Nomad Jukebox 3

[Pandora]

Hi all,

Recently purchased a Nomad III for field recording. I have the most recent

firmware update which is said to allow mic-in recording (i.e. no preamp).

Trouble is, mic-in WAV recordings contain a quiet unpleasant (like nails

on chalkboard) electrical squealing noise. Mic-in MP3s don't, but the hiss over

+24dB is substantial and the gain below +24 offers inadequate boost. The line-

in jack seems to be easily overloaded resulting in distortion, despite the

meters staying out of the red. Anyone else had the these problems using the

Nomad III with a mic? Is anyone able to obtain good line-in recordings which

are better than minidisc? If so, how do you set the levels seeing as the

meters can't be relied on? Thanks in advance.

Brackish.

[Todd H.]

(Pandora) writes:

> Hi all,
>
> Recently purchased a Nomad III for field recording. I have the most
> recent firmware update which is said to allow mic-in recording
> (i.e. no preamp). Trouble is, mic-in WAV recordings contain a quiet
> unpleasant (like nails on chalkboard) electrical squealing
> noise. Mic-in MP3s don't, but the hiss over +24dB is substantial and
> the gain below +24 offers inadequate boost. The line- in jack seems
> to be easily overloaded resulting in distortion, despite the meters
> staying out of the red. Anyone else had the these problems using
> the Nomad III with a mic? Is anyone able to obtain good line-in
> recordings which are better than minidisc? If so, how do you set
> the levels seeing as the meters can't be relied on? Thanks in
> advance.

I think you'd be quite intrigued with my Nomad recording page:

http://www.toddh.net/music/njb/

The 'mic in" mode in the NJB3 is smoke and mirrors--there isn't a
hardware preamp on it. I'd do some shopping at soundprofessionals.com
if you are doing low SPL recording. Once you give it a nice line-level
signal, it makes quite a swell recording!

Best Regards,
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | Todd H
\ / | http://www.toddh.net/
X Promoting good netiquette | http://triplethreatband.com/
/ \ http://www.toddh.net/netiquette/ | "4 lines suffice."

[Pandora]

"Arny Krueger" > wrote in message >...> > Hi all,
> >
Thanks. Any idea the audio quality and achievable volume with minidisc mic in

(i.e. without a preamp)? I'm trying to decide whether to return my Nomad for

a minidisc but it's confusing when many minidisc owners seem to be saying

the Jukebox is the way to go. Has anyone gotten any Nomad 3 recordings that

had good dynamic range? The little line-in recording I've done has yielded

results nowhere near the Hi8 and DV tape recordings of my camcorders. Again,

thanks. Brackish.

[Arny Krueger]

"Pandora" > wrote in message
om
> "Arny Krueger" > wrote in message
> >...> > Hi all,
>>>
> Thanks. Any idea the audio quality and achievable volume with
> minidisc mic in (i.e. without a preamp)? I'm trying to decide whether to
return my
> Nomad for a minidisc but it's confusing when many minidisc owners seem
to be
> saying the Jukebox is the way to go. Has anyone gotten any Nomad 3
> recordings that had good dynamic range? The little line-in recording
I've done has
> yielded > results nowhere near the Hi8 and DV tape recordings of my
camcorders.

I just won a 20 GB Nomad 3 in an eBay auction. MO goes out tonight. When I
receive it, I plan to put it through the usual www.pcabx.com set of tests.
I'll probably run some Audio Rightmark tests and post some preliminary
results on rec.audio.pro .

[Arny Krueger]

"Arny Krueger" > wrote in message

> "Pandora" > wrote in message
> om
>> "Arny Krueger" > wrote in message
>> >...> > Hi all,
>>>>
>> Thanks. Any idea the audio quality and achievable volume with
>> minidisc mic in (i.e. without a preamp)? I'm trying to decide
>> whether to return my Nomad for a minidisc but it's confusing when
>> many minidisc owners seem to be saying the Jukebox is the way to
>> go. Has anyone gotten any Nomad 3 recordings that had good
>> dynamic range? The little line-in recording I've done has yielded
>> > results nowhere near the Hi8 and DV tape recordings of my
>> camcorders.
>
> I just won a 20 GB Nomad 3 in an eBay auction. MO goes out tonight.
> When I receive it, I plan to put it through the usual www.pcabx.com
> set of tests.

