Minidiscs

[Guest]

Does anyone still use Minidiscs for recording purposes?
What is the lifetime of a minidisc?
Are the blank discs still readily available? or can one re-use old MDs ?

Slarty

[cloughie]

Does anyone still use Minidiscs for recording purposes?
What is the lifetime of a minidisc?
Are the blank discs still readily available? or can one re-use old MDs ?

Slarty

Yes I still use MDs occasionally either for recording from FM radio or copying old LPs. Lifetime of an MD is I assume the same as a CD. I have not had any problems with them. Yes can reuse old MDs - this is one of their pluses. The ease of recording is really good and their editing potential excellent. The quick demise in popularity of the MD because the manufacturers did not like them was one of the tragedies of Hifi evolution as it provided the natural successor to the MC but with longer available times - the 80 minute length doubled up to 160 with little loss of quality is ideal for recording concerts on Radio 3 and the editing facilities then mean that the chat and applause can be removed and the space vacated is available for future use. There are no doubt sound purists on these boards who will say that DAC and streaming and goodness knows what more up to date technology is better, but I guess, not simpler to operate and for occasional listening by my ageing ears the MD is good enough. Availability of new MDs I have not explored recently as I tend to reuse my supply.

[Dave2002]

Does anyone still use Minidiscs for recording purposes?
What is the lifetime of a minidisc?
Are the blank discs still readily available? or can one re-use old MDs ?

Slarty

I used some a few weeks ago to record a concert. I would not particularly recommend them, however, and anyone who wants to start recording should probably look elsewhere. I have both HiMD equipment, and regular MD recorders. Unfortunately there was AFAIK only ever one HiMD deck, available in Japan, and very expensive. There were three types of recorder - standard, NetMD and HiMD. Because of constraints and DRM, uploading recordings to a computer is often only possible in real time, which may take several hours. This constraint may not apply to some HiMD recorders.

The common software used to download and upload recordings was mostly Sony's Sonicstage, which was not particularly widely loved. I don't think there was any other widely available software which could circumvent some or all of the problems with Sony's software. The kinds of limitations which were imposed sometimes made it impossible for recordings to be played back using the digital connetions, and that would only leave copying - again in real time - from the analogue outputs as the remaining possibility. Also, Sonicstage only ever worked on Windows PCs as far as I know. I did think there had been versions for other platforms, but when I checked recently I could not find any evidence of such. Towards the end of the MD era Sony relaxed some of the DRM restrictions in the software, but this was too late in the day, and did not remove all of the problems. I think one thing it did doe was to alllow MDs recorded by others on different machines to be uploaded - even though that might be in real time. Possibly before that even that would have been impossible.

I think it may still be possible to buy MD blanks - though the HiMD ones are now very expensive. It is certainly possible to reuse MDs of all types, and looking at eBay will often find bundles of MDs which others have pre-recorded. and which can be reused - example - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/mini-discs...EAAOSw5ZBWKfv5 There are also recorders available on eBay - mostly cheap ones which run on batteries, but the HiMD ones still cost a lot more.

I think MDs can last for quite a long while - certainly longer than CD-Rs which get left out in the sun.

HiMD devices with HiMD discs can record in high quality PCM for over an hour, or if standard minidiscs are reformatted then about 15-20 minutes can be recorded in PCM. Otherwise the recorders use digital compression. I think some HiMD models can record in MP3, but most MD devices recorded in Sony's ATRAC - which had several different levels of quality. Actually ATRAC is rather a good compression algorithm, and the quality possible is really not bad at all for some applcations, and arguably significantly better than low bit rate MP3.

My intention for my recent recordings was to use HiMD and PCM, but in the end I used the HiMD recorder in ATRAC mode with reused older discs. Whatever limitations there are in the recordings are hardly due to the compression algorithm, but rather to poor technique by the recordist (me!) - with extraineous noises etc. Getting the recording level right could have much more effect on the quality of the final result than worrying about the digital compression. Micirophone placement, mix and stereo width factors may also have a more significant effect than the digital compression with standard ATRAC recordings.

