorder I look at does have one. I might end up getting an older model, but that doesn't bother me so long as I can record the birds. ;)

[Dave B Smith]

I have the MZ N810. Its a pretty good unit thought about 3 years old now. It has external mic / speaker inputs/outputs. I just bought a Radio Shack Speaker (see recent thread on this from T. Allwood) as the units need a little amplification for field playback.

[ermine]

Only HI-MD units allow you to digitally download to the PC via USB so you really want to go with one of those. I boaught a NH700 new, which is the lowest one with a mic input, and bought another one used on ebay for redundancy.

You can record uncompressed for over an hour with the 1G discs and for 8 hours with the higher compression. The HiMD mic preamps seem to be low-noise designs, which wasn't the case for many of the the older generations of MD.

The ergonomics stink for field recording - to get into manual record level mode you have to futz about with the menu structure, which is hard in the cold with gloves or in low light. I usually do this in the car, set to record pause, record 1sec and pause again, then the unit is ready to go in manual record level. If you don't record the 1 sec it will drop out of record-pause mode after 5 minutes in a misguided attempt to save battery power and you have to go through the horrible menu structure again.

for uncompressed field recording on a budget you can't really beat HiMD.

[HouseFinch]

Only HI-MD units allow you to digitally download to the PC via USB so you really want to go with one of those. I boaught a NH700 new, which is the lowest one with a mic input, and bought another one used on ebay for redundancy.

You can record uncompressed for over an hour with the 1G discs and for 8 hours with the higher compression. The HiMD mic preamps seem to be low-noise designs, which wasn't the case for many of the the older generations of MD.

The ergonomics stink for field recording - to get into manual record level mode you have to futz about with the menu structure, which is hard in the cold with gloves or in low light. I usually do this in the car, set to record pause, record 1sec and pause again, then the unit is ready to go in manual record level. If you don't record the 1 sec it will drop out of record-pause mode after 5 minutes in a misguided attempt to save battery power and you have to go through the horrible menu structure again.

for uncompressed field recording on a budget you can't really beat HiMD.

I'm looking at two HiMD minidisc recorders at the moment, this one: Sony MZ-RH10 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007Y6ALC/sr=8-1/qid=1141980600/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0990971-1494427?%5Fencoding=UTF8) and this one: Sony MZ-NH900 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0001MMH8K/sr=8-2/qid=1141980600/ref=sr_1_2/002-0990971-1494427?%5Fencoding=UTF8)

I know Postcardcv said the MZ-NH900 is a good one, though I'm not sure about the MZ-RH10, I'm just going by if it's a newer product and has a mic input.

One thing that concerns me, is that some reviewers say that you cannot transfer your own recordings to a computer, to be burned onto a CD, for copyright issues: is there a way around this? I would love to be able to make CDs of my bird sound recordings.

[ermine]

Ignore what the reviewers say. They are wrong/out of date. With my NH700, I download using USB and Sonicstage 3.4 digitally. Sonicstage is one of the ugliest pieces of software I have ever seen and the user interface stinks. But it will d/l your MD tracks and convert them to WAV for you, which you can then edit with Audacity or whatever.

HiMD uses a sampling rate of 44.1kHz at 2x16 bits which is exactly what you need for CD so you can make a CD which has exactly the same data, bit for bit, as you recorded on the HiMD (assuming you record PCM uncompressed that is). In practice you'll need to equalise gain and trim bits, but the rub is you do NOT lose signal quality in the transfer process - again provided you record PCM uncompressed on the HiMD.

With Sonicstage 3.4 I believe you can even re-upload your tracks to Hi-MD and re-download them, though I see no reason to do this, as CD-R blanks are cheaper for storing your final results.

The reviews you saw are probably from more than 6 months ago, when Sony used to have all sorts of stupid restrictions about transferring from HiMD - you could only transfer tracks you recorded from the analog inputs, and you could only transfer this once etc etc in a daft attempt to kowtow to copyright rules. All this rubbish is gone - you can now download digitally even from digital recordings using the optical input to the deck which used to be a no-no

To wit -
To the surprise of many in the community, Sonicstage 3.4 has arrived with features that truly make this a worthy upgrade for Hi-MD users by allowing unencumbered uploading of analog and now digital (optical, USB) recordings: e.g. a user can transfer tracks to Hi-MD formatted disc, remove tracks from library, and fully upload back onto any computer without DRM woes OR record audio using optical in and upload to Sonicstage with the ability to convert to WAV (PCM).

read more about this here (http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=14137)

Hi-MD is the answer for low-cost high-quality field recording, and indeed any field recording where you will be away from mains power/computer downloading as the reusable blanks are cheaper compared to CF cards. the nearest competing technology is something like the Edirol R-1 CF recorder (inbuilt mics, nice record level knob, no phantom power) or the
m-audio microtrack (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MicroTrack2496-main.html) (no inbuilt mics, ugly up/down rec level control, but with phantom power for really high-quality mics). The main things wrong with HiMD is the really horrible record level setting procedure, and the lack of 48v phantom power. The phantom power supply of my field recording rig weighs more and is bigger than the Hi-MD recorder!

For the microphones you're considering the lack of 48V phantom power isn't an issue and you could go up to mics of the quality of Sennheiser ME66/K6 series before it becomes an issue.

[griffin]

Ignore what the reviewers say. They are wrong/out of date. With my NH700, I download using USB and Sonicstage 3.4 digitally.


See this thread :

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=52761

I think this member was having problems transfering Audio that she had recorded. Not sure if MZ-N700 series are same as NH-700 series ? I don't think so ?

I use an old MZ-N710 and just assumed I could not use Sonic Stage to upload files I have recorded in the field so use headphone output. Didn't even install Sonic Stage based on the reviews advice I was given.

I do have a MZ-NH900 though so may switch ( I have been saving it till I get my new mic system !!! ) if it works as well as you say.

Linz

[ermine]

See this thread :

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=52761

I think this member was having problems transfering Audio that she had recorded. Not sure if MZ-N700 series are same as NH-700 series ? I don't think so ?



What they need to know is whether the unit is a Hi-MD unit or not. NetMD units also connect via the USB port but only allow you to send data TO the MD which isn't any use for the field recordist

you can find your MD here (http://www.minidisc.org/equipment_browser.html) if you don't know the capabilities. I can't find the OP's NZ-MZ10. There is a Sony MZ-N10 which is a NetMD recorder, which is not a HiMD model and therefore they will not be able to d/l digitally through the USB port.

If you are buying a MD for field recording, then only consider HiMD. The only way of transferring field recordings from previous MD recorders is to re-record the analogue aut of the headphone socket - basically raise volume to 3/4 of full scale and use a 3.5mm stereo minijack to minijack to the line in of your soundcard and record with the PC and something like Audacity. Done competently this can give perfectly serviceable results, but since the MD recording is digital this involves a small extra needless stage of loss of signal quality due to Sony's stupid digital rights restrictions.

