[Five]

Originally Posted by ReverbReverse

the recorder won't let me control the volume level

okay now it is all coming clear!

you can control the volume level on the deck. you can only do it when a disc is inserted and you are in rec-pause mode. if you insert a new disc you have to do it again... which is the biggest single drawback of hi-md you should have seen me doing the disc change at the pearl jam show trying to see my non-light-up display on my MZ-NH1 this is something that is good to practice many times at home because time is of the essence.

the other problem is that the manual levels have a value of between 0-30, and it will remember any setting except if it is below 13 it will stay at 13. 8-11 is usually best for recording live shows, so this is another thing that has to be tinkered with everytime you put in a disc. low sensitivity is necessary as well (at least it can remember that).

also, looking at your frequency response it looks like you're still in default hi-sp recording mode. it cuts off abruptly at 19.5kHz (see 2nd-last pic in this thread), which is not something you should see with 44.1/16bit LPCM WAV + CSBs. Be sure to check that setting, change it to LPCM WAV.

you should find all the info you need here:
http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=9045

with this information your next live recording will sound much much better!

as for fixing up the old one I would just boost it 8db or so such that the peaks don't clip. somewhere you can find a freeware vst plugin that can do hard limiting if you want to try boosting it beyond that without introducing clipping. you will need the vst enabler from the audacity homepage. I can't remember where to find a good free limiter right now (not much luck with google at the moment) but will check my bookmarks at home when I get the chance. Some of them are God-awful, some are quite good (ymmv).