After all this, what?! Despite all the problems, I do have some recordings done on HiMD equipment which sound very much better than recordings on other equipment. I don't know why - perhaps the ADC/DAC circuits are much better than other types of recorder. The mechanical aspects of MD players can also be a bit clunky - not what one expects nowadays with solid state devices. Also, the interfaces and operational aspects of portable minidisc players are fairly poor.

One other aspect which might be relevant for some is that some minidsc recorders (most?) do have optical inputs, so recordings made on other equipment can be transfered in high quality via optical links - but as with most other aspects - this will still only be in real time. That might also be a factor in the quality of some recordings made on to minidiscs. Not all (indeed few, if any) have optical out capability, which again limits the possibility for transferring recordings without quality loss.

It is possible to obtain standard minidisc recorders at low cost, and cheap microphones are available - which may be adequate for some appliations - typically under £5. As a cheap way of making live recordings such recorders might just have a use, or for backup recordings. There is virtually no point in investigating minidiscs for any other reasons or purposes that I can see nowadays. Also, if one does not want to buy a more expensive recorder for live sounds, it is possible to buy a microphone for about £20 which will work with devices such as the iPod Touch - which some people may still have.

[slarty]

Thank you to you both. I have just inherited an MD player (Tascam MD 350) and thousands of MDs of live concerts from all over the world.
I never used the system. I went from Reel to Reel to DAT and missed out on MD. I wish I knew more about it.
The Tascam recorder has one great bonus - a pitch control - which is invaluable when dealing with old recordings made from various sources then later transferred.
So from a playback point of view I am very happy. I have the Tascam running through an old Sony DAT recorder, which is now used as an AD-DA or DA converter. Then into my old trusty analogue Graphic equalizer and on into my Yamaha HD1300E which can burn CDs beautifully. As all of the old MDs need to be transferred and "touched up", they are all transferred in real time because of Pitch control.
The finished recordings on CDR are then ripped to my various external HDs and I give away or junk the CDRs.
I notice that some of the MDs are in really great sound and may well keep some of them for playback.
That is why I was asking about longevity ect.
So Dave all you hard work answering about recording is very interesting I am grateful to have it. I have copied and pasted it away safely.
Cloughie, your information is more towards providing the neccessary info required. I thank you again.

I will be happy to provide information about the collection (over 7000 MDs and 12,000 CDRs) privately to anyone interested. PM me.

[Bryn]

Regarding the longevity of minidiscs, http://forums.sonyinsider.com/topic/...disc-lifespan/, might be of interest. In 2001 I purchased my initial MD recorder, a Sony MDS-JB920 (which had both coax and optical digital input and output) principally for its potential as a sample rate converter (this was back in the days when stand-alone rate converters were thin on the ground and cost about as much as the MDS-JB920). With no disc inserted, I could feed the 48kHz sample rate of the digital output of my DAB receiver into the MDS-JB920 and get 44.1 kHz sample rate out to feed to my PC (which had a Terratec sound card with external input box). Doing the rate conversion on real time was more convenient than using Sound Forge 3, which was what I had available as an audio editor at the time. I have a fair old collection of live recordings made on later pocket minidisc recorders which I hope to transfer and edit when I eventually retire. Then there's a stack of DAT recordings too. Trouble is, I can't afford to retire until I am at least 70. Ah well ...

[Cockney Sparrow]

I used Minidisc extensively until about 5 years ago, then found PC based audio files, but have postponed, an increasing number of times, a move to adopt either iPod or non Apple portable music player (so muddle along with an Android mobile, Google Play Music All Access and Naxos Music Library). I haven't used Minidisc at all in that time except for family "oral history" recording. The sound was pretty decent, I recall (not sure a proper ABX would show I could distinguish anything better). Where its not been bettered is in ease of editing into tracks. I had (have, packed away) a top range (but not HiMd) deck, an ordinary deck, a portable recorder (sony) and a barely used portable HiMD recorder - the last portable one made. And many recorded MDs (including some HiMD) - and a stock of blanks.