Whoops, I mean www.pcavtech.com set of tests.

[Arny Krueger]

"Pandora" > wrote in message
om...
> "Arny Krueger" > wrote in message
>...
> > "Arny Krueger" > wrote in message
> >
> > > "Pandora" > wrote in message
> > > om
> > >> "Arny Krueger" > wrote in message
> > >> >...> > Hi all,
> > >>>>> > I just won a 20 GB Nomad 3 in an eBay auction. MO goes out
tonight.
> > > When I receive it, I plan to put it through the usual www.pcabx.com
> > > set of tests.
> >
> > Whoops, I mean www.pcavtech.com set of tests.
> Thanks Arny,
> Condolences -- I mean congrats -- on your ebay win. (You
> should've held off for MY Nomad.) Just to let you know what you're in
> for:

.... snip list of *features*

What's the trick to downloading a complete set of firmware update files? The
Nomad World site seems to be kinda sticky when it comes to downloading
1.10.06...

[Pandora]

Arny,
I have no experience downloading the v1.10.06. My Nomad came
packed with the v1.11.07 so I was able to go right to downloading
the latest: 1.32.02. This download went smoothly.
Brackish.

[Pandora]

Hi all,
Just to keep you up to date. So far, other than toying
(minimally) with Nomad 3, I've only made one important recording.
It was basically 40 minutes of live harp playing. Used a preamp
and went line in.
First, I played it back through powered studio monitors and,
what struck out at me, was the unusually low level of hiss.
So I was excited to get it into the computer and work with it.
I set out to do a 1394 transfer but was unable to because
I kept receiving the message "Nomad Not Connected" despite
receiving a simultaneous message of "Nomad Connected".
Someone on another forum suggested that I should try getting
the latest drivers to go along with the latest firmware update.
I hadn't done this when I updated the firmware so it sounded
logical that this was maybe the problem. I went ahead and
updated the drivers but this still didn't help.
I next went to Creative's website and found the "Nomad
Not Connected" problem listed in the support area along with
a few different things to try for correction, among which were
formatting the drive and reinstalling the operating system.
Mind you, I had probably operated the Nomad for about only
an hour since I had purchased it new.
The first step listed involved pressing this button, holding
that button, partially removing battery, releasing this button,
reinserting battery, scrolling and selecting an option, etc.
Before I did all this, for fear of losing the harp music,
I decided to do an analog out to pc. Half way through this
recording, the Nomad locked up and emitted a loud continuous
flat note along the lines of an emergency broadcast test signal.
All keys, including power on/off, were unresponsive. I removed
the battery and reinserted it and once again set out
to analog record the harp. After 40 minutes it completed without
interuption this time. I listened to the recording to make
sure it had gotten in there. Well it did -- but with a lot of
crackling included -- as if it were from an old 33 album.
Anyway, I followed the support advice and was able to
make that 1394 transfer. The 40 minute recording took 2
minutes to transer through 1394. No crackling. Very little hiss.
Just keeping you up to date.
Looking forward to Arny's experiences.
Brackish

P.S. I did run across someone else's post from some time ago
referring to a repeated lock up problem with his Nomad 3.

[Arny Krueger]

"Pandora" > wrote in message
m

> Just to keep you up to date. So far, other than toying
> (minimally) with Nomad 3, I've only made one important recording.
> It was basically 40 minutes of live harp playing. Used a preamp
> and went line in.

Good idea. (see below)

> First, I played it back through powered studio monitors and,
> what struck out at me, was the unusually low level of hiss.
> So I was excited to get it into the computer and work with it.
> I set out to do a 1394 transfer but was unable to because
> I kept receiving the message "Nomad Not Connected" despite
> receiving a simultaneous message of "Nomad Connected".
> Someone on another forum suggested that I should try getting
> the latest drivers to go along with the latest firmware update.
> I hadn't done this when I updated the firmware so it sounded
> logical that this was maybe the problem. I went ahead and
> updated the drivers but this still didn't help.

