Radio College | Ask the Expert

Ask the Expert: Michael Johnson

Just Added -- Michael's entire discussion on mics from Stories1st.org!
Downloadable PDF File: Michael on Mics [ 136kb ].

On Minidisc Recording
On "Recovering" (Cloning) a Minidisc Table of Contents
On Connecting Recording to the Computer
On Microphones

On Minidisc Recording

Q: Has anyone has ever used the HHb MDP500 MiniDisc Recorder, or the seemingly similar Marantz MiniDisc deck designed for professional use, and could offer a testimonial on either.

A: I have had a vast amount of experience with the HHb MDP500 Minidisc, The Purple People Recorder.

Battery life is an issue for The HHB as well as the Marantz, but I've found through proper charging (6.5 hours) and not being fooled by the somewhat confusing battery readout (reads 99% even after just an hour or two or charging, even though it's far from being fully charged; one needs to pay attention to the green charge indicator...it dims and goes out as the Ni-Mh pack reaches full capacity).

When used with the RE50 microphone, (dynamic & low output) you've got to crank up the record level to 9 to get a decent level. Higher output dynamics like the Shure VP64, or high output condensors will address this situation.

Like any complex machine run by a microprocessor, the HHb can freeze up. I've found that 99% of the time, the Table of Contents is preserved in the units memory and will write it the first thing after you "reboot" the unit by pulling the battery pack. A reset button would be helpful, when these freezes happen.

Also one will want to hit the stop button so the machine will write the table of contents to its memory. Running about with the unit in record/pause is an invitation to crashing ad "losing" tracks, though the audio can often be recovered by Table of Contents "cloning" (see the Hacking section of Minidisc.org or ask me and I can provide further details; it's sinfully easy with the proper MD deck).

The USB, optical, and Coaxial digital connections are great and work flawlessly with PCs or Macs running a variety of audio software programs...ProTools, & even ProTools Free. Just make sure your Mac OS is 9.1 or later or at least has the Apple Audio Extension 1.3.3 or above (necessary for USB audio support).

The built in Limiter, pad, bass roll off, and 6 second pre record buffer are also great. The unit can also cut out long silences between audio events and trim the break between them to 5 seconds (a fairly standard feature on pro decks).

Editing has all the standard minidisc features and a special incrementaly adjustable mark placement feature when you're dividing tracks. It will loop rehearse the edit for you until you confirm it.

Another convenience is the 5 different user configurations you can save on the HHB. With reporters out in the field and buttons being sometimes hastily pushed, having the saved settings can "normal" the machine with less than 3 button strokes.

The Marantz is considerably cheaper, than the HHB and a bit lighter as well, but the HHB is sturdier...it's made of mostly metal and rubber, and will "take a licking" far better than the Marantz ever could hope to. The straps that were shipping with the HHB were very cheap and caused cases of "dropsy". Oddly enough the Marantz locking strap works perfectly on the HHB (a standard strap holder stud on these machines, same as the TCD 5M).

You can have line and mic separately going into the left and right inputs if that's ever a help, and phantom power going to a mic on channel while having a line input on the other.

All in all the Hhb is a great machine.

PROs: sturdy, lots of options for ins and out, TOC memory even after a crash.

CONs: battery vampire, freezes.

Q: I'm looking to begin phasing out my dependence on my station's equipment and the smaller Sony and Sharp machines worry me. What do you think?

A: If you take good care of these machines, big or small they will last for a long time. My Sony MZ-R30 (you can still find them on ebay!) has been going strong for 5 plus years and has traveled to Cuba, China, Hawaii, and the UK in the hands of green as well as experienced producers and works perfectly today.

Q: I have a Sony portable MD recorder. It drives me crazy! The buttons are too small, I can't adjust volume while recording, and it just feels too breakable, mic jack is crackly, etc. HELP!

A: The level adjust is a Sony problem, not a Sharp problem, though the from the Sony MZR-909 on, the company finally has record level adjust on the fly, but it's buried a few menus deep. With Sharps you generally hit the record level button (!) or the track skip button to adjust the level.

Crackhead mic jacks can be due to a bad fit on your mini pin going in (avoid HOSA connectors and cords, crack city) or the lack of a capacitor in the mic cable, which can reduce these outbursts and give you a slightly cleaner signal.

Q: I've heard the some minidiscs have a hiss problem. Are you familiar with this?

A: I've been encountering a hiss problem with the Sharp Models starting with the MD MT90 and beyond, especially in the ultra compact recorders like the 770 & the 880.

Sometimes the cheaper XLR to mini mic cables like HOSA or "off the rack" cords can be problematic, yielding lots of crackle at the slightest touch of the cord. Some of this can be solved with the proper metric plug as Hal points out.

There's also the school of thought that would have you place a resistor in the wiring to block the faint bit of "phantom" or plug-in power that the consumer minidiscs generate. I've "A-B listened" to a cord with, and a cord without, going into a MD recorder, and I can't really hear the difference.

