Recording with the Creative Nomad Jukebox (NJB) - Pre-amp and Microphone Recommendations and Reviews

Getting the right gear to record with the Creative Nomad Jukebox (NJB) was no easy task--even for someone with an electrical engineering degree and a US patent in electronic circuit design!

Hopefully I can save you a lot of headache...here are the results of my quest for recording bliss with my Creative Nomad Jukebox (the original, though this solution is generally applicable to all Jukebox models with a line input including the Nomad Jukebox 3). It's a tough nut to crack--the Nomad Jukebox does not have a microphone input. Instead, it has a line level input that requires either a hot electret mic biased from a battery box, a preamplified mic, or a direct line level input (from off the sound board perhaps).

Sound Professionals battery box $59 (basic, no options) +
SP-SM 5 single point stereo omnidirectional mics with 8" arms ($109) ordered with the high sensitivity (-35dB) mic capsules. Click here for live recording examples from Triple Threat Band!

• Sound Professionals SP-Preamp Pre-amplifier (basic, no options)
  
• SP-SM 5 single point stereo omnidirectional mics with 8" arms, high-sensitivity

Warning: the following paragraphs contain numbers. Proceed at your own risk. You have been warned. *grin*

Note: Mic capsule sensitivity is an option you must specify when ordering the SP-SPSM5 microphone. The low-sensitivity "-42 dB (5.6 mV) re 1V at 1 Pa" capsules are not hot enough for using with a battery box alone. I recommend the high-sensitivity "-35dB re 1V at 1 Pa" capsules. For the non-geeks among you, that's saying the output of the low-sensitivity mic is 42 decibels below 1 Volt when the sound pressure level at the microphone is 1 Pascal (the Pascal is international standard unit of pressure). Now, the "high sensitivity" ones I recommend are "-35dB re 1V at 1 Pa" -- that gives you a 7dB "hotter" signal. For this application with the NJB's line-level input, the extra 7dB helped me avoid spending another $150 for the preamp option. Read my Trial iterations below for more details before you ponder asking a question. Click here for the specifications of the high-sensitivity omnidirectional mic capsules--you'll notice the ruler flat frequency response graph!

Read on for details of the painful iterative process by which this recommendation was formed!

My application: record electric rock and blues bands in local small clubs for my own band and friends' bands for the purpose of reviewing the performance and having an accurate record of how things sounded in the house.

If you need to record softer sources as well, modify my recommendation above--replace the battery box with the Sound Professionals SP-Preamp LOW NOISE GAIN-SELECTABLE PORTABLE STEREO PREAMP. It's $179 but this thing is a swiss army knife of gain options to get ya covered in every situation.

My motivation/tolerance for this imperfect recording device (the NJB): There are lots of reasons to scoff at the Nomad Jukebox for recording, but here's why it works for me: I already own the Creative Nomad Jukebox and love how it can store over 9 hours or more of 44.1khz stereo WAV's without changing media! Whenever I record, I have access to a wall outlet (The NJB chews through batteries in 20 minutes when recording in my experience--the hard drive spins continuously). I can innovate around its annoying lack of level meters through trial and error, and I'm not obsessed with using every ounce of its dynamic range. Now, if I were buying a dedicated player just to do this sort of recording, I'd probably by a Minidisc recorder or a DAT recorder without thinking twice. One with level meters and a mic-level input.... But, I already own the NJB, and unlike DAT and MD which have smaller media, nothing else can be set to record at the beginning of my band's show and then left untouched until the end of the night! And I find the quality of the 16bit digital recordings to be quite good--unlike MD, the NJB records in uncompressed WAV format.

