timrocker Posted March 18, 2003 Share Posted March 18, 2003 Has any one tried out the Yamaha MD8? It is a mini disc recorder with an analog mixer in one. Here's what I like about the idea-it's portable and the mixing side is old school while the tracking is digital. I would like to be able to take it to the home of a drummer and do his parts there, bring it home and do guitars, bass and voice here. Any thoughts? Thanks people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timrocker Posted March 18, 2003 Author Share Posted March 18, 2003 bump-o-rama Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Bear Jew Posted March 18, 2003 Share Posted March 18, 2003 Yo Jigga... I just recorded two whole albums on a Yamaha MD-8. Very nice. The only issues we ran into were occasional "disc errors," which caused wacked moments of silence to be inserted into tracks. Sometimes the glitches went away if we turned off the machine for a minute. Other times, these glitches were irreparable, so we sometimes had to re-track. That sucked. This only happened when the machine was in use for a long time, though. We learned to turn off the machine for about five minutes of every hour. Overall... yeah. We like this machine. We did a lot of drum tracking in a big-ass school classroom and then took the MD-8 home to lay down vocals and guitars. This stuff -- [url=http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/84/mean_ether.html]Mean Ether[/url] -- was recorded this way. So was this -- [url=http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/90/cottonmouth_dn.html]Cottonmouth D.N.[/url] . We are happy with the results. \m/ Erik "To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." --Sun Tzu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timrocker Posted March 19, 2003 Author Share Posted March 19, 2003 Erik, Thanks for the reply and excellent tips/info. It will certainly come in handy if I get to wind up going that route. My home studio is serving my needs real well, but it's not one little bit portable, and that's looking like a possible priority. So, thanks for sharing your experience now while it can do me some good. :thu: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anderton Posted March 19, 2003 Share Posted March 19, 2003 I think there are issues with getting the MD data disks -- better check whether you have a source for them. I don't think the MD-8 can use regular audio MDs. Also, remember that the sound is being recorded with data compression, so you don't want to bounce too many times. The MD-8 is a good unit, but remember, you're venturing into "funny format" land. Craig Anderton Educational site: http://www.craiganderton.org Music: http://www.youtube.com/thecraiganderton Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/craig_anderton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Bear Jew Posted March 19, 2003 Share Posted March 19, 2003 Mr. Anderton is correct.. I forgot about that. You need to buy "mini-disc data" discs for the MD-8. They're not expensive, but you might have trouble finding them. Luckily, Guitar Center seems to have a metric ton of these things. This might become a problem if the format is ever phased out. \m/ Erik "To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." --Sun Tzu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meccajay Posted March 19, 2003 Share Posted March 19, 2003 You can also check some of the catalogues for the Data disks. Maybe musician's friend and Interstate still carry them.. I used to have an MD-8, and I loved it! I got real nice sounds from the onboard mixer/eq. I didn't like the sound when bouncing though, too shrill for me. The error codes were often due to the unit's transport being hot as someone mentioned, but to avoid this I just hit pause instead of stop, and when the unit was idle I'd hit pause-then play instead of just play which seemed to tax the transport a whole lot less. Good luck! TROLL . . . ish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lo-fi_guy Posted March 19, 2003 Share Posted March 19, 2003 Our band has recorded with the MD8, it's nice and couldn't be easier to use, but... I would recommend looking at the Yamaha AW16G hard disk recorder, I recently upgraded to it and find it sounds better and you get double the tracks for not much more money spent. The unit is just as portable too! :) Check out this forum for more info on the 16G- http://forum.aw16g.com/index.php Best of luck, -Scott Deeetroit Basketballll!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rim Posted March 20, 2003 Share Posted March 20, 2003 I recorded the music samples that are in [url=http://www.wingshadows.com]www.wingshadows.com[/url] with a MD8, transferred it into Pro Tools for mixing then sent it out to a mastering house. But let me warn you that it was one of my first attempts at recording and mixing so it doesn't showcase the MD8. I mean, I didn't even know about condenser mics - I either went direct or used SM57s and SM58s pretty much exclusively. I didn't use any outboard gear in tracking. aka riffing Double Post music: Strip Down http://rimspeed.com http://loadedtheband.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timrocker Posted March 20, 2003 Author Share Posted March 20, 2003 Rim; Hey, I checked out "Father's Day". Good Song! So, thanks for more background on the MD8. I am starting to see all the cons as well as pros. I get the "funny format" danger too. -Thanks Craig- I guess what attracted me to the idea of the MD8 is that I really need a full analog mixer. And I need to go mobile with this thing, so I can track the drums at drummer-guy's house. And I'm used to old school transport functions. Know what I mean? Any more MD8 perspectives? Thanks y'all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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