The other second hand buzz I heard on the Streets of San Francisco (A Quinn Martin Production), is that it's an XLR problem, not necessarily an RE50 problem. The hiss does seem greatly reduced when using a mic which uses plug-in power, but I have to do better testing to definitively state that's the case.

Now I have to bring up an embarrassing topic within the context of this discussion. It's...well, finger oil. There I said it. Some of us aren't wiping after we handle our plugs (you know who you are!). We thought the problem of finger oil was left behind when we stopped handling analog tape while editing, but no.

This "digital" oil can impede the connection from Plug to Recorder jack. There's connector cleaner, and jack brushes for the highly hygienic recorder.

Q: When I insert a partially recorded disc and try to do more recording it will erase previously recorded material without warning.

A: Many Sony portable MD models have this annoying feature called "END SEARCH". On the 700 model you're speaking of, the button is located between the record button and the T-Mark button, just under the LCD display, towards the left.

If you have a disc that is partially recorded, you must push this button every time before you start to record. So the unit will go to the end of the recorded portion of the disc. Otherwise it will start recording where ever you were last listening on the partially recorded disc, or just from the top if newly inserted.

Many Sony portable owners have done this, especially when we don't RTFM very closely! Happily, newer model have a menu option to disable this function and to record starting at the end of the previously recorded audio.

On "Recovering" (Cloning) a Minidisc Table of Contents

You can actually get back the audio from your "lost" recording. It's been mentioned here before...a number of MD "hacks" which involve cloning the Table of Contents from a "good" disc to a mistakenly partially prerecorded or "erased" disc. See the HACKING section of http://www.minidisc.org.

I have recovered lots of "lost" audio.

If you have a disc that's:
1) been accidentally erased
2) been accidentally recorded (partially)
3) if you know there's audio on it and you machine says it's a blank disc.

Don't record anymore audio on it. Set it aside. Try the clone technique. It will require a particular type of stand alone deck; one that can be put in to service or test mode.

The MD is like you computer hard drive: when something is erased, that space on the disc is just made available for recording. The Table of Contents will say that the space is blank, maybe even the entire disc if it's been erased. But you can recover all the audio that's been declared blank space. You'll just lose your original track marks.

Like getting back to your old familiar neighborhood, but there won't be any names on the street signs.

Important to note as well is if the disc has been recorded on a 74 minute or 80 minute disc or if it's in Mono, Stereo, LP2, or LP4.

Seem confusing? It's not. Anyone is welcome to contact me offlist for the exact procedure or if they have a problem disc.

Q: It appears that the way to recover a TOC is to place the faulty disc into the deck. Then short, turn the deck off. Then, place a new, blank disc in and fire it up. The TOC will have been stored and written to the new disc.

A: Just the opposite. Here are the steps:
1) You put in the "good" disc & let the deck read the TOC.
2) Kill the power to the deck.

(Don't just turn it off! Pull the plug or switch off the power strip. Just turning the deck off will cause the disc to simply eject.)

3) Restore the power while holding down the AMS button (activates test mode).

NOTE: be careful not to change any of the machine's settings in this mode or you can render it useless. This goes for "big" & "small" recorders.

4) Eject the good disc (in test mode the TOC stays in the deck's memory).

5) Put in the "bad" disc.

6) Kill the power to the deck.

7) Restore the power without holding down the AMS button (activates in standard mode).

NOTE: notice that the deck has been "unaware" that the discs have been exchanged and still holds the good disc's TOC in memory.

8) Change any small detail in the TOC, the easiest is to change the disc name. A red TOC indicator will light up.

(By doing this you have changed the TOC which the deck will update upon ejecting the disc. If you simply ejected the disc without changing anything on the TOC, it would just spit out the disc as it was. Just as in the small portables when you make a change to the disc, a small indicator will come up reading "TOC".)

9) Eject the disc and the deck will update the TOC, and write the TOC from its memory onto the bad disc.

IMPORTANT NOTES: If you suspect a TOC problem on a disc, don't record anything else on it! It would be like driving an earthmover through a city using a faulty map. You may unintentionally destroy things that you would like to preserve.

Previously erased audio may "reappear". (Like a computer, deleted audio information is usually still there. When you erase it you're simply making the space "available".)

The original track marks from the corrupted disc will be history, replaced by the track marks of the new disc. So you should have ready discs of the appropriate time and recording configuration. (You knew there was a catch!) This just means having a mono disc for mono recordings and a stereo disc for stereo recordings, and in 74 or 80 minute sizes.

The "good" discs that I have ready, have track marks every 5 minutes. This way one doesn't have to slog through the scan forward cue mode to find your audio on longer recordings. Some directions out there would have you just record one fat track for the whole of the good disc.

On Connecting Recording to the Computer

Q: Can you talk about external firewire drives with ProTools on Mac?