General recording tips for the Nomad Jukebox (NJB):

• Don't even think of recording unless plugged into the wall. Batteries will last all of 20 minutes because it seems to spin the hard drive the entire time. Reportedly the NJB3 is much better in this regard thanks to its use of the solid state memory buffer to cache hard-disk writes. I also run with charged batteries installed. I can't confirm it, but batteries make wonderful capacitors, and though I've heard of hard drive noise problems when recording with the NJB, I've never experienced them (and I've always recorded w/ batteries installed, and power supply plugged in).
• Second, be careful when stopping recording--read the menus and be sure to tell the unit to save the recording! In certain older firmware versions, it's actually possible to lose an entire recording by hitting the wrong button (like the LIB button for example) while in the recording screen. This is rather heinous software design, but if you're aware of the issue, it's easy to avoid problems. In the latest firmware, this issue is corrected though. You can test it by hitting the LIB button during a test recording. The corrected firmware will show "still recording" on the screen.
• Use that lock switch on the left side of the player once recording is started to eliminate anyone possibly stopping recording by hitting the jukebox.
• To avoid filling the jukebox and encountering known problems with the NJB when the disk is getting full, consider reformating the drive before recording, or at the very least do EAX>System Cleanup. I have had at least one scenario where I was running tight on disk spaceand deleted some tracks from the NJB using EAX> Delete Library Items to free up some space before recording. What I found is that when I transferred these tracks to the PC, they came out rather screwy and jumpy with odd nonuniform file sizes. Doing a System Cleanup and retransferring them from NJB to my PC seemed to fix the issue. I never had that happen when I religiously reformated before doing recordings.
• By default, the NJB is set to record at rather meager bitrate (22kHz I think?). Before recording music, be sure to go into EAX>Recording and bump up the sampling rate to CD standard of 44.1kHz.
• Do not set any "gain" on the NJB EAX>recording menu--leave it at 0dB. The NJB doesn't have any analog gain stage for this--it's just doing "digital" amplification which is a fancy way of saying it's throwing away the leftmost (most significant, mathematically) bits of the recording to encode the WAV louder. It's better to just normalize volume in an audio editor later rather than risk saturating/clipping the encoding.
• To start recording, from the EAX>Recording menu, hit the "ARM" soft button, and then press the "Play" button. The display will show an advancing timer. At that point, slide the lock switch on the left side of the unit into place, make sure you're plugged into the wall, and that your mic equipment is plugged into the line input. To stop recording, hit stop, and then pay close attention to the display so that you properly save the resulting recording!
• If you want confirmation that an audio signal is running through the Jukebox (which confirms your mic and preamp are doing their thing), bring along some good closed ear headphones with an 1/8" jack (Best Buy sells some Sony's for under $25), and in the EAX>Recording menu turn "Monitor thru" on. Without any level meters, this is really the only assurance you can have that signal is making it to the NJB!
• When you're all done, transfer the WAV's to your computer and use an audio editor to split up the 15minute tracks into individual songs, and massage EQ if you like.
• Need a recommendation of a fully functional shareware audio editor? I'm really impressed with GoldWave -- so much I think I'm gonna register it. Cool Edit Pro is also very well received though its demo software is rather cripled until you cough up (a good sum of) money.

To record with this device, you need a transducer that ends up sending a line level signal to the line input of the Nomad Jukebox. What level? Good question. Creative can't even tell me, but there's a procedure you can use to calibrate it for a specific unit. for Creative's answer to my support query on this peak level question. I also found this article on recording levels on nomadness.net that can serve as a guide.

Now you can get a good usable level, as I discovered, in a couple ways---either

1. a hot, efficient omni-directional electret mic in a loud environment, or
2. going with a pre-amp plus a microphone if you are dealing with softer sounds, or less sensitive cardiod microphones.

Trial #1: Now a great alternative solution for those seeking more flexibility

Sound Professionals SP-PASM-2 Preamplified Mic price ~$209

This new model includes a feature I begged for in my review of their old model--namely, the addition of adjustable gain and the option of 0 gain. The new model has a gain switch that provides either 29dB 50dB or 0dB of gain followed by a passive attenuator (potentiometer knob) to fine tune within those ranges. Since the NJB lacks recording level meters, you will have to experiment to get the settings that match your needs, but this box certainly has all the flexibility you need to get where you need to go.