HiMD recorders are the only MD recorders capable of recording uncompressed audio which is recommended for bird recordings to avoid artefacts from the compression technology according to Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/MacaulayLibrary/contribute/equipMd.html) .

The capability to download, and the uncompressed recording capability are the reasons why I moved to HiMD form my old Kenwood MD. I have always been able to d/l from the HiMD using Sonicstage over the past couple of years, but before you could only download once (the stupid DRM would mark the original so you couldn't d/l again) and the software was flakey to say the least. Now it is just ugly, but reasonably reliable. It is still inadvisable to edit a HiMD in the field before downloading. I did this once and lost the recording, but I stopped that and haven't had a problem since.

So Housefinch should fear not - as long as you get a HiMD recorder you will be able to digitally download your recording via USB at CD samplerate and bit depth using sonicstage. Use 3.4 or later if available - do a fresh d/l rather than use the CD which comes in the box which is usually a couple of versions behind.

Owners of non-HiMDs don't have that d/l capability and probably never will. Likewise a HiMD will NOT transfer digitally a recording made on a non-HiMD recorder, although it will play it through the headphone socket, due to Sony's DRM stupidity. But I can forgive them that - enough sense has prevailed that HiMD has now been liberated from all this daftness. HiMDs will download their own field recordings even if the recording is made on a standard MD blank formatted in the Hi-MD recorder, but such recordings won't play in non-HiMD equipment.

[griffin]

Very comprehensive Ermine, cheers. Looks like I was right advising them to use the Headphone output like I have to on the 710. I am inspired to get going with the Mz-NH900 I bought in May - it is still in the box !

Linz

[HouseFinch]

So Housefinch should fear not - as long as you get a HiMD recorder you will be able to digitally download your recording via USB at CD samplerate and bit depth using sonicstage. Use 3.4 or later if available - do a fresh d/l rather than use the CD which comes in the box which is usually a couple of versions behind.

Ah, that clears everything up, no worries now. |=)| I'll be putting $$ aside for a HiMD recorder. Only thing is that I hope the recordings I make will have less hiss than my laptop's soundcard gives me. :D Either way, being able to record bird sounds digitally in the field is something I've wanted to do for years, so that should make the recorder pay for itself.

[ermine]

recordings I make will have less hiss than my laptop's soundcard gives me.

The HiMD mic preamplifiers are actaullly rather good (the Sony line seem to use a common mic preamp design) and actually better than the M-Audio, according to this

For ambience and recording in quiet places, recordists might be pleased to learn they can get much more gain and significantly less noise with a lowly HiMD recorder with condenser mics powered with a portable phantom supply like the Roll PB224. Here's a test I did running very low noise Rode NT1-A mics through a MT, Sony NH900 HiMD and a Sound Devices 722 with all units at full gain to reveal the warts.

you can read the test and find the link to the audio here (http://talk.transom.org/WebX?128@556.dd1XaG9wD5h.0@.eeb68f2)

With a HiMD recorder your microphone self-noise is likely to be by far the greatest source of hiss, rathaer than the HiMD. With a laptop soundcard this is not necessarily the case ;) It will see you right all the way up to a Sennheiser ME66/K6 combo.

If the hiss of your ATR55 is too much, one low-ish cost mic you might want to try in the field if mono is OK for you is the Sennheiser MKE300 shotgun which is designed for video cameras. It has a reasonably low self-noise, and is rolled off below 300Hz which means wind noise and handling noise is much reduced. Specs are
here (http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheiser/icm_eng.nsf/root/03171)

[HouseFinch]

Wow, I was impressed by the audio file of comparisons, to say the least! It is MUCH quieter than my laptop soundcard's 'hissy fits' :'D(An example sound file is posted in 'Microphone Q's', near the bottom of the thread).

I greatly anticipate my next digital upgrade.^^ Being able to not only watch, but record the birds I see will be a dream come true. |:d| A prime example will be in the summer down by a small bridge in my area, where there is always a colony of various species of swallows, and I can see and hear them up close.

[tony_p]

Hi,

I've just posted this to another forum but wondered what advice you guys in here could give me.

Hi,

I am currently using a Sharp Net MD mindisc recorder to record the various sounds of nature. However, I understand that Net MD and indeed possibly MD could be on the way out for this type of activity. I am in a bit of a panic as if my current recorder blows up, I am stuck. Alongside this, when back from a day out, I retrieve my recordings by playing the MD in a mindisc stereo (Sony Hi-Fi) and then copy to cassette tape. So a further problem could soon be apparent when the Stereo Hi-Fi packs in.

What advice can anyone give me or what alternatives are out there or are ensuing?

Cheers

Tony :h?:
tony_powell@ntlworld.com

[griffin]

Hi,

I've just posted this to another forum but wondered what advice you guys in here could give me.

Hi,

I am currently using a Sharp Net MD mindisc recorder to record the various sounds of nature. However, I understand that Net MD and indeed possibly MD could be on the way out for this type of activity. I am in a bit of a panic as if my current recorder blows up, I am stuck. Alongside this, when back from a day out, I retrieve my recordings by playing the MD in a mindisc stereo (Sony Hi-Fi) and then copy to cassette tape. So a further problem could soon be apparent when the Stereo Hi-Fi packs in.

What advice can anyone give me or what alternatives are out there or are ensuing?

Cheers

Tony :h?:
tony_powell@ntlworld.com


You could use a "flash" or digital recorder as described by Lachlustre in this section. Or, god forbid, a good ole' fashioned tape recorder ! I don't think MD will be scrapped outright, but they are probably slightly obseleted/threatened by the current Mp3 iPod situation. We have to remember that MD came out in the early 90's and as I remember it flopped big time. It was the "download" culture that resurrected it in the late 90's but this is now the domain of Mp3 players. Maybe they (Mp3's) will become better for us sound recordists in the future, if not already ?

Linz

Linz

[ermine]

Tony,

I am puzzled why anyone with a computer would use cassette these days. Get the free program

audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) for your particular computer platform

To transfer your MD recordings, get a 3.5mm stereo jack to jack lead. Connect one end to the MD recorder headphone output and set the MD volume control to about 75% of full scale. Connect the other end your computer sound card line input (not the mic in). Adjust record levels (on a PC) with the sound mixer - in the record panel select line in. Set Audacity to 44.1kHz stereo 16 bits. Copy your MDs, trim, and the resulting wavs will be in the right file format to burn to an audio CD with your favourite CD creating app. You will get much better sound quality than copying to cassette, and CD players will be around in some form for a long time to come.

If you go that way the longevity of your MD gear isn't an issue. It only has to last between you recording and you transferring to CD format. When and if it breaks down, get whatever is the right field recorder for your budget at the time - the technology will only improve, as long as you avoid Ipods and ther ilk. If you want an easier and more accurate transfer process get a HiMD and transfer digitally via the USB but remember this will not transfer your old MD recordings digitally, only ones you make with the new machine.