When I was buying MDs in quantity I went to KVJ Fairdeal just Eastwards from Aldgate East tube station, past the Whitechapel Gallery. They are more expensive now. They do have them in stock - I go in about twice a year - as I but most of my blank media there, as it has always been keenly priced.

http://www.totalblankmedia.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=Minidisc

There was an active forum for MD, the remnants for which moved to this site. I think this is it:

http://forums.sonyinsider.com/forum/15-minidisc/

I think it was possible, with some formats (Standard quality (so not Long Play) and HiMd??) to use a program to extract the recordings into a non-proprietary file format (so no Sony DRM inhibition) but I never did it. IIRC, that was the reason for buying the HiMD portable recorder.....

Good luck with it, I will have to tackle my collection ( I only ditched my Cassettes, except for a very few, a year or two ago...)

[Dave2002]

Thank you to you both. I have just inherited an MD player (Tascam MD 350) and thousands of MDs of live concerts from all over the world.
I never used the system. I went from Reel to Reel to DAT and missed out on MD. I wish I knew more about it.
The Tascam recorder has one great bonus - a pitch control - which is invaluable when dealing with old recordings made from various sources then later transferred.

Suddenly this thread has become interesting! I wasn't expecting anyone to have a large collection of recordings on MD.

I suppose the first thing is to decide whether the recordings have any really interesting material. Re pitch control, if you are going to upload digitally then tools such as Audacity can do the pitch control later - there probably isn't a need to do it during the upload phase. However, fooling Sonicstage to do anything other then upload in real time is difficult, unless a HiMD recorder is used, and even then it's not guaranteed if the discs were made on other equipment. Of course you may prefer not to bother with Sonicstage, and simply go through your route as mentioned to your CD recorder. This may have analogue links, but perhaps that doesn't matter - the quality may be good enough. If you discover something really good, then maybe you should try the Sonicstage route - even in real time, which would upload the digital data from the MDs and from there you could generate .wav fiiles (they get uploaded as .opa files I think - which are ATRAC encoded) which you could edit using tools such as Audacity. You perhaps wouldn't need the pitch control, as pitch adjustment can be done in software, such as in Audacity, for example.

One other thing to check out is what compression format was used for each of the discs. There are several different ATRAC compression modes - and I think they adapted a bit over the commercial lifetime of the format. Many users wanted to get as much material on each disc as possible, so there are lower quality modes which extend the recording time on each minidisc.

There is a table under the heading Recording Modes in this link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc
Not all modes will play or record on all players.

If you are going to keep the Tascam recorder, then maybe for the discs with good sound you should keep those. Others can be reused, discarded, or sold on eBay - but you won't get much for them, perhaps £1 each if you're lucky. If by any chance any of the recorded material is rare, then there could be a market for it. I recall going to concerts a few years ago - think with the LPO, and there were notes in the programmes asking if anyone had made recordings of some of their broadcast concerts - which they wanted to reclaim - no questions asked!

[pastoralguy]

I've used used mini-discs since 1996 and find them excellent. I keep mine in shoe boxes and I have a whole box dedicated to the BeethovenExperience on Radio3 when there was a whole week of the maestro's work presented. I was off work and used 80 minute discs on quadruple play to record, in tandem, the whole experience! I would set my alarm, get up and pop a new disc in then go back to sleep. I kept a couple of copies of the Radio Times for that week. One day, I'll get round to editing them.

I also have many years worth of CD Review with the BAL features written on them. A largely harmless pass time. In fact, I went through an appalling period at work which resulted in me having a massive breakdown. Without realising why, I used to edit those CD Review discs and add the text via a keyboard that was attachable. It was only later that I realised what a great therapy it had been in increasing my concentration. I actually met Andrew McGregor and told him this story!

