Sony Mini Disc & Oktava MC012 Problem...

M

mbproducer

New member
Well I have recently purchased the Sony MZ-RH10 Mini Disc Player/Recorder and I must say that it does look and sound pretty amazing. I recorded with a Shure SM58 and I was impressed with the results. Then I decided to look upon and purchase the Octava MC012. While trying the mic with the mini disc recorder it failed to pick up any sound or work in way with the mini disc recorder. So I would like to know if someone knows the solution to the problem and I would be glad to post results for those who would like to hear the octava and MZ-RH10 results. Also there is an issue that the mini disc does not have a Right Channel when recording with a monaural microphone.

Sony MZ-RH10
- Works well with Shure SM58
- Having problems making it work with the Octava MC012 or Panasonic AG-MC100.. Need Assistance Please

How to make Right and Left Channel work when recording with mini disc??


:dankk2:
 
The MC-012 is a condenser mic that requires phantom power. The DVX has switches behind the LCD to provide this, but the MiniDisc device doesn't... you'll need an external preamp/mixer.
 
MiniDisc has a 3.5mm plug for the mic, right? You just need to have a mic cable which has normal XLR at the mic end and a stereo 3.5mm plug at the MiniDisc end where the single mono line is connected to both channels on the plug. That way the audio feed goes to both channels.
 
Sorry, Petrus, that's likely to NOT work. XLR to a mono plug will likely route the audio to both channels; XLR to stereo might well be some sort of rare 1/8" balanced connection. In any case, it won't work because the Oktava needs phantom power. That's why the dynamic SM58 mic works.
 
Sorry about my vaque answer. I did not address the phantom power problem, just the "get-mono-on-both-channels-with-3.5mm-plug" issue. It absolutelly no-brainer to connect a mono mic to both channels on 3.5mm stereo plug, which gives you the same mono signal on both MiniDisc channels if that is what you want. XLR to mono 3.5mm plug does not necessarily work, maybe the ground part of the pin is too long?

I have soldered 3pin-XLR to stereo 3.5mm mic cables myself to use with AKG230 (dynamic omni ENG mic) and 5pin-XLR to stereo 3.5mm for a Shure VP88 and used both for a radio documentary using MiniDisc. It worked. I recommend learning to solder cables yourself, at least enough to get the idea behind the connectors (even thought I also carry some factory mades as I can not trust myself 100%).

Just one funny thing about MiniDisc and mono: NEVER use the possibility to record in mono on minidisc, some $$$ SONY studio MiniDisc decks can not read discs, which have mono tracs!!!. That was what happened to me, we pulled all the audio from my discs with the same $200 player/recorder I had used in the field, $2000 Sony deck sitting idle on the $100000 table. Only because the first disc we tried to copy had a mono track in the beginning, Sony would not read it and we thought the deck was broken...
 
Thanks

Thanks

Well thank you everyone for the responses. I appreciate it. Just to bring up another question. I used the Shure sm58 and then connected the mini disc via usb and transferred it through sonic stage. The audio was still only coming out of the left channel. So then I uploaded the file onto Sony Vegas and then used the "Pan" scroller to increase the sound to the right speaker and it seemed to have worked perfectly. It seemed to have worked just fine using both Right and Left channels but might there be problems from doing this action?
 
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Sure, it should work fine. Recording in stereo from one mic with one cable will deally give you two identical tracks, so it doesn't really have any advantage (I'm not sure if either approach has a compression advantage, but let's assume not).

Petrus is completely right about the cable; I was just assuming you weren't making cables yourself. An off-the-shelf XLR-stereo 1/8" will not necessarily work, but you can certainly make one that does. Petrus, I've had luck with the mono plug approach - but admittedly have not tried on a wide variety of equipment!
 
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