[tony_p]

You could use a "flash" or digital recorder as described by Lachlustre in this section. Or, god forbid, a good ole' fashioned tape recorder ! I don't think MD will be scrapped outright, but they are probably slightly obseleted/threatened by the current Mp3 iPod situation. We have to remember that MD came out in the early 90's and as I remember it flopped big time. It was the "download" culture that resurrected it in the late 90's but this is now the domain of Mp3 players. Maybe they (Mp3's) will become better for us sound recordists in the future, if not already ?

Linz

Linz

Cheers Linz,

If say, MP3's are better, would I be able to download those to CD/DVD for listening pleasure on my Hi-Fi?

Also, where can I find this Lachlustre post.

Thanks

Tony :hi:

[tony_p]

Tony,

I am puzzled why anyone with a computer would use cassette these days. Get the free program

audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) for your particular computer platform

To transfer your MD recordings, get a 3.5mm stereo jack to jack lead. Connect one end to the MD recorder headphone output and set the MD volume control to about 75% of full scale. Connect the other end your computer sound card line input (not the mic in). Adjust record levels (on a PC) with the sound mixer - in the record panel select line in. Set Audacity to 44.1kHz stereo 16 bits. Copy your MDs, trim, and the resulting wavs will be in the right file format to burn to an audio CD with your favourite CD creating app. You will get much better sound quality than copying to cassette, and CD players will be around in some form for a long time to come.

If you go that way the longevity of your MD gear isn't an issue. It only has to last between you recording and you transferring to CD format. When and if it breaks down, get whatever is the right field recorder for your budget at the time - the technology will only improve, as long as you avoid Ipods and ther ilk. If you want an easier and more accurate transfer process get a HiMD and transfer digitally via the USB but remember this will not transfer your old MD recordings digitally, only ones you make with the new machine.

Hi,

How user-friendly is this Audacity malarkey.

This business with the copying to CD sounds very feasible and probably more useful. I am not very technically minded as you are no doubt aware and would appreciate a few pointers as to how I achieve the results you had previously suggested.

It's good to see that the MD issue is not a problem, but I still wonder what I should use in the field. I wonder what the professional sound recordists use?

Thanks again

Tony

[lachlustre]

Hi,

How user-friendly is this Audacity malarkey.

This business with the copying to CD sounds very feasible and probably more useful. I am not very technically minded as you are no doubt aware and would appreciate a few pointers as to how I achieve the results you had previously suggested.

It's good to see that the MD issue is not a problem, but I still wonder what I should use in the field. I wonder what the professional sound recordists use?

Thanks again

Tony

Hi Tony,
I guess I'm a "professional sound recordist" in the sense that I'm a postdoc in a bioacoustics lab (Leiden University)... if that's what you mean!

First of all, I also recommend Audacity for basic sound editing. In our lab, we have tried a variety of software: CoolEdit, Goldwave, Avisoft, SIGNAL, SoundAnalysisPro, MatLab, just off the top of my head, and I am writing my own sound analysis, databasing program that I will launch to an unsuspecting world later this year. Audacity is about as easy to use as I could imagine, and, even better, it is a free software project, so is guaranteed to remain free. And it does seem very active with frequent updates. I would give it a look at least.

We also use a wide variety of recording hardware. We still have a stack of professional cassette recorders (Sony Professional Walkman) that are very sturdy in the field, and not to be written off entirely. We had one project in Uganda a couple of years ago that actually used a Creative Jukebox mp3 player for recordings! This is one of those 30GB laptop harddisks-in-a-box devices: no extra media required. But, it is annoying for recording because you can't alter recording level in the middle of a track. Also, it has the tendency to skip if you knock it during recording. But it served its purpose ok, I think. For the last couple of years, I have been using Marantz PMD-670 flash-disk recorders. I'm very happy with them. They are extremely sturdy, and survived field-bashing without a problem. The recording quality is excellent (particularly if you avoid using the recorder's own microphone preamp).

They use flash-disks, just like digital cameras, and the way that you transfer recordings to a computer is very analogous to the way you might use a digital camera too. You just connect the flash card to a computer, and copy the wav files (instead of jpg's) onto your hard disk. Then, rather than using Photoshop to tidy up your pictures, you can use Audacity to clear up the recordings.

You should note that this method is technically superior to the method that Ermine mentioned with the MiniDiscs. Every time you convert sounds from analog to digital, you lose some information. Using the Marantz recorders, this operation is performed once, in the recorder, then you transfer the digital recordings directly to your computer. With the MiniDisc method, you convert the analog sound to a digital format inside the minidisc, back to an analog signal to pipe into the computer's Line-in jack, and then back again to a digital signal using the computer's soundcard (which may be a weak link in the process if you have a laptop, or a cheap soundcard).


With a 1GB flash disk (now quite cheap, and fairly easy to replace all over the world), I found it impossible to run out of recording space in one field session. The 2s prerecord function is really handy for birds that call intermittently (in this mode, the machine constantly records into a buffer in its memory, and when you hit the record button, it transfers the buffer onto the flash disk: you magically record the 2s before you hit "record"!).

The main problem with them is the battery life: they take 8 AA batteries, which need to be changed every day in the field, more or less. That is why I would strongly recommend the smaller PMD-660: we just have 2 in the lab now, but I haven't used them in the field. They are half the size, half the price, they only use 4 AA batteries, and the battery life is much longer (8 hours, I think). They miss some of the functions of the larger PMD-670, but I don't think there's anything gone that a wildlife recorder would really miss.

We haven't used Minidiscs in the lab very much. The lossy-compression in the earlier minidiscs made them unsuitable for many analysis tasks, and the uncompressed modern versions seem to have been superceded by the flash disk recorders. We had a couple that were used for a while, but they don't seem to be used very much these days. But that doesn't mean they are a bad idea, and I know that some other research groups are now using them.

[ermine]

Audacity's not too bad. Best way is to d/l it and test it out. It's a clean piece of software, doesn't take over your machine etc. Try it out - take it for a spin and see how you get one. If you hate it, uninstall it

The biggest piece of pain you get with recording on a PC platform is realising that the audio card has two independent mixers. One is for what you hear. And the other is for what you record. So if you double click on the speaker icon in the taskbar you get a mixer panel up and in the top left it says play control. If you select options, then properties in the top left menu of the mixer it will say adjust volume for playback (checked) or recording. You want to tick recording, and tick the line in and microphone control. Or just tick all of them. The mixer will now say record control, and you want to select line in (or microphone, or whatever).

You should note that this method is technically superior to the method that Ermine mentioned with the MiniDiscs.

agreed. It's worth noting however, that HiMD allows direct digital transfer of a recording to the PC, so with that technology the copy is bit-perfect in the same way as a flash card recorder transfer is. But the OP does not have a HiMD, so he must use analogue transfer

If say, MP3's are better

No. Avoid like the plague. They are not better. Keep your digital data uncompressed. Signal quality once lost can never be regained.