I've been doing USB 2.0 transfers with mine. It's always worked fine. USB
2.0 PCI cards are dirt cheap and lotsa new systems have it built in.

> I next went to Creative's website and found the "Nomad
> Not Connected" problem listed in the support area along with
> a few different things to try for correction, among which were
> formatting the drive and reinstalling the operating system.
> Mind you, I had probably operated the Nomad for about only
> an hour since I had purchased it new.

I admit it, I played with mine for hours before I got around to testing how
it records.

> The first step listed involved pressing this button, holding
> that button, partially removing battery, releasing this button,
> reinserting battery, scrolling and selecting an option, etc.

I think the reset button the bottom does about the same thing as installing
and removing the battery.

> Before I did all this, for fear of losing the harp music,
> I decided to do an analog out to pc. Half way through this
> recording, the Nomad locked up and emitted a loud continuous
> flat note along the lines of an emergency broadcast test signal.
> All keys, including power on/off, were unresponsive. I removed
> the battery and reinserted it and once again set out
> to analog record the harp. After 40 minutes it completed without
> interruption this time. I listened to the recording to make
> sure it had gotten in there. Well it did -- but with a lot of
> crackling included -- as if it were from an old 33 album.

The recording I transferred was about 3 minutes long but I transferred 3
different versions of it before I got my recording procedure *right*. I've
been transferring a lot of .wav files into the machine (about a gig so far).
I haven't put a stopwatch on them, but they appear to be going something
like 10 times faster than real time, for 44/16 stereo .wav files over USB
2.0.

I seem to be getting about 4 hours of playback for playing .wav files. I
suspect that recording and playing .wav files eat batteries at a similar
rate. I ordered a second battery from eCost.com .com - about $35 delivered.

> Anyway, I followed the support advice and was able to
> make that 1394 transfer. The 40 minute recording took 2
> minutes to transfer through 1394. No crackling. Very little hiss.

Here are some initial measurements of my JB3's line level analog I/O. This
is with the most
recent firmware.

The JB3 analog I/O is fairly symmetrical, with really good frequency
response in both directions. It's nearly ruler-flat 100-10 KHz.

Inbound, -0.5 dB @ 20 Hz and -0.3 dB @ 20 KHz.
Outbound, -2.5 dB @ 20 Hz, - 0.3 dB at 20 KHz.

The JB3 analog I/O mediocrity is in its SNR and dynamic range. SNR is around
65 dB, and dynamic range is around 70 dB. Not that different going in or
coming out.

Therefore, the use of something like the Core Sound Mic2496 is virtually
required for
true professional-quality recording with a JB3. The only true professional
way to get music out of a JB3 is USB-2 or Firewire.

If one were recording from in the crowd, the analog noise floor of the JB3
probably wouldn't IMO be a serious problem, given good external mic preamps.
I think the use of its so-called internal mic preamps for music has already
been thoroughly deconstructed by others.

The noise floor of the JB3 tends to have a downward slope with increasing
frequency, which seems to be a good thing. It appears to be adequate for
headphones and ear buds. Max out from the headphone jack is about 1 volt
into a high impedance load.

I notice that CL just put a bunch of refurbed 20 GB Nomad 2 Jukeboxes up on
eBay for $179...

[Todd H.]

(Pandora) writes:

> Hi all,
> Just to keep you up to date. So far, other than toying
> (minimally) with Nomad 3, I've only made one important recording.
> It was basically 40 minutes of live harp playing. Used a preamp
> and went line in.
> First, I played it back through powered studio monitors and,
> what struck out at me, was the unusually low level of hiss.
> So I was excited to get it into the computer and work with it.
> I set out to do a 1394 transfer but was unable to because
> I kept receiving the message "Nomad Not Connected" despite
> receiving a simultaneous message of "Nomad Connected".