For loud venues (namely, my band 3pc rock/blues band in a small club, recorded 20 feet from the stage), I tested the SP-PASM-2 in 0dB gain mode. Since my unit was graciously provided by Sound Professionals with the High Sensitivity mic capsule option, this configuration of the SP-PASM-2 essentially duplicates my battery-box+high sensitivity mic solution recommended above. The SP-PASM-2 uses the same ruler-flat wonderful mic capsules used in SP-SM-5 mics above, and is available in both low sensitivity and high sensitivity models. With the Level control at the 3 o'clock position, the results were excellent and identical to the solution above. This is a great improvement over their old model which had distortion problems recording loud sources even with the low-sensitivity capsules.

If you want the enhanced stereo imaging that mic capsule separation can provide, you can use this preamplified microsphone with teh SP-SM-5 mic. Plugging in a mic into this unit disables the integrated mic capsules.

The bottom line: Sound Professionals SP-PASM-2 preamplified mic is a veritable swiss army knife for recording with your Creative Nomad Jukebox, and I highly recommend it as the only box you'll need to get high quality recordings in a variety of situations with a minimum of bulk. The thing's the size of a deck of cards and has the stereo mics built in!

Prior Trial #2 - Sound Professionals battery box SP-SPSB-1 + SP-SPSM-10 cardiod stereo single point microphone w/ 4" arms.

The good: distortion free recording of loud music.

The bad: VERY weak levels, much poorer bass response in comparison to the omni-directional elements in Trial #1.

I was very disappointed with the levels-- in the WAV files, the maximum amplitude I ever saw was 0.2 out of 1.0. The bass response was very poor in comparison to the omnidirectional mics in the SP-PASM unit. The 4" arms also resulted in less stereo separation than I'd have liked. 8"-ers would be better.

I spoke with technical support. Directed questioning led to the discovery that the SP-SPSM-10 mic capsules were a rather modest -45dB sensitivity at 1Pa, while the mic capsules in the SP-SPSM unit were quite a bit more efficient at -35dB at 1Pa. In addition, they confirmed that these cardiods are expected to have much poorer bass response than the omni directional mic capsules.

At the direction of tech support, I will be exchanging my SPSM-10 microphone for the SP-SPSM-5 omni directional microphone with the special instruction that I want the higher efficiency capsules be used for this microphone. The thought is that with the battery box alone and the higher efficiency capsules, I will attain suitable preamp levels without a separate preamp. Which leads to....

Trial #3 - Sound Professionals battery box w/ optional passive attenuator controls + SP-SM 5 single point stereo omnidirectional mics loaded with the -35dB high sensitivity mic capsules

My battery box has the passive gain control option, but it turns out they aren't necessary. I run them at their maximum level, and the four screws that enclose them inside the box discourage me from tweaking them very much. These controls, however, would be very useful if the mic and battery box were used in conjunction with a separate preamp. I did not get the bass rolloff option on the battery box. Given my results, I'm pleased that I didn't spend the extra money for the bass rolloff. The recording when played back on my home system with Velodyne subwoofer was quite accurate. I've never heard an open air recoding that had such realistic, solid bass. But then again, I'd been using crappy microphones for a long long time....

I was mildy concerned about omnidirectional elements picking up a lot of stray noise. However, I was pleased to find that I didn't notice much stray audience talking during the performance, but I could hear talking between songs, which was actually kinda cool. So long as the mic isn't on a table where people are shouting to talk to each other, these omni's will be great! The added bass response is WELL worth it.

Sound Professionals affiliate statement: Due to the volume of people who have benefited from this site and who ended up purchasing Sound Professionals gear as a result, I joined their affiliate program in July 2004. If you should choose to purchase this gear from links on this review page (which was constructed without intent of any renumeration, and can be viewed as unbiased!!), I think I do get some "points" from soundprofessionals for future purchases. If this bothers you, feel free to visit soundprofessionals.com directly, but anything to help me maintain this non-commercial site is most welcome! Best Regards,
--
Todd
http://www.toddh.net/

Last updated: November 21, 2007
Prior update: June 28, 2004
Previously updated Dec 18, 2002
Text Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2004 toddh.net. Equipment photos referenced from the manufacturers' respective web sites.