[griffin]

If Battery life is an issue my MZ-710 will run all day (8-12 hours ) using the attachable cradle and battery accessory. It also fits in the palm of my hand. Ermine has already mentioned using the pause function to avoid the set-up polava. I thing the 660 has battery of 4 hours ? I am nor sure if mine has lossy compression but all the sonograms I have created look fine, and I record in MONO which is LPG4 ( I think ).

Sorry doing this between lessons !

Life in the humble ole' Mini Disc yet.

Linz

[lachlustre]

Griffin, Ermine,

Here's a question that I've been meaning to ask MiniDisk recorders: how well designed are they for use in the field? In my opinion, ergonomics and usability are almost as important for sound recorders as they are for cameras - perhaps more so as you have to keep looking up and down from recorder at your waist to bird in the tree. My most frustrating moments have been trying to hit the right button with blue fingers at dawn in the frost, or being unable to control the recording level properly because the screen was hard to see. Or the bird flying off in some unknown direction while doing all of the above.

I love the Marantz recorder I have because it is a continuation of their field journalist cassette-recorder equipment: everything just works very simply and easily, and everything is very solid. The minidisc recorders that I've seen don't seem to have the same design (although there's no reason why someone couldn't design a minidisc recorder with these characteristics, in principle).

Also: how well do minidiscs deal with being shaken around? Hardisk recorders have to be very expensive before they deal with this, and I could imagine anything with a spinning disk inside would have this problem.

A couple of other points: Ermine: point taken about the minidisc recording. I also agree that that isn;t a reason in itself to upgrade equipment just for field recording.
Second: I feel a bit bad about passing myself off as a "professional" sound-recordist. I mean, I am (its part of what I get paid for), but most biologists who study bird song are not the world's biggest experts in sound recording equipment. We're mostly interested in birds and animal behaviour like most people on this site! I've probably done a little more background research in acoustics, and equipment than most of my peers, but I still wouldn't class myself as an expert in equipment: its not like I could build one from scratch!

[ermine]

I can only speak for my Sony MZ-NH700which you can see here (http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-NH700.html)

The good points are -

small - you can always have it with you and not notice the weight, say when combined with a Sennheiser MK300D or something like the Soundman binaurals. MDs are smaller than any CF recorder I've so far seen

in the case of HiMD - Awesomely quiet mic preamps. Better than the Marantz you're using :) click here (http://talk.transom.org/WebX?14@137.ycSRabhcFY3.0@.eeb68f2/22) for a test result. That obviously isn't so much of a benefit with the above mics, but is for my MKH30/40

cheap media 1GB size. No economic imperative to d/l in the field

cheap - my second NH700 was £50 on ebay

great battery life - can record 24hours if on the HiMDLP mode for those trawling sessions.


Bad points are

Really ugly ergonomics to start manual recording - the process is

press rec-pause
press nav/menu for 1sec or more
scroll 6 steps to rec/set
scroll 2 steps to rec vol
set manual

and you're off. Nice rotatey wheel thing to actually set rec level and this works while in pause or in recrod mode (didn't always with previous Sony MDs apparently). Easy to use with gloves in the cold, but the buttons are hard. You want to do this before setting off. You can also use a LCD remote and use the pause button on that - the display flashes in pause and counts up in rec mode.

rec level indicator is 2x 6 level bargraph and overload indication. Serviceable but not great. Don't push this into the top three bars on birdsong - I don't think that the attack time is great.

No 48v phantom power. Well, whaddya expect ;) shame, as the preamps do cut it with genuine condenser mics, so you have to tote a phantom power unit and 12V of batteries as well if you are using them.


The main drag is the agonising 'start record' process. So the MD field recordist runs in rec/pause most of the time. And curses if he accidentally presses stop because that means that process has to be gone through again.

Seriously though, the quality of the uncompressed recording is excellent (there is another comparison by Rob Danielson of a HiMD with Rode NT1s and a Sound Devices 722 somewhere which showed the transparency of the HiMD was not totally outclassed audibly though the SD did have the edge - as it should)

For someone with a budget of less that £2000 I wouldn't hesitate to recommend they go HiMD for £50 on ebay and spend whatever they have left on their microphones. I considered switching to the Edirol R1 or the M-audio Microtrack but on discovering I was going to gain ergonomics and lose preamp signal quality (in the case of the microtrack, and the Marantz 660) and still not have 48V phantom power (in the case of the Edirol) I figured I'd need to go up to something like this Nagra (http://www.wildlife-sound.org/equipment/nagra_ares_p2.html). Since I do this for fun and not professionally I can't justify spending £1000+ for the ergonomic improvement. At least not at the moment ;)

Griffin, where do you find is a good place for recording Crossbills - I'll to be up Inverness way in a month or so and I'd like to add this species?

[griffin]

Hi Lachlustre,

I think the fact you get paid to sound record birds in the field def. qualifies you as a professional ! :-)

MD's, as Ermine has pointed out, ARE a pain the ass to use, and just like most equip have some quirks and flaws, as well as pros. My biggest gripe is that it sometimes fails to write to disc, so much so that I TOC edit every five or six recordings then go through the setup as described by Ermine. I once lost a whole day of Scotbill calls , 19 tracks in total as the machine decided to fail. Had to go back next day to resample and didn't see nearly as many birds. Wouldn't have been as bad but a couple of colleagues ( who are sceptical of sonogram stuff ) were with me and I looked like a real dick. The linear PCM is supposed to be a boon for sonograms but as I have said the lower qualities produce perfectly acceptable graphs - may not be good for other stuff though ?

They seem pretty robust - my 710 has been dropped on concrete twice, cracked, superglued and the battery cradle is held on with gaffa tape ( NOT professional ! ). It also stopped working when it got soaked, but once it dried out it worked again. I now carry it in a sandwhich bag with a silca gel sachet so it keeps rain and mositure out. Now you can see why I am reluctant to use the new one.

I am actually seriously considering a 660, though have read on Forums that it can be a bit noisy ?? I like its compact size, though will need spare batteries as at this time of year I need standby for 8-9 hours continuous field recording. I even considered going for a tape one but they are such heavy bugg:ers.

Linz

[griffin]

Griffin, where do you find is a good place for recording Crossbills - I'll to be up Inverness way in a month or so and I'd like to add this species?

Abernethy/Glenmore area is your best bet for that area, plus some sites in Black Isle. There are lots about at Culbin Forest ( Common ) just now I believe. Actually, its hard to go anywhere up here just now without seeing them ! We have them all round Aberdeen at the moment.

If you get any down your way please send me a WAV. Would love to compare the "types" that are in England ( that irrupted June 2005 ) to the ones we have here, which are more sedentary plus the ones that came in to last Summer.

Linz

[lachlustre]

MD's, as Ermine has pointed out, ARE a pain the ass to use, and just like most equip have some quirks and flaws, as well as pros. My biggest gripe is that it sometimes fails to write to disc, so much so that I TOC edit every five or six recordings then go through the setup as described by Ermine. I once lost a whole day of Scotbill calls at Glen Derry, 19 tracks in total as the machine decided to fail. Had to go back next day to resample and didn't see nearly as many birds. Wouldn't have been as bad but a couple of colleagues ( who are sceptical of sonogram stuff ) were with me and I looked like a real dick. The linear PCM is supposed to be a boon for sonograms but as I have said the lower qualities produce perfectly acceptable graphs - may not be good for other stuff though ?