This drove me nuts with my Nomad Jukebox on my old computer.

Out of morbid curiousity...what kind of motherboard are you using,
what's your processor, and what chipset does your mobo use?

My old Abit Kt7-raid board for an 800MHz AMD Athlon did NOT like USB
with the Nomad using Creative playcenter under win2k sp3.

My new Asus Intel 1.7GHz board runnign win2k sp3 but using Notmad
explorer from Red Chair software has made all these headaches a thing
of the past. I'm afraid I don't have the datapoints necessary to tell
you if it's the mobo or the lack of Creative software on my machine,
but I did want to share.

> sure it had gotten in there. Well it did -- but with a lot of
> crackling included -- as if it were from an old 33 album.

Whoa. Do you have batteries in the Nomad? I've heard of this sort of
stuff but have never experienced it with my own NJB.

> Anyway, I followed the support advice and was able to
> make that 1394 transfer. The 40 minute recording took 2
> minutes to transer through 1394. No crackling. Very little hiss.
> Just keeping you up to date.
> Looking forward to Arny's experiences.
> Brackish
>
> P.S. I did run across someone else's post from some time ago
> referring to a repeated lock up problem with his Nomad 3.

--
Todd's Nomad Recording Page
http://www.toddh.net/music/njb/

[Todd H.]

"Arny Krueger" > writes:

> Therefore, the use of something like the Core Sound Mic2496 is
> virtually required for true professional-quality recording with a
> JB3. The only true professional way to get music out of a JB3 is
> USB-2 or Firewire.

Absolutely.

> If one were recording from in the crowd, the analog noise floor of
> the JB3 probably wouldn't IMO be a serious problem, given good
> external mic preamps. I think the use of its so-called internal mic
> preamps for music has already been thoroughly deconstructed by
> others.

Absolutely.

> I notice that CL just put a bunch of refurbed 20 GB Nomad 2 Jukeboxes up on
> eBay for $179...

Nice!

The only thing my original NJB doesn't do that I wish it did is have a
means of being able to _remotely_ tell it "start a new track." Does
anyone know if such ability is included in the NJB2 or 3?

It'd be nice if I were to be able to be on stage and push a remote
button and tell the box that's sitting 10 yards away from the stage to
start a new track.

[Arny Krueger]

"Todd H." > wrote in message


> The only thing my original NJB doesn't do that I wish it did is have a
> means of being able to _remotely_ tell it "start a new track." Does
> anyone know if such ability is included in the NJB2 or 3?

Good question, I don't have a remote.

> It'd be nice if I were to be able to be on stage and push a remote
> button and tell the box that's sitting 10 yards away from the stage to
> start a new track.

Or just chop things up in your wave editor later on.

[Arny Krueger]

"Todd H." > wrote in message

> "Arny Krueger" > writes:
>
>> "Todd H." > wrote in message
>>
>>
>>> The only thing my original NJB doesn't do that I wish it did is
>>> have a means of being able to _remotely_ tell it "start a new
>>> track." Does anyone know if such ability is included in the NJB2
>>> or 3?
>>
>> Good question, I don't have a remote.
>>
>>> It'd be nice if I were to be able to be on stage and push a remote
>>> button and tell the box that's sitting 10 yards away from the
>>> stage to start a new track.
>>
>> Or just chop things up in your wave editor later on.
>
> Yeah..doin that now... but I would rather save myself the fun of
> manipulating 700-800Mb files. Until I slap another gig of memory in
> this thing, it still takes a while to do certain operations.
>
> All I'm sayin is that it'd be nice to be able to go from this:
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> 1 record show, one album per set, 1 autotrack every 15minutes.
> 2 Connect jukebox
> 3 Rename tracks in Notmad
> 4 download to computer with Notmad
> 5 Concatenate tracks for each set using WavMerge to one big file
> 6 Open merged file in GoldWave (~800Mb usually)
> 7 Drop cue makers in Goldwave visually previewing each cue to make
> sure it's really a song bouandry and not just a quiet part
> 8 Resist the "well while I'm here" urge to compress and volume
> maximize and EQ an 800Mb file that take 45 second to save each
> time.
> 9 Split file into individual waves (now I'm using 3x disk space of
> the original tracks)
> 10 Add wav's to MusicMatch library
> 11 Mass tag the tracks appropriately with artist/track/album
> 12 Preview in musicmatch and retitle each track appropriately
> 13 Burn CD's from musicmatch
>
>
> To this, where the list is shorter, tools fewer, fewer copies of WAV
> taking temporary space on my hard disk leaving me more time spent
> doing more interesting things:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 1 record show, one track per song cued by remote.
> 2 Connect jukebox
> 3 Rename tracks in Notmad
> 4 Download to computer with Notmad
> 5 Add wav's to musicmatch library
> 6 Mass tag the tracks appropriately with artist/track/album
> 7 Preview in musicmatch and retitle each track appropriately
> 8 Burn CD's from musicmatch

