Topic: What's up with this waveform?? (pic inside)

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However, you'll get the same thing if the source is really loud or if the PA in the venue is badly over-driven (or both).  Either way (low battery or loud source), the result is even harmonic distortion (which looks exactly like what you've shown, compressed on one side of the waveform).

I did a recording recently where I got the electric guitar amp from the amp and not the PA (I don't even think it was mic'ed) and sure enough, on parts where it's just the guitar playing, I get an asymmetrical wave, like an odd push/pull relationship from the speaker. My gear is clean (sound devices and newish DPAs), and I don't see it elsewhere outside of the brass I record (which I'd expect to see that).

[Church-Audio]

Could you recommend a good, cheap voltmeter for 9V's and AA's?

The dollar store across the here usually has cheap multimeters in hardware isle for.. $1
Good?, umm well no, but I imagine they meaure DV Voltage accurately enough, and only cost a dollar.

The multimeter I use is a $20 Harborfreight special and is a Cadillac in comparison, but measuring battery voltage is a Yugo level job.

Be very careful with cheap meters.. I had one blow up in my face because it was built so badly. When I measured 120v the thing exploded. Not cool at all. Made my heart jump out of my body. The internal wiring shorted out As long as you are just using it for low voltage its fine but never use a cheap ass meter on anything high voltage. What I recommend is find your self a cheap Fluke 77 They can be had for $20 to $30 bucks used and are safe to use.
I dont have any cheap meters.. I just bought this to have in the car for a small tool kit.
This is a good deal I paid $25 for my fluke 77.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FLUKE-77-MULTIMETER-/261165490381?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3ccead20cd

[Gutbucket]

Yikes!  Cheap meter high-voltage warning noted.

I appears I stirred up the fates talking about the Imedions - last weekend I had the first early death of a pair of the AA's which typically last 5+ hrs in the DR2d but shut down this time after ~2hrs, just after the intermission, causing be to miss recording the best piece of the evening.  They are currently in the fancy Maha charger undergoing the ~48hr break-in proceedure routine to see how well that restores them.  I probably should have used the refresh mode or break-in mode on them more regularly, I only did that to break-in and match them as pairs when they were new and have only done a straight re-charge of each pair since.  I'll certainly test them well before relying on them again.  Might be time to rotate these to other duties and replace them with new ones.  I'll have to check dates but I think I've gotten a solid 2-1/2+ years out of this set of 16 AAs so far, used across all my recorders.