They seem pretty robust - my 710 has been dropped on concrete twice, cracked, superglued and the battery cradle is held on with gaffa tape ( NOT professional ! ). It also stopped working when it got soaked, but once it dried out it worked again. I now carry it in a sandwhich bag with a silca gel sachet so it keeps rain and mositure out. Now you can see why I am reluctant to use the new one.

I am actually seriously considering a 660, though have read on Forums that it can be a bit noisy ?? I like its compact size, though will need spare batteries as at this time of year I need standby for 8-9 hours continuous field recording. I even considered going for a tape one but they are such heavy bugg:ers.

Linz

The Sennheiser set-up I use (ME66/K6) is quite loud, which makes it a good choice for the Marantz 670... as I said, we have only just got the 660's: I'm not really sure if there is a marked difference in quality yet. With the PMD-670, we had to go out with 16 spare AA batteries for the two units, which was a bit ridiculous! At least there are only 4 needed for the 660, and I think the battery life is right at the edge of your requirements anyway...

It sounds like the Marantz is definitely a good choice with respect to ergonomics and reliability. But if I was paying for it out of my own pocket, well, the Marantz will run you more than $500 (if you can get it in the states), including CF card.

[griffin]

Abernethy/Glenmore area is your best bet for that area, plus some sites in Black Isle. There are lots about at Culbin Forest ( Common ) just now I believe. Actually, its hard to go anywhere up here just now without seeing them ! We have them all round Aberdeen at the moment.

If you get any down your way please send me a WAV. Would love to compare the "types" that are in England ( that irrupted June 2005 ) to the ones we have here, which are more sedentary plus the ones that came in to last Summer.

Linz

Sorry I can't give out grid refs or specific sites as all Loxia are Schedule 1 and Scottish and Parrot are sitting on eggs right now, but suffice to say they are pretty easy to find if you recognize their calls.

Linz
Linz

[griffin]

It sounds like the Marantz is definitely a good choice with respect to ergonomics and reliability. But if I was paying for it out of my own pocket, well, the Marantz will run you more than $500 (if you can get it in the states), including CF card.

Can get it here in UK £395 without card - I have loads for the camera anyway ! Probably cheaper to buy from Germany like the mics !

Linz

[ermine]

Sorry I can't give out grid refs or specific sites

sure, understood ;) I dipped on them when they came to Lackford Lakes last year. I'll let you know if I get some down sarf.

Take a look at a HiMD as they're pretty good value on ebay what with the Ipod-mania combined with Sony's copyright follies. And the PCM recording is the business when using the 1G discs, particularly if you're into analysis/sonagrams.

I haven't had the sort of TOC hell you have had with the exception of once when I was using Sonictstage 3.1 and I had edited the himd in the field to gain some more recording time. I don't do that now, ever, and haven't had a problem.

I think the HiMD stores the audio in a buffer and then writes to disk at intervals, unlike the older units that write continuously. I haven't lost the recording even when I dropped the recorder while recording, which would have been instant recording death on the older units.

One thing people who haven't used MD should know where MD doesn't score is the process of writing to disc isn't totally silent and is an intermittent sound. You need to keep the MD in a pocket, in the dead zone of the mic or at least 2m away for nature recordings.

[griffin]

sure, understood ;) I dipped on them when they came to Lackford Lakes last year. I'll let you know if I get some down sarf.

Take a look at a HiMD as they're pretty good value on ebay what with the Ipod-mania combined with Sony's copyright follies.

Yeah "my other one" (!) is a MZ-NH900 but have only recorded Sparrows and other finches in the garden. My mic is MONO so the PCM is not much use as it records in stereo - only records to left channel. Have tried adapters but they just add noise. Must make sure the new mike does stereo to use PCM, which is basically why I bought it ?

There have been some great pics of xbills down middle England way on Birdguides recently. The photographers look like they would have been close enough to get decent sound recordings even with something crappy. Anyone fancy getting me some calls ?

Linz

[ermine]

My mic is MONO so the PCM is not much use as it records in stereo - only records to left channel.
Linz

That's the beauty of the Sonicstage usb download. Stick the stereo wav into Audacity and nut out the right channel to keep just the left - you now get a 50% space saving as an added bonus with no loss of signal quality :) CDs need a stereo wav so there you just copy the left channel onto the right.

On my Sennheiser MKE 300 which is also mono I made an inline adaptor which copies the left channel to the right but with a 20dB attenuation, so the right channel is the same as the left by quieter. The advantage of that is is something flies out in front of me and gets overloaded, I can patch in that section from the right channel which often as not isn't overloaded.

[griffin]

That's the beauty of the Sonicstage usb download. Stick the stereo wav into Audacity and nut out the right channel to keep just the left - you now get a 50% space saving as an added bonus with no loss of signal quality :) CDs need a stereo wav so there you just copy the left channel onto the right.

On my Sennheiser MKE 300 which is also mono I made an inline adaptor which copies the left channel to the right but with a 20dB attenuation, so the right channel is the same as the left by quieter. The advantage of that is is something flies out in front of me and gets overloaded, I can patch in that section from the right channel which often as not isn't overloaded.

I didn't make what I said very clear, sorry. The PCM mode on the 900 only records in stereo, so with a mono mic it only records the left channel to disc, and this seems at a lower overall level than if in true stereo or in MONO mode (which I normally use ).

The inline adapter boost sounds good though, esp. for distant chippy xbill calls. I did consider a FEL pre amp / boost. Any experience of these ?


Cheers,

Linz

[ermine]

I didn't make what I said very clear, sorry. The PCM mode on the 900 only records in stereo, so with a mono mic it only records the left channel to disc, and this seems at a lower overall level than if in true stereo or in MONO mode (which I normally use ).

The inline adapter boost sounds good though, esp. for distant chippy xbill calls. I did consider a FEL pre amp / boost. Any experience of these ?


HiMD has no mono option at all. That's not a problem as if you d/l the recording to your computer you can either delete the right-hand channel to save hard disc space by making a mono wav or duplicate the left channel onto the right which will will be right for a CD and not give you a one-sided result in headphones. I agree with you it is a shame that there isn't a mono option which would double the running time, guess Sony didn't see a call for it.

A FEL mic preamp isn't needed for the HiMD as the Sony mic preamps are low noise to start with. You only need a FEL preamp if the input stages are noisy, which is probably the case on your old NetMD deck but not on the new. On manual gain you can normally boost the record level so high that normal ambient noise and mic background hiss move the lower meter bars. If that isn't the case you have either a faulty HiMD, an unusually low sensitivity microphone or perhaps you haven't set the Mic Sens to high in the mode -> rec set menu of the 900?

[HouseFinch]

No. Avoid like the plague. They are not better. Keep your digital data uncompressed. Signal quality once lost can never be regained.

