MiniDisc Recordings

Hey there,

I’ve just got a minidisc player, good microphone as well, for a great deal, and I’m really excited about it. I taped our session last night (John Creaven!, etc.) and it sounded great. At any rate, I had a few questions for anyone who might be experienced with these funny little devices.

Is there any way without buying a new minidisc player to make copies of my recordings? I mean like upload the file to my computer and put it back onto a blank disc? Or is this another victim of Sony’s silly no upload policy? If I want to copy other people’s minidiscs (Say of sessions, and that sort of thing) do I need to buy another player, even if it’s just a player?

That being asked, would anyone that had the capability to copy minidiscs be willing to send me some of particularly good sessions and that sort of thing? I could provide blanks, and would really just like to hear more music. If anyone could help me out in this matter I’d really appreciate it.

Beware the tapeworm. :wink:

I don’t think I’ve ever set out to create a copy of a MD, though I have recorded a fair few since I got my MZ-R900 a few years back. The immediate solution that comes to mind is awkward but effective.

Play your recording into your computer using a sound capture program like GoldWav, and then play that sound file back into your minidisc recorder on a fresh disk. It means if you have a 1 hour recording you will have a minimum of 2 hours transfer time, assuming everything goes perfectly, but it would solve your problem, at least in the short term. I wouldn’t want to do this for dozens of recordings.

As to your other question - yes, we are both victims of Sony’s no-upload policy. :frowning:

Here’s all you need to know:
http://www.shareup.com/dadioh/

This page is geared towards copying from vinyl to CD, but the principles are the same. Lots of information and lists of cheap and free software you can use.

I think that was a minidisc recorder that Tony Higgins used at the June Gathering to record the tunes at http://tinwhistletunes.com/clipssnip/Chiffgathering05.html Obviously he got them into his computer.

In the past i’ve spent way too much time doing this. Now i think the best way is to find the loudest place in your recording, adjust the levels in your PC accordingly, set it up to and record the whole thing to a big wav file in the PC. Leave it recording while you sleep, if you want (the program i use lets me tell it to stop the recording after X seconds of silence). Then come back and split the bit WAV into tracks (or extract the pieces you’re interested in).

The exception would be if you’re only interested in capturing one or 2 short pieces from the minidisc. I use CDWave Editor to do the recording and splitting.

I’ve been happily making MD recordings of our sessions for several years. Up to now the only way to get them on to computer has been to copy them in real time from the MD headphone socket. I connect this to the mic socket on the back of the PC (don’t ask me why that works best). I use Audio Cleaning Lab Deluxe software to capture the recording - I can set the best recording level, then when it’s done edit the wave form accurately, even fading in and out, and divide the recording into separate tracks. There are some rather basic “enhancing” tools in the software to give the recording a bit more presence if necessary… I then burn my recording on to CD. I have software to copy the result back to my MD recorder, but I’ve never bothered with it as I find CDs much more convenient generally. It’s quick and easy to make multiple copies for example.

If anyone is contemplating buying a MD recorder for such purposes today, they should seriously consider getting one of the new “Hi-MD” recorders. Among other things, these come with Sonic Stage software which can be used to upload personal recordings to PC very quickly via a USB connection.

One more thing - if you’ve never bought a MD recorder before, make sure that you buy a recorder, not just a player. Not only that, but make sure it’s a recorder with a mic input socket - not all recorders have one of these. I’ve found that an inexpensive stereo lapel microphone gives excellent results (mine’s a Vivanco 216, which incidentally makes a superb harmonica mic too!).

Cheers

Steve

I remember seeing a component style minidisc recorder but I forget if it had 2 minidisc slots or if it was minidisc/cd or minidisc/cassette. It was at a big electronic superstore chain here in California but it was over a year ago so who knows if they still have them. It was a Sony though. -Maybe you could just get a player for quite a bit cheaper for dubbing. ?? -I’ve used a minidisc not only for live recording but also to record a bluegrass radio show on a college station when I was away at work. Having the ability to delete seperate tracks while listening back is great for making a copy of just the tracks you want. -mike

Agreed. You can easily divide your recording up into as many tracks as you like. You just have to be a bit careful that what you delete is what you intended to delete! As there’s no winding or rewinding, rapid editing is a breeze. Among other advantages of MD are:
*the discs are infinitely reusable
*if you delete a track, no gap is left in the recording and you release space for further recording. The remaining tracks simply renumber themselves.
*no hiss
*no wow and flutter
*whatever you record will always play back at the correct speed, unlike vinyl or cassette recordings, so no annoying pitch differences if you’re trying to play along (provided the source was at the correct pitch of course). When I mentioned the Audio Cleaning Lab software in my earlier post I should have mentioned that you can use it to correct the pitch of a recording without affecting the tempo. Magic.
*recorders are very small and portable
*easy to copy a CD to minidisc via the headphone socket of a CD Walkman - much better sound-quality than with cassettes. I didn’t say that, of course.

Cheers!

Steve

Ask first. AFAIK, currently you can transfer the tracks to PC in ATRAC format, but can’t do much more than store them there. There’s supposedly going to be a software update that allows you to convert the ATRAC to a useable format (WAV?), but it wasn’t available yet when i asked (a few weeks ago).

I just downloaded a MD to PC using the headphone jack, last night. I leave the computer doing it while i’m asleep, works fine. Split the tracks next day. Check my previous post for software and other hints.

g