jdmooreth wrote:
> Many thanks for all the help. Some answers:
> 1. "Verify the Sony mic battery is good." The mic works OK with the
> camcorder so I guess the battery has enough power.
> 2. "Is it possible that you are using the line input instead of the
> mike input?" I did try the line input but only with the Sound
> Professionals mic plus preamp, with both preamp and MD gain on
> maximum. I still didn't seem to be getting enough gain, though.
> 3. "Is it possible you have attenuation set on the mike input? " My
> model doesn't have a mike attenuation switch
> 4. "Could it be that you have the headphone gain set very high so
> that you are setting the input gain very low? " I hardly ever use
> headphones as I had the MD on automatic record and my position was
> more or less limited by the geography.
> 5. "Do you use the same adaptor cable to mini-stereo with the
> camcorder? ". I tried but it gives too much gain and pretty poor
> sound quality. I got the Shure cable after seeing several
> recommendations in the group but it doesn't seem to solve the
> problem with my MD. It does give me a lot more gain but it also
> magnifies the hiss and produces a sound that is not as crisp as
> that of the mic alone.
> 6. "You don't want to use the auto mode .. for nature recording.." I
> guess I ought to experiment more with this. As I said, the times I
> used manual I put the gain about 75% up: the calls were louder than
> on automatic record but so was the hiss. There were also a number of
> louder calls which were totally distorted. How does a manual setting
> cope with this difference in the volume of calls? This must be a
> particular problem when you after soundscapes rather than recording
> a particular call. There would rarely be enough time to alter the
> setting during a recording and in any case I normally leave the mic
> unattended on my tripod while I take the dog for a walk. (The trick
> Walt describes doesn't seem to work on my recorder.)
You have to hold both the pause and record, but it's possible they
dropped that. It was given in the user manual, so if it's not there,
it's probably not in yours.
The way you cope is set the recorder to the loudest calls in manual. or
if you don't know the loudest calls, you estimate how much extra
headroom those calls will need. This often will mean the level indicator
is running way down near the bottom most of the time. Do not worry about
not getting the quiet stuff, the MD has about twice the dynamic range of
most environments you will record in, so it will get it even if the
level indicator does not look promising. That is if the mic gets it.
You really need to monitor with headphones, at least while setting
levels. And particularly while learning what the equipment does.
The AGC on it reacts slowly too, but is not setting as much gain as you
are. Both it and you seem to be setting the gain too high. When I used a
walkman MD I used to set the level at more like 25% for the highly
variable frogcall environment. And I'd still get clipping at times.
That's the ugly sound you refer to on the loud calls.
> 7. I will try taking the MD back to the dealers but am not too
> optimistic as notions of consumer rights are not too well developed
> over here.
>
> I would really like to do better than the results I am getting with
> my camcorder and suspect that I should really have looked at a more
> expensive MD, like the HHB Portadisc or the Marantz PMD650. I notice
> that the UK price of the Portadisc is around 995 pounds whereas the
> Marantz can be had for 550 pounds. Does anyone know if they are in
> the same league ?
I use a Portadisc, and am definitely biased toward it. Have not used the
Marantz.
The Portadisc is a newer design, has a number of features not found on
the Marantz. And uses a newer ATRAC version.
It's easier on batteries, uses AA NIMH batteries. Can use alkalines with
shorter record times. Comes with a set of NIMH, but these are lower
capacity than the latest versions, which will give you more running
time. With the newest version NIMH you can get close to 4 hours
recording on a charge.
The Portadisc has a record ahead buffer of 6 seconds. When you release
pause to start record, it will record from 6 seconds before that. This
is a settable function. It is wonderful for getting the beginning of calls.
The Portadisc has a lot of connectivity. In addition to analog input
(XLR) with four different settable levels that range from mic to line
levels, it has analog line out, optical digital in & out, coax digital
in & out, and USB in & out (for realtime audio, not file transfer)
It supplies clean phantom power, I did a fair amount of checking of this
after getting mine, it appears to be better than at least some battery
operated recorders in this regard. Has powered every phantom power mic
I've tried just fine. Though I expect some power hungry studio mics
might not do well.
There is a limiter, and two frequency levels of high pass filtering for
minimizing low frequencies.
It has a optionally illuminated display, very useful in my night
recording of frogs.
The gain control is clutched, so each channel can be set independently
if necessary. This also has a lock you can set to prevent accidental
changes.
There are a number of other settings which allow you to customize it's
recording behavior. It can even be set to monitor the sound levels and
record only when above the set threshold. They did leave out timed
recording, though it will time and date stamp the tracks.
It does have a set of editing functions and titling. However, it's
playback functions are fairly simple. It's highly biased toward
recording features rather than playback. Does play fine, has a built in
speaker, though not a high quality one.
It is very robustly built for field recording. The controls are human sized.
Has a pretty good sized level display, with optional peak hold.
I consider it to be the best minidisc field recorder. Go to HHb's
website and download the manual and so on to read all about it.
http://www.hhb.co.uk/
Walt
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