I usually convert my WAV files to MP3 just before I burn them to a CD-R, as the WAV files by themselves are much too large to fit on the CD: am I doing the wrong thing? I never notice a difference between the MP3s and the WAVs, when I set CDex to "Very High Quality" in regards to converted files.

Is there another way I could shrink down my WAV files?

[griffin]

HiMD has no mono option at all.

Hi Ermine,

You are absolutely right, can only do MONO in MD mode on the 900, which is why I have just stuck to using the MZ-710.

I am sure when I originally tested it the signal appeared "weak" only going to one channel of the stereo spectrum due to the mono mic. Would this be the case ? Perhaps this is just an aural illusion and if I copy it like you say I may get a full strength signal ? Will have a play about today in the garden - the snow and especially high winds here today means that going out looking for and recording xbills is a tad pointless. There is always tommorrow !

Linz

[ermine]

WAV files by themselves are much too large to fit on the CD: am I doing the wrong thing?

Good on you. You should challenge sweeping generalisations like 'avoid mp3' :) It's a bit long-winded, but the difference is illustrated

on here (http://www.suffolkbirds.co.uk/article/35/first-law-of-signal-processing)

I was going for dramatic effect to counter the impression Tony had been given that MP3 was 'better'. For most listening by human ears MP3 is perfectly serviceable. You can hear the difference in my blackbird recording but you have to work at it. I don't think you have Turdus merula in America but you'd recognize one from the mp3 with no trouble. MP3 has its place - I have a copy of the 4 CD bird sounds of Britain and Europe on one mp3 CD in my car as it's that much more convenient, though if I know I want to recognise a particular call in the field I listen to one of the real CDs on my stereo first. One of the bird calls that is a lot easier to hear the distortion mp3 introduces is that of a European Starling but I wouldn't want to inflict that species on you ;)

It's a lot of effort to get yourself and your equipment in the field, and I feel that having done all that work I don't want to close off my options in future. So when I get my recordings I first grade then into the ones I can toss - the ones hopelessly marred with aircraft noise, vehicles, dogs, you know the score. Of those that are left, I keep a copy of the raw field recording WAVs on DVDs as lossless compressed FLACs, because one day in future there may be a detail I am interested in and I do not want to throuw anything away. I then edit, often have to high-pass filter because England is a noisy place with too many vehicles and above all far too many aircraft, and then I can put this wav on a CD and store the edited wav and CD cue sheet on another DVD.

Your requirements may be different. I can't record for long periods before extraneous noise interrupts the session, so I never end up with recordings longer than a CD, other that my weekly trawl to sample the dawn chorus on Sundays, which I store as a stereo FLAC of three hours each. If data storage is a problem for you, however, since you record mono you can probably reduce your data to fit nearly four hours onto a CD wthout resorting to compression by -

using Audacity to throw out one channel, making your wav a mono wav, since you are recording with a mono microphone. That will get to to about two and a bit hours on a 700Mb CD. Using FLAC which is free from

here (http://flac.sourceforge.net/) will let you pack your data in about 60% of the space previously needed. So you can probably cut your storage needs by two thirds without MP3.

What matters, ultimately, is that your recordings give you pleasure, and MP3 can do that fine. However, if you ever want to analyse your recordings, or think someone might, then you need to think about that decision a little bit more. And whatever people might try and have us believe, a MP3 file is never better than the original.

[ermine]

Hi Ermine,
You are absolutely right, can only do MONO in MD mode on the 900, which is why I have just stuck to using the MZ-710.
Linz

I didn't realize the 900 would do mono under any circumstances! Shame the MD mode is still subject to the Sony download restrictions otherwise that would have been more useful to me under some cases :(

If only one channel is playing the amount of sound you get on replay is 6dB down, but the one-sidedness does seem to make that difference seem a little more. The metering should show you in record if you are getting about the same amount of modulation onto the disc with the same mic and source using each deck. Give it a go and also consider tinkering with the mic sens on the hiMD - that should be set to High. I had a try today with my MKE300 mic and that seems fine after conversion to mono. I just couldn't go back to an original MD after being spoilt by the uncompressed recording and the usb download!

[griffin]

I didn't realize the 900 would do mono under any circumstances! .....
If only one channel is playing the amount of sound you get on replay is 6dB down, but the one-sidedness does seem to make that difference seem a little more.

Yeah, the 900 has two modes of op, MD and Hi-MD.

Does the machine RECORD the signal at -6dB, or does the full signal go on to one channel ? If it records at full strength I am happy to double it to stereo as you describe. If it records at -6dB that is not so good with the soft clippy calls I work with - they are sometimes faint as it is.

I always set mic sens HIGH and have the OEM ATR55 on TELE to maximise signal and directionality. Have produced some really good results but really do need to go to the "next level" now !

Cheers,

Linz

[griffin]

The Sennheiser set-up I use (ME66/K6) is quite loud

Would you still recommend the ME67 'long-gun' over the ME66 'short gun' for my finch work ( or is at a typo ;) ? ). The 67 looks a bit of a beast !


Linz

[ermine]

Yeah, the 900 has two modes of op, MD and Hi-MD.

Does the machine RECORD the signal at -6dB, or does the full signal go on to one channel ? If it records at full strength I am happy to double it to stereo as you describe.

Full signal to one channel. The 6dB loss is because you haven't got a correlated signal on the other channnel, which would normally be sourced from the RH capsule of a stereo mic.

[HouseFinch]

One of the bird calls that is a lot easier to hear the distortion mp3 introduces is that of a European Starling but I wouldn't want to inflict that species on you ;)

Aw, but I love European Starlings! They're so beautiful, and their capacity to mimic is incredible |:d| For that matter, I view no bird species as a 'pest' or 'nuisance', since all birds simply do what comes naturally: this can only be interpreted as a 'bad' thing when birds are placed in a different environment from which they are native. So, I've nothing against Starlings, I'm in awe of them just as much as any other species of bird. But, I digress.

Listening to those two sound clips, I actually can hear a difference, when I pay close attention. And, this brings to mind an experience I had recently, when I recorded House Finches as a WAV file, then changed it to MP3: I noticed that the MP3 seemed softer, just like what I can hear now in the blackbird audio. Looks like I'll be giving FLAC a try. ;)

I've also heard about Ogg Vorbis being used as an alternate format. I don't know much about it, how 'lossy' is it by comparison?

[ermine]

So, I've nothing against Starlings, I'm in awe of them just as much as any other species of bird. But, I digress.



Well, in that case take this starling conference (http://www.suffolkbirds.co.uk/article/36/starling-conference) for a spin. I've never tried a sonogram of starling song before but I had observed that starling noise is particularly hit by MP3 and it's nice that the science backs this up so clearly - the detail in the top end is pretty well hammered by MP3 and the structure in the lower registers is altered in nature - there's even a white diagonal line of missing frequencies that has been introduced in the grey area about 3/4 of the way along.


