Live Recording Recommendations The following is a brief description of my live recording gear, with notes and references for anyone interested in field recording. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions.   Recorder   »   My current recorder is a Sharp Minidisc recorder, model MD-MT877. The main advantage of Minidisc is the quality that you can acheive for the money you spend. New MD units also support double the disc length (160 minutes on an 80 minute disc) with negligible quality loss using MDLP (Minidisc Long Play). See the links section for samples of MD recordings in various modes. My recommendation for purchasing a new recorder, is the Sharp MD-MT99, currently available for less than $270CDN at www.minidisc-canada.com. This is the least expensive MDLP recorder that is suitable for live recording. Sone Sony models are available for less, but are not well suited to live recording. If you want top quality, and are willing to pay for it, consider going with portable DAT. For comparison's sake, a used DAT will start at about $500 to $700 (CDN) depending on features and condition of the unit. New units will cost more then $1000. Of course, you get what you pay for, and DAT is capable of recording uncompressed at higher-than-CD quality. Minidisc on the other hand is a compressed audio format. Hardcore tapers shun the use of MD, and swear by DAT or analog tape. I have not tried analog, and I think the recording samples below speak for themselves regarding MD quality. Here is a page with some pictures comparing the two sharp recorders.       Microphones   »   This is where you can go really crazy and spend the big bucks, but you don't have to. My current setup consists of two Panasonic WM-61A electret mic capsules, which I soldered and wired into a hollowed out bic pen. Capsules are about $4CDN each, available from www.digikey.com. You only really need two, but for proper matching it might be a good idea to get more than one pair. Digikey charges handling for small orders, so it might be a good idea to purchase enough mics (and other parts) to put you over their minimum limit. Matching mics is a black art, but it's not difficult to do a rough matching job. It is time consuming though. The general idea is to find two mic capsules that resemble each other in terms of frequency response and sensitivity. The idea here is to record a predetermined sound under controlled environments with each mic, and analyze the results. For instance, you might record a sample of pink noise with the mic mounted in a small sealed box with a speaker inside. After recording to a wave file, you can analyze the level of the wav and the frequency plot in CoolEdit. I have not done any matching myself, since I am too lazy to do it right. I just use the 'by ear' method. If you want to leave all the work to someone else, you can order pre-matched mic pairs from www.soundprofessionals.com or www.core-sound.com. I have also set up a page with pictures outlining the construction of my microphone set.       Battery Box   »   One issue with live recording using electret mics into a minidisc recorder, is that the mics require a voltage source (provided through the audio cable by the recorder) in order for them to operate. Since these portable recorders operate with small batteries, their mic-power circuits can be overloaded if you try to record loud sounds. The easiest way around this is to build an external power supply to provide 9 Volts to the microphones, and releive the recorder of the burden of providing that power. A simple battery box consists of two resistors, two capacitors, and a 9V battery. I have set up a page with pictures outlining the construcition of my battery box. If you do not want to go to the trouble of building one, you can purchase one from either soundprofessionals or core-sound.       Recording Tips   »   Quieter recording can be done with the mics directly into the mic input of the recorder. Medium-loud sources should be done with a battery box between the mics and the recorder. For louder sources, plug the battery box into the line input instead of the mic input. My best results so far have been with the mics plugged into a battery box, and the battery box to the line in. I set my sharp recorder level to about 20 depending on the level meters of course. As far as SP versus LP, I am happy with LP2 as it saves me from stressing out about when I can safely switch discs (most shows will fit on a single LP2 disc, but will require one and a half or two standard play MDs).       General Tips   »   Stealth recording of shows can be a major pain. After juggling wires, dealing with mic placement, keeping clear of the babbling idiots that always tend to congregate by your rig, etc. it is easy to give up. What seems to work for me is to clip the mics to my front shirt pocket, and run the wire inside the pocket down to my pants pocket where I keep my recorder and battery box. I have a few shirts with a hole cut inside the pocket lining. I have tried mounting the mics on a hat, but you will find that you must keep your head uncomfortably still for the entire show, otherwise you will get some very bizarre stereo imaging effects from rotating the mics when you turn to look around. With the shirt-pocket method, you are free to move your head, and need only to keep your body relatively still. You must also try to not breathe too heavily out of your nose, aiming the wind directly at your mics (trust me this is very noticeable in the recording!) Of course, there is always the chance that you can mount the mics on a more stable object. At larger shows, you can sometimes find a pole or other part of the building to tape the mics to. At smaller bars you can usually get away with taping the mics to your table. I always bring a roll of electrical tape just in case. I can tell you that a show is MUCH more enjoyable if you don't have the mics attached to yourself.       