How about this:

(1) Load file into CoolEdit Pro
(2) Click as required to add track marks
(3) Bring up CEP burning module
(4) Burn CD

CD plays audio seemlessly and continuously like the show, but each song is
in its own track so you can skip around easily to the beginning of each
song.

[Todd H.]

"Arny Krueger" > writes:
> "Todd H." > wrote in message
>
> How about this:
>
> (1) Load file into CoolEdit Pro
> (2) Click as required to add track marks
> (3) Bring up CEP burning module
> (4) Burn CD
>
> CD plays audio seemlessly and continuously like the show, but each song is
> in its own track so you can skip around easily to the beginning of each
> song.

That sounds rather vunderbar. Does CoolEdit have a plug in to grab
things off the jukebox directly?

CEP burns the whole file and drops CD tracks without having to split
out into individual waves? If so, that sounds pretty, well "cool."

Thanks for the info Arny!

--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | Todd H
\ / | http://www.toddh.net/
X Promoting good netiquette | http://triplethreatband.com/
/ \ http://www.toddh.net/netiquette/ | "4 lines suffice."

[Pandora]

Todd,
Dell motherboard. Intel Pentium 4 processor. Intel 850 chipset.
Regarding that crackling I mentioned, yes I had the battery in
during the transfer. Have you heard that it's better to remove the
battery?
Thanks,
Brackish

[Todd H.]

(Pandora) writes:

> Todd,
> Dell motherboard. Intel Pentium 4 processor. Intel 850 chipset.
> Regarding that crackling I mentioned, yes I had the battery in
> during the transfer. Have you heard that it's better to remove the
> battery?

Hrmm. Intel/intel shouldn't be a bad combo you'd think.

No, I haven't heard anything about batteries in vs out, but I have my
own theory that charged batteries in should always be better I'd think
since they make the nicest of stabilizing capacitors for smoothing out
power supply ripple....


--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | Todd H
\ / | http://www.toddh.net/
X Promoting good netiquette | http://triplethreatband.com/
/ \ http://www.toddh.net/netiquette/ | "4 lines suffice."

[Pandora]

Arny,
What do you suppose the SNR and dynamic range would be with the optical
in? Or would that need to be tested?
In regards to the Core Sound Mic2496, this is more than I need right now.
See, I have a good preamp which also provides phantom. I believe
I would need only the analog-to-digital convertor. Off hand, could
you recommend a good unit that just does the A/D conversion?
Brackish.

[Pandora]

Forgot to mention: I need the A/D unit to be portable/battery operated.
Brackish

[Pandora]

Hay Arny,
I found that portable battery operated A/D converter so as to get
the signal into the Jukebox professionally.
I was over at one of those minidisc sites and I came across it by
accident. Input is left and right RCA and output is optical or coaxial,
44.1kHz or 48 kHz, switchable.
You aughta get it and test it out. It's only $40. You can take the
credit for opening the door to the next era in pro digital field
recording.
It's the Parts Express model "180-970" over at www.partsexpress.com.
Glad I could help ;)
Brackish