I've also heard about Ogg Vorbis being used as an alternate format. I don't know much about it, how 'lossy' is it by comparison?

Most of these technologies work in the same basic way, and ogg is no exception. People get cleverer at throwing bits away that we can't hear on normal music under casual listening conditions, but the same principles of lossy audio compression using run through all the codecs. So the Cornell objection still holds - by definition one can't know what has been lost. The advantage of MP3 is everything supports it - if I were to use compression I'd go MP3 and accept I'd only get 5:1 compression rather than something else to get 10:1 in the interests of future-proofing. One of the nice things about FLAC is it is open source so you can save the codec and source code on a CD with the flac files. That way if you happen to have recorded the last equivalent of the ivory-billed woodpecker Cornell could recover your recording even if you had lost the capacity to replay...

Once you've heard the difference MP3 makes, you may find I may I have done you a disservice, as the difference will matter to you more as time goes on...

[lachlustre]

Would you still recommend the ME67 'long-gun' over the ME66 'short gun' for my finch work ( or is at a typo ;) ? ). The 67 looks a bit of a beast !


Linz

yep... a typo :-) I have the ME67. Wouldn't call it a beast myself tho :-) Not after hauling my friends Optolyth 80mm scope over my shoulder for a couple of kms today...

[lachlustre]

Ok, here's *one* reason not ever to use mp3... and I admit it's a little selfish.
If you've taken the time to read through this thread, you are probably well on the way to obtaining quite decent sound recordings. Maybe the equipment is not great, and maybe there's a bit of hiss in the background, but so what? One thing I think that you might not have considered is that your recordings might be valuable to one of the bird song archives (British Library Sound Archive Wildlife Section, and the MacAulay collection at Cornell). Both try and emphasize that they are not elitist in their approach to recordings.
Here are some links to their contributions page:
http://www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/wildcontribution.html
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/MacaulayLibrary/Contribute/
However, contributions to archives like this are definitely more valuable in an uncompressed wav format. Uncompressed data offers the widest scientific value of your recordings.

Why did I say that this is selfish? Well, because these collections really do get used in scientific research, and I expect that if I manage to keep my career in animal behaviour going, I am very likely to dip into them.
Of course, you are perfectly entitled not to give a damn about bird song research and keep your recordings for your own enjoyment and use. I'm just pointing these links out in case you weren't aware of them.

By the way, while researching those links, I found a few useful pages from bioacoustics libraries about recording equipment:
Borror lab: http://blb.biosci.ohio-state.edu/tips.html
British library: http://www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/wiltrain.html
Cornell lab (equipment): http://www.birds.cornell.edu/MacaulayLibrary/contribute/equipmentOverview.html
Cornell lab (technique): http://www.birds.cornell.edu/MacaulayLibrary/contribute/fieldtechniques.html

Hope these are useful!

[HouseFinch]

Once you've heard the difference MP3 makes, you may find I may I have done you a disservice, as the difference will matter to you more as time goes on...

I wouldn't call it a disservice...more like making me realize what I would otherwise have overlooked(and it's true, MP3 does seem to take a lot out of those Starling songs). I'm a purist when it comes to my digital artwork: I always save a Windows bitmap 'master' copy, so there is no loss due to compression. Thus, why shouldn't I be as stringent with my digital audio? |;|

Unfortunately, I'm having issues switching files to FLAC: the program says "Invalid sample rate (192000) for replay gain." I always record at that bitrate in Adobe Audition, for the highest possible quality. Do I need to use a lower bitrate? If so, how can I convert my current files? On a side note, I have Audacity as well.

Another thing I wonder about; do I need a special progam to burn FLAC files to CD?

[griffin]

yep... a typo :-) I have the ME67. Wouldn't call it a beast myself tho :-) Not after hauling my friends Optolyth 80mm scope over my shoulder for a couple of kms today...


Cheers Rob !

Will possibly be getting one very soon on your esteemed recommendation !

Linz

[ermine]

Unfortunately, I'm having issues switching files to FLAC: the program says "Invalid sample rate (192000) for replay gain." I always record at that bitrate in Adobe Audition, for the highest possible quality. Do I need to use a lower bitrate? If so, how can I convert my current files? On a side note, I have Audacity as well.

Another thing I wonder about; do I need a special progam to burn FLAC files to CD?

Gosh, I understand why you are having a problem with disc space now ;) The sampling rate sets the highest frequency you can record and only that. CD runs at 44100 which is about 1/4 the rate you've selected, and the highest frequency it can reproduce is about 22kHz

There is some reason to consider higher rates like say 96kHz for top flight studio recording and/or bird song analysis, but you need very good microphones for that. Something like a Sennheiser MKH800 microphone available here from Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0006FHBL0/002-0138966-7213640?v=glance) which can capture the higher frequencies. You really won't like the price tag on that!

Your

ATR55 (http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/wired_mics/8db33c5971d3add5/index.html) mic is not in that league, the technical frequency response specification is

70 - 18,000 Hz

which can easily be recorded running at 44100 sample rate. Which happens to be the right rate to copy to CD, so you can make and keep your wavs in the right format. Try it - record at 192kHz and the downsample this to 44100 and listen - I would be surprised if you heard a significant difference. Indeed, I would venture a guess that the 44.1kHz sampled wav from your recording setup would sound clearer than 192kHz MP3 but I haven't tried it. What you do also get back is 3/4 of the disk space to store that file - at no loss of signal quality for the overall system!

Adobe Audition is an excellent program and capable of doing just about anything you need with audio - look in the help for convert sample rate - or see in the options when you go file -> Save As

You would probably then not need to use FLAC - the four times saving in space from using a lower bitrate would save you about as much as with MP3. FLAC will still help you save more, with no loss in signal quality, but although you will be able to play the files on your PC you will have to un-FLAC the files to WAVs to put on an audio CD. You can hold the FLACs on a data CD and play them in your PC no problem, nothing special needed. But I like to play my recordings on my stereo, so regular audio CDs are nice there.

[HouseFinch]

In converting my Varied Thrush to a lower bit rate, I found that it actually seemed to sound clearer: the original wav sounded slightly 'over-recorded' in some spots, perhaps due to my audio hardware not supporting it?(Or the closeness of the thrush). In any case, it lowered the 2 minute, 39 second audio file from 116 MB to 26.7 MB. |:d| Thanks for telling me that my ATR55 can't go that high anyway, otherwise I'd continue recording at ridiculously high bitrates! :D

[ermine]

Thanks for telling me that my ATR55 can't go that high anyway, otherwise I'd continue recording at ridiculously high bitrates! :D

Don't hold that against it - your hearing is unlikely to go much higher. Human hearing is generally considered to be about 20Hz to 20kHz but adult hearing generally tops out at 15kHz or thereabouts. Bird hearing ranges vary between species , but the general consensus seems to be around 300Hz to 10-15kHz-ish.

see this reference for example (http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v060n02/p0239-p0241.pdf) and page 12 of this (http://www.nationalwind.org/publications/avian/avian00/section3.pdf)

