equipment that can bite me

[solarbird]

I have this Sony minidisc recorder I bought back in... 2002? When those mattered, anyway. I've tried a couple of times to use it to do quick recordings of live shows and it's failed me each time - it's fine for a minute and a half or so, then I get garbage, then it's fine again, then garbage. I thought it was bad media, but now I'm re-testing the same media in the studio and it records fine.

When I set it up outdoors it's always in a shaded, reasonably-level position, and everything has lots of power. All the parts work fine tested in the studio, but at shows so far I have a 100% failure rate with the same symptoms across different discs each time.

Suggestions, anybody?

Also, suggestions on a pure-digital recorder? This has officially become stupid.

Comments

[solarbird]

I liked the minidisc format! And I loved how many things they crammed into such tiny machines. I mean, it's dated now, and media's kinda difficult to find, but it was SO MUCH BETTER than cassette. It's too bad Sony kind of pooched it.

From what I'm reading, I very much like the Zooms. I've seen them in the wild, I just didn't know what they were. I like the H2 (which is pretty much a drop-in replacement for what I have now, but better in several ways, and! would work directly with my all-too-spendy minidisc mic) and I like the H4n too. I think I could grow into the H4n pretty easily.

According to the published specs, the H2's external mic jack is 1/8th inch stereo (exactly like the minidisc recorder), while the H4n (which replaced the H4) has 1/4" mono jack pairs and! phantom power! XLR! which is made of hotness. I could still use my current mic (with an adaptor) but I'd have a lot of flexibility. At substantially greater cost, of course. The H2 has advantages of price, size, and! 360-degree recording with the built-in mics! which the H4n doesn't do, and is tasty by itself.

Time to be thinky!