I also record stuff off air that's of interest to me which, as Dave points out, may be worth something in years to come. I've never found the sound quality to be any less than good to excellent. I've also picked up new and used MDs in charity shops!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It was a good format - convenient, compact and reliable. It's rival, the digital compact cassette (DCC) never really stood a chance and its marketing was abominable. Minidisc's weakness was its 4 bit compression (though MP3 has hardly been a failure). But the biggest blow to its success was CD-R/RW.

[slarty]

I have rather become a little disillusioned over the past couple of years because of the amount of CDRs lost to CD rot that have passed through my hands. it seems that the economy practiced by collectors of buying the cheapest CDRs in the past may now come to haunt many of them. Also the general condition of them, due to less than careful handling resulting in many scratches, can also affect playback.
As to Dave's point about Orchestras asking for old performances, I intend to contact those concerned to see if they are interested in their own performances, once the discs are all sorted out.
I am working through Tennstedt and Karl Böhm at the moment and discovered many excellent performances in excellent sound that have never seen the light of day.
I must thank all of you for the excellent advice and suggestions offered, and the links which send me further into researching MDs.
I have also discovered that the Tascam is a model from Teac's professional division, and have discovered that they still make one. i had already decided to keep some of the best of the MDs.
thanks again one and all.

[Dave2002]

Is your MD recorder a deck, somethIng like this one - http://tascam.com/product/md-cd1mk3/ or the similar MD only model (the one here has CD capability as well) which is also accessible from the web page? Looks to be good kit.

[slarty]

Is your MD recorder a deck, somethIng like this one - http://tascam.com/product/md-cd1mk3/ or the similar MD only model (the one here has CD capability as well) which is also accessible from the web page? Looks to be good kit.

No Dave, it is this one
MD-350 OVERVIEW
The new MD-350 is the latest addition to TASCAM's line, offering an affordable MD with advanced performance functions. The MD-350 is the best value for live venues, houses of worship, or budget conscious broadcasters.

The MD-350 incorporates the latest advancements in MD technology. The latest ATRAC encoding scheme (version 3) is implemented, offering new long play versions with up to 320 minutes of record time on a standard 80 minute MiniDisc. A front panel PS/2 keyboard port allows intuitive control over editing the MiniDisc's TOC (Table Of Contents) and naming tracks.

A complete host of audio I/O makes integrating the MD-350 into any system easy. Balanced and unbalanced analog ports are available, as well as digital optical ports. A front panel optical port can be used to connect portable players digitally without crawling behind the machine rack.

Pitch control function is available on the MD-350, with a clear on/off switch on the front panel. Plus, a few cueing functions have been added, making sound cues easier for live situations:

- Auto Cue positions the machine to the first audio in a MD track, rather than the actual ID location. This eliminates dead space in the beginning of the track, allowing tighter cues for live shows or on-air environments.

- Auto Ready pauses the machine at each track ID. This is ideal for live environments, allowing the engineer to cue in one track and forget about the machine - it automatically sets itself at the next cue. This is ideal since this also prevents the machine from accidentally rolling into the next cue on the MD.

The RC-32 wireless remote is included with the MD-350.
No longer available (It was still boxed and unused, straight from the shop whenever it was bought)

Taken from the Website.
The 350 which I have seems to be the only model they made with a pitch control.
As I have mainly an analog system, I will use it and not the computer systems you mentioned. For that,, I would need a much bigger and better computer system and I see no need at the moment to change that set-up.
It may just be my ears, but I prefer the analog sound in every way to digital.

[MrGongGong]

It may just be my ears, but I prefer the analog sound in every way to digital.

?

MD is a digital format (until it gets to the speakers and then your analog ears).

and

a TASCAM machine is likely to be far superior in build quality and reliability than a cheaper 'domestic' portable machine.
Many radio stations used (and some still do) MD extensively and there are bargains to be had for second hand 'pro' machines which have some of the features that made others frustrating (the ability to digitally transfer, for example).

