Freesound Forums

Hello
I have a recording of a thunder storm on mini disk which would like to upload to your site. My equipment is Sony MZ-N707 and a Dell Latitude D600. What software would be best to get the recording from my mini disk.

Thanks

Neilpeel

You can't really beat Audacity for this application, and the price is right. You will also need a 3.5mm stereo jack to jack lead, connect the headphones out of the MD to the Line in of the Dell, and then select that input in Audacity. Set the MD volume to about 3/4 of full scale and adjust the record level in Audacity so the signal doesn't reach 100% on peaks. 50-80% is good enough.

Thanks for that
Have installed Goldwave
All i need to do now is get a recording without the bad distortion have tried turning down input but still loads of distortion on recording, need to get the info.

Thanks again great web site....feel like a need to be spending a lot of time here.

Neil

You are going in through the line input and not the mic input, right?

The Windows sound mixer has two sections, playback and recording. If you go start -> Control Panel -> Sounds & Audio Devices -> Advanced

you get a play control with a load of sliders. On that control you need to press Options -> Properties and select Recording to control your record mixer. Tick the box next to the slider marked Line in

Thanks for that
I only have a mic and speaker output on my laptop?
So I connect the MD to the mic, is that right?

Thanks again

Neil

Ahh, no, I'm afraid not.

Check out this picture:

http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/5290/p6250413ij0.th.jpg

you can see this is a rubbish picture (sorry, its really out of focus....its tricky getting a camera round the back of a computer and focusing it!) of the back of my computer - the sound card bit. now this is what the holes are:

Red/Pink is Mic. This is for your microphone and is best suited for microphone inputs
Green is Speakers. This should have your speakers/headphones plugged in!
Blue is Line In. This is where you 3.5mm Jack to 3.5mm Jack (standard headphone male bot at both ends plugs into.)

once you have plugged your jack to jack into the Line in plug the other end into the Line out of your mini disc player and follow the instructions in ermine's first post.

Thanks for that
I only have a headphone and mic socket, no line in.
I have usb on both laptop and minidisk but you can not transferer (as far as i know) files from minidisk to laptop this way.

Thanks again

Neil.

That is a drag. You will get rotten results from the mic in, because

it's normally mono

it's far too sensitive and you will get loads of noise, even if you turn the MD output waaaaay down

it puts out +5v on one of the pins which will give you a scratchy connection anyway

How's about using Audacity on a desktop computer for the transfer? You really aren't going to get satisfactory results using the laptop on mic input.

If you really want to use the laptop for audio recording and transfer in future and can't access a desktop you'd need to get an add-on USB sound card or a pcmcia card.

You are correct in that a NetMD such as yours cannot transfer recordings to the PC via USB. You'd need a HiMD to do that (and if you wanted to xfer this recording made with your old deck you would need a Sony RH1 HiMD, others won't xfer legacy recordings)

Two money-no-object solutions for your laptop and MD recordings

1. Buy a USB sound card, like an Edirol UA-1EX. This has a very clean Line-in facility.

2. Buy a midi MD unit like a Sony MDS-980 and play your MD on that, and use optical out into optical input on a UA-1EX (again) or similar. This is what I do. It's still real-time transfer however.

Mike

http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/CardBus/

is a -relatively- cheap and tiny solution for a good noise-less i/o...

- bram

Two money-no-object solutions for your laptop and MD recordings

1. Buy a USB sound card, like an Edirol UA-1EX. This has a very clean Line-in facility.

I did. It really is a good investment indeed!

Thankyou all
You have all been very helpful.
I am going to buy a PCMCIA Sound Card for my laptop.
Thanks again.
Great Website made good by its members.

Neil

Bram
http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/CardBus/

is a -relatively- cheap and tiny solution for a good noise-less i/o...

- bram

Echo Indigo (Cardbus) is £150 in UK, UA-1EX is £69

Mike

acclivity
Echo Indigo (Cardbus) is £150 in UK, UA-1EX is £69

ops:

- bram

UA-1EX 66 Euro at Thomann... I want one (do I need one?)

Yes, you want one... because... err... because it is good!

Seriously: it is a good investment but I like the UA-25 more - but that one is of course more expensive (230 euros over here).

I would like to keep my laptop portable hense the PC card route, i have seen the sound blaster Audigy 2 ZS notebook card for 110 euros. Is this a good buy? I am trying to keep cost down

Neil hock:

The PCMCIA isn't bad.

I have 2 soundblaster externals - the first is a USB, and that works great all the way around, but it needs to be powered. The second is PCMCIA, and it works mostly good.

If you're going LINE IN - you will have no problem, but I don't like the microphone inputs. In my opinion, they're only slightly better than the laptop's own microphone input.

I originally got the PCMCIA soundcard, so I could record remotely with my laptop - but now when I use it, I tend to go from a mixer to the line in (which defeats the purpose of going mobile) or I'll use a minidisc as a preamp.

I got it 2 years ago, so hopefully technology's gotten better, or there are superior brands available.

But for what you want, it should work great.