The frequencies a creature generates are usually concentrated in it's range of hearing, so you will probably have the slight edge on most of your birds in terms of frequency range, discrimination of faint sounds in noise and faintest sounds you can hear. Of course the birds counter some of that edge in that their ears can get a lot closer to the sound-making bird than either your microphones or your ears :)

In converting my Varied Thrush to a lower bit rate, I found that it actually seemed to sound clearer: the original wav sounded slightly 'over-recorded' in some spots, perhaps due to my audio hardware not supporting it?(Or the closeness of the thrush). In

Odd - in an ideal world there would be zero difference between the two, given your equipment configuration. I haven't got Adobe Audition - I use Syntrillium CoolEdit 2000, which was a much earlier budget version of Audition. Adobe bought Syntrillium way back. Cool Edit does show if you have gone overrecorded, and I would expect Audition to do the same. Some filtering has to happen in the process of downsampling, but this should be above 20kHz and not within the range of human hearing. Anyway, what matters is the result which is you now don't need mp3 to get your files onto CD. Try making an regular audio CD of some of your sounds and stick this on your stereo. Computer speakers have their place but you can't beat playing your recordings on your hifi without the awful racket the PC hard disks, fans etc make!

[HouseFinch]

I plan to write all of my audio to a CD-R once I have at least an hour of satisfactory sounds. It's a mixed bag of various birds, with some clips longer than others. Often I can listen to a clip and remember the day I recorded it. I even got a surprise thunderclap on one recordng.

But now I've hit a bump in the road: there's a deal on a Panasonic digital video camera at a local store, and I'm pondering if I should buy that, and put off the HiMD recorder for later. :D Panasonic digital video cam (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007QN874/sr=8-1/qid=1142739061/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-6698504-4668651?%5Fencoding=UTF8)

[ermine]

But now I've hit a bump in the road: there's a deal on a Panasonic digital video camera at a local store, and I'm pondering if I should buy that, and put off the HiMD recorder for later. :D Panasonic digital video cam (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007QN874/sr=8-1/qid=1142739061/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-6698504-4668651?%5Fencoding=UTF8)

Only you can answer that ;) FWIW a 30x video cam gets great bird video with the same reach as the bottom end of a scope zoom - a heck of a lot better reach than your bins

like this (http://www.suffolkbirds.co.uk/article/14/avocets-feeding-inelegantly)

and it will really rock with feeder birds

tree sparrows on feeder (http://www.suffolkbirds.co.uk/article/11/testy)

but a video cam is NOT a great audio recorder, particularly for nature sound recording. You often don't even have manual record level which is required for bird recording. I was not fully zoomed in on my 25x videocam with the tree sparrows, and I guess I was about 20 feet from them. They were getting up one hell of a row, along with the chaffinches behind the hide and the odd jackdaw. You can easily hear hiss on the recording (amongst all the other environmental row in the hide - it illustrates another point that you can't normally shoot good nature sound and vision as a one man band), even though I used a Sennheiser MKE300D shotgun mic. The hiss is not the mic at this sound level, and it isn't the compression, it is the videocam mic amplifiers.

If you want good sound recordings, stick with the HiMD. If you want okay recordings of close birds with the bonus of video, get the videocam but do try to use it with an external mic. If you want rotten audio recordings of the birds, use the videocam with internal mic ;)

Why not shoot for both - see if you can get a good deal on a used HiMD on ebay! You can sync up audio recorded with a MD to the video track on a computer.

Shooting good sound and good video in the field is not usually a one-man job. In a quiet environment your sound recordist usually has to be about 100 yards away from the camera operator. And you need a tripod otherwise your video will suck - I made a dual mount for my scope tripod using Manfrotto/Bogen QR plates and a lump of alluminium bar which works well.

[HouseFinch]

Listening to the birds making a racket the other day(sunny and warm!)made me decide to go for the HiMD first: I've just ordered one, new in unopened packaging, from our good friend Ebay, 'twas this one here: Sony HiMD (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5881677485&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1)

The shipping is free, but I added optional insurance to be sure my newest electronic upgrade arrives safely to my home. I look forward to it: now all I'll need is some nice weather. |8)|

[ermine]

Listening to the birds making a racket the other day(sunny and warm!)made me decide to go for the HiMD first: I've just ordered one

Nice model - I'm jealous already. I just use the scummy NH700 base model. Had to buy the LCD remote separately. Which probably cost me more in all.

With bird recording you have to set the recorder to manual record level, and if you go in the field recording, pack the LCD remote. Set manual record on the MD player at a suitable level by going into record-pause mode, Mic sens High (unless you have some REAL LOUD birds) and adjust for a loud bird to peak the meters three bars from the top. Then stick the remote in and clip it to your bins neckstrap or whatever's handly. Set Hold on the MD, stick it the player in a pocket and just use the remote pause button to stop and start. You tell from the LCD if you are recording as the counter flashes in pause mode and counts up in record. Putting the MD in your pocket damps down the slight noise the machine makes on start so that doesn't get on your recording

And you might care to d/l SonicStage 3.4 if your CD doesn't have it on for easier transfer. Set the WAV convert option on

like so (http://www.birdforum.net/showpost.php?p=550356&postcount=2)

as Sony don't make that tremendously clear in the instructions...

Happy recording - go get 'em ;)

[HouseFinch]

I just received the HiMD recorder yesterday, and I'm charging up the battery for the first time right now: I'm planning on taking it for a spin once that's done and it is light outside.

It's a foreign version of the NH900(evidently an import)and the seller sent a free adapter so I could plug it in to an American outlet. I notice that the recorder seems to be made mostly of aluminum: I wonder if the American product is the same way? There's a carrying bag with it, too, which apparently doesn't come with the American version. I got a pretty good deal, it looks like.

I've had the installer for the latest SonicStage on my laptop for the last few days, time to get that running. I also purchased five minidiscs(compatible with HiMD)the other day, so I'm all set. I may post comparisons later, between sounds recorded on my laptop versus sound recorded on the HiMD. |8)|

[JCL]

Slightly off-thread, but a query occurred to me while reading this. Apologies if it's a daft question, but I have been stuck in the tape recording age for too long...

How would I burn pre-recorded (e.g. commercial) CDs to minidisc to use for playback in the field? Can I insert minidiscs in my CD/DVDROM drive?

[ermine]

Slightly off-thread, but a query occurred to me while reading this. Apologies if it's a daft question, but I have been stuck in the tape recording age for too long...

How would I burn pre-recorded (e.g. commercial) CDs to minidisc to use for playback in the field?

Using Sonicstage, the Sony software which you have to use for digitally transferring all sound files to/from MD

This will preserve track numbering, and if the CD has been entered into Gracenote, will even name the tracks with the birds right which is nice.


Can I insert minidiscs in my CD/DVDROM drive?

Not if you want to use either again :)

You can see one here

http://www.minidisc.org/part_What_are_MiniDiscs.html

it is a very different physical and data format from CD/DVD. Your computer can access the data on a HiMD via USB and Sony's software