For example, you can get one of these

http://www.minidisc.org/part_Denon_DN-M1050R.html

For less than £150

Lots more here

http://www.minidisc.org/part_Professional_Denon.html

[Dave2002]

The 350 which I have seems to be the only model they made with a pitch control.
As I have mainly an analog system, I will use it and not the computer systems you mentioned. For that,, I would need a much bigger and better computer system and I see no need at the moment to change that set-up.
It may just be my ears, but I prefer the analog sound in every way to digital.

Amusing that they saw "places of worship" as a target market.

That wasn't the only Tascam model with pitch control, though it may have been the first.

Re digital vs analogue - using this device will put the audio through digital stages anyway - so what you are actually hearing is the result of digital processing. The fact that you like it suggests that you would be very happy with high quality digital. I suspect that what is offered in the consumer market is not always up to the highest standards. Certainly poor quality MP3 spoils the sound, though at higher bit rates, if done well it can be very acceptable. FWIW I have an analogue cassette deck which sounds excellent on some tapes. There are also some CDs where the mastering stages were all done in analogue even into the digital era which sound very good. One example, perhaps not to be shouted about here, is one of ALW's recordings of the Phantom of the Opera on the Really Useful label, which sounds as good as or better than many digitally mastered CDs to my ears. Not that I listen to it much, but one in my family liked it!

Almost finally, and perhaps a very small point, if any orchestra bites on the offer or you yourself want the best sound, then do keep the MDs of the best performances. As far as I can see the Tascam unit does decode the last ATRAC standard, but it's possible that there are or were other models which would do even better. There's nothing which can be done about the encoding - that's fixed, but for a given digitslly compressed recording, there can sometimes be improvements with the choice of playback parameters, so a pro outfit might be able to get even better results with the best kit available to them. The conversion to wav may not be the absolute best which can be achieved from a given ATRAC encoded source.

However your views about sound quality are also of interest. I was serious when I wrote that some of my recordings made to HiMD on my Sony unit sound a lot better than other recordings. I don't know why, but it could be due to better quality ADC or DAC units, or simply better analogue circuitry. I really wanted to get a HiMD deck at one point, but there was only ever one - in Japan - a 110 Volt model. I did pick up some "regular" MD decks from eBay, which are good, but not as qood as the HiMD portable re sound. many bands used to used these decks for live gigs apparently, but moved on to using tablets some years ago, as they find the interface easier, and the sound quality acceptable. Other uses were for sound effects for theatre productions, but again it seems likely that tablets or computers would now do the same job.

It could also be that some US radio stations used MDs for adverts during "messages" as the adverts could be quickly inserted in programme gaps. I once went round a US station, though the presenters may have using other forms of tape cartridge at the time (I think they were on short loops) but I do remember that fast advert insertion/selection was a feature/requiement.

[MrGongGong]

It could also be that some US radio stations used MDs for adverts during "messages" as the adverts could be quickly inserted in programme gaps.

Not just in the US

(from http://www.minidisc.org/bbc_md.html)

Emergency MiniDiscs at the BBC

It's always interesting to hear unusual apllications of the MiniDisc format. Here's how the BBC use MiniDiscs in emergency situations in their new studios. This information is from the February issue of the UK magazine The Mix - Mads
There is a locket cabinet in Studio 1 with a clear message which reads: 'This Cabinet contains: 1 Emergency Procedure Booklet and 1 Emergency MiniDisc. DO NOT REMOVE FROM THIS ROOM.'. This is the most important part of the fire alarm procedure in the Radio 1 studios, and its dictates are simple. Emergency MiniDiscs are regularly recorded to be played in case of fire or other reasons for evacuation. Basically, the procedure involves the DJ running to the emergency cabinet, grabbing the disc, thrusting it into a MiniDisc player and then running like shit-off-a-shovel through the nearest fire-exit to safety. The MiniDisc keeps the radio station's output going until the DJ has time to resume his or her seat - or, in the worst-case scenario, pick up the show in another studio (maybe in another building). The 45-minute MiniDiscs are updated every six months, so the tunes at least have some revelance to the show...

The same article also mentions, that the BBC uses Denon MiniDisc players for jingles and pre-recorded announcements.