Dumping to PC   »   Most likely you will want to create a CD or MP3 from your recording. In order to get the sound from your MD into your computer for mastering and burning/encoding, you will need a wave file recorder and (of course) a soundcard. The better the soundcard, the better the results. My favorite wave recorder/editor is Cool Edit. Ideally you would like to do a digital transfer from your minidisc to your computer. This is not the easiest thing to set up. The biggest obstacle is the fact that there is no current portable MD unit with a digital output. You MUST purchase a home MD unit in addition to your portable. This can get quite expensive since Sony has discontinued their mid-range models, and there is no digital out on their budget models. This means purchasing a higher end home MD just for digital out capabilities. (any 9xx series Sony Home MD will do the trick -- 6xx series have digital out as well, but they are not being manufactured anymore). In addition to that, you need a soundcard capable of accepting a digital optical input. I have had direct experience with using a Soundblaster Live Value, and a digital (optical) addon card from www.optibits.com. You can also get addons for SBLive at www.hoontech.com. For an all-in-one solution, check out the Hercules Game Theatre XP. It's a great unit at a great price (try www.canadacomputers.com). It features an external box which includes digital connectors for input and output. If you can't get a digital solution together, you need a miniplug male -> miniplug male cable, and you simply play through the line in of the soundcard, and record the input.       Edit/Master/Burn   »   I use CoolEdit for cleaning up the wave file once it is dumped to my computer. I usually create a single wave file for each CD that I want to burn. I also take note of the mm:ss:frames format start-time of each song within that wave. I then use T-Racks to master the wave file, and beef up the sound. Finally I use CDRWin to burn the wave to a CD. CDRWin allows you to create a multiple-track CD from a single wave file. I will leave the discussion of software usage for another time. All of this software is available for legitimate trial download from their websites.       Lists and Links   »   Minidisc Recorders: Recommended: Sharp MD-MT99 from www.minidisc-canada.com. My current recorder: Sharp MD-MT877. Other Recommendations: Any Sharp MD recorder. Sony MZ-R909 or MZ-N1. My MD page Hardware required for the mics: Panasonic mic capsules, QTY 2. Digikey part number P9925-ND for WM-61A or P9967-ND for WM-60AT. Miniplug connector. Radio Shack or scrap recovery from old headophones. Miscellaneous wires and connectors depending on desired configuration. My mic page Hardware required for the battery box: 10 kOhm resistors, QTY 2. Digikey part number 10.0KXBK-ND 1 uF or 2.2 uF capacitors, QTY 2. Digikey part number PF2105-ND for 1uF or PF2225-ND for 2.2uF 9V battery connector. Radio Shack or scrap recovery from old dead 9V. Miscellaneous wires and connectors depending on desired configuration. My battery box page Software links: CoolEdit Wave Editor CDRWin Recording Software Nero Burning ROM T-Racks Mastering Other links: Mic DIY'ers minidisc.org - the best MD info source Soundprofessionals mics and boxes Core Sound mics and boxes       Samples   »   Sample 1: First recording ever This is an example of the first show I ever recorded. The result was too quiet, and I had absolutely no mastering experience at the time. This was done with a borrowed MD recorder: The Denon clone of the Sharp MD-MT701. Believe it or not, I didn't have mics back then. This recording was done using a pair of decent Sony Walkman headphones plugged into the mic input. This goes to show that you can get good results with a minimum of fuss. Of course, this setup would never work in high SPL situations. The venue was a small bar, so the sound was not terribly loud. Sample 2: First recording with real mics and my own MD This was my first real mic recording. It was an outdoor concert, which made it a bit easier to handle than indoor ones (lower SPLs and no worries about the acoustics of the venue). The left-channel of the recording was no good (due to overload) since I had no battery box. Fortunately, I was able to salvage the right-channel and master it into a fairly decent mono recording. I used hat-mounted mics for this, which is a nightmare for wiring, and as I mentioned before, it's a pain to stand still for so long! This show also taught me that my mics were VERY mismatched. Sample 3: recent recording with battery box and MDLP After my first semi-successful recording, there was a year-and-a-half of very sketchy recording results, due to my experimenting with new mics, replacing my original (broken) MD, and my initial battery box attempts. I have finally settled into a rig that seems to work pretty well. This was recorded in MDLP, LP2 mode, on my Sharp 877, with 61A capsules through a standard battery box, into the LINE input. Dumped digitally from my Sony MDS-JB640 home deck to my SBLive. I am hoping to get results like this consistently with this setup, as I think this show turned out pretty well.

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