I've been using an iPod. I ran out of room on my internal hard drive of the desktop G4 and then switched to the Pod. Not the cheapest solution but certainly an elegant one. The producer I'm working with lines up elements in PT LE on a G4, then I get the iPod, plug it into my system or even a contributor's system to copy pieces in progress or ProTools Sessions, and I'm ready to mix. It's fast enough to use as a production drive, not just storage and archiving.

In this discussion of audio hard drives, the external audio drive gives you lots of flexibility. I carry the iPod everywhere, alog with a firewire cable. It also gives you the option of just playing a selection from its library out of the headphone jack or line out.

I've heard from some that when using the LaCie D2 external firewire drives presented problems, and from others that love them. I've personally had problems with a Que! Slimline 80 gig firewire drive, slow copying of large files, and freezing up, but this may be a problem with the computer, rather than the drive.

Q: I am using a mini male-to-male cable with a 1/4" adapter on it on an Mbox and I'm getting "swishy" sound. How do I get rid of it?

A: You should be going into the line in, right in the center of those XLR inputs marked SOURCE 1 & SOURCE 2.

You may also want to check and be sure that the INPUT/PLAYBACK knob is set all the way to input when you're playing back from the MD recorder. Sounds like you may be getting some "swishy" phasing. Additionally you may want to consider getting a cord that has no adapters, a stereo mini male to a split left and right 1/4" male (headphone type), to go directly into the those XLR inputs marked SOURCE 1 & SOURCE 2.

Q: I've seen pictures of some digital editors working with a controller device of some kind. Is there something similar and hopefully cheap for my home computer where I edit digital audio?

A: In a world fraught with annoying mouse scrubbing, there's a glimmer of hope...a great USB device one can use in lieu of buying one of those expensive controllers. It's called the Shuttle Pro from a company called Contour. For audio AND video/visual applications.

http://www.contouravs.com/cav_shuttlepro_info.html

It costs about $100.00, has 13 programmable buttons, is perfectly symmetrical for righties or lefties, and a fairly impressive list of applications (over 60) that it supports. ProTools (yes, PT Free too), Final Cut Pro, Word, Premiere, Acid, Sound Forge, Vegas...

See the complete list at the website.

http://www.contouravs.com/cav_sp_ap_support.html

Best of all it works on both Mac and PC. Makes for very handy two-fisted editing.

MP3 & Other Audio Phenomena

Q: What programs are available for me to make mp3s on my Mac?

A: Have you tried iTunes? It encodes files to wav, mp3, or AIFF. The program is a redux of Sound Jam and very simple to use. You can change the sample rates, th quality of the conversion, and more. It's very fast depending on the speed of your computers processor...and it's free. And should already be on your Mac, depending on how old it is. Check it out at: http://www.apple.com/itunes/.

Q: Anyone know of a program for the Mac (OS 8.6) that will make mp3 files from a ProTools bounce file? SoundJam will only take aiff, wav files.

A: Here's the direct download page for Mpegger:

http://www.proteron.com/mpegger/MPegger.hqx

The trial version will allow you 20 or so encodings before telling you to "Stuffit". It's fast and VERY straightforward.

On Microphones

Q: Can you recommend a decent yet cheap stereo microphone?

The Sony ECM-MS907, hands down. $70.00 to $90.00.

Q: Can you recommend a basic mono mic for classroom use?

A: RE50 is still one solid mofo...virtually guaranteed for life, dynamic, internally shock mounted, omnidirectional, wind/pop filter padded about $150.00.

Cheaper you say? Try the Shure VP64L or VP64S. Bright sound, high signal output, NOT shock mounted, but still very workable, slim profile comes in long and short lengths -- about $75.00.

Q: How do I deal with reoccurring wind noise?

A: A zeppelin works best to keep the wind from contacting the mic element. Another method uses "puppet fur", or "muppet skin". It's effective when used like a wind screen over the mic, but some have said that it cuts down on the mic's frequency response at the high end. Better that than wind noise, I'd say. Also another producer whose name escapes me recommended an umbrella to shield from gusts, but that feels like a lot of stuff to juggle.

There's also the amazing DSM stereo mics, and the fellow who makes these amazing and tiny headworn mics, also builds what looks like a strange headphone set but is really a small pair of zeppelins on a headphone mount. Not for everyone's use, but the result is natural surroundings in a windy environment and wind, that sounds like...wind! Check them out at:

http://www.sonicstudios.com/access.htm#whb

Q: Could someone explain the advantage of using a ($400!) shotgun mic over putting your regular mic on an extending fishpole in these situations?

A:
1) You'll save on arm fatigue.
2) You'll get a presence of the room without it overwhelming the voice, as you would at that distance with an omni.
3) You can never have enough microphones.
4) One less piece of equipment to carry.
5) You have a number of cheaper than $400.00 alternatives when it comes to shotguns.
6) It just doesn't look as weird.