#881427 - 11/17/99 08:56 AM
minidisc
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Brubari
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Registered: 10/30/99
Posts: 21
Loc: Portland, OR USA
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I've had my eye on a portable DAT recorder for some time - but when I saw a minidisc deck on clearance for about 1/6 of the cost, I jumped on it. I had done some reading on minidisc, and although it is primarily a consumer format, from what i could tell - and hear - the latest compression algorithms seem to do a pretty good job in capturing a recording. Most of my recording/sound buddies poo poo the minidisc, but I've gotta tell ya, I LOVE this thing. I'm using it to record gigs for reference, and it blows away any cassette recorder. If I happen to catch a live performance that's worthy of distribution, i don't get any drop out or flutter. The editing functions are great for isolating individual tracks, and I can label each track - so when it comes time to make a tape for a sub, i just load in my minidisc, look for the desired track and record it onto a cassette. Believe it or not, SONY didn't pay me a dime to post this (in fact, in general, I'm not necessarily a SONY fan) - but i would like to know if there are any others out there using the minidisc in a professional capacity, and if so, how? Has anyone released a CD with minidisc source material on it - either stereo or multitrack? I'd be interested in hearing about your results.... thanks!
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#881428 - 11/19/99 10:55 PM
Re: minidisc
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Anonymous
Anonymous
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I have been using a portable MD for a couple of years in recording bands both with a stero mic, and through a mixing board. I have no complaints with the quality of the sound and ease of use/editing vs a cassette, but I have had problems with the sony gear. Occasionally, after a full set of music has been recorded, I will stop the MD and some crazy sony gremlin will jump up and erase the WHOLE disk! So, my advice is, if the thing works for your aplication, great... but beware the sony gremlins. Of course, if you wanted to make a salable recording from a MD, it will not be the quality of DAT, due only to the compression of the data inherent in the MD format, but as far as refrence recording, the MD is way better than a cassette.
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Mark Turner
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#881429 - 01/09/00 04:51 AM
Re: minidisc
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ArinCrumley
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Registered: 01/08/00
Posts: 12
Loc: Santa Rosa Ca U.S.
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Well my band made a 4 song demo and it was played off of A-Dats and all the tracks were elaberatly run through different equalizers and effects processors and compressers and we recorded it onto a mini disc recorder. Then we took it to a guy who plugged the mini disk deck into his high end consumer sound card and he recorded it onto his hard drive and then burned the songs onto cd. I thought it sounded great but then we had the cd played at a club through the house speakers and it sound like crap. I don't know where we went wrong but I think it was a combination of not getting mastered, mixing onto mini disk, and recording through an analog conection to the computers sound card to get the master cd burned. So If you are going to make a cd out of songs from your mini disk, take it to a mastering facility that can optically transfer it to there hard drive and then master it, fixing any eq problems and adding some compression and noise reduction.
Arin
The 4 songs I mentioned above are avalable at
of course they are now heavily compressed in mp3 format. http://www.mp3.com/metagalaxxy
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#881430 - 01/20/00 09:36 AM
Re: minidisc
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Brubari
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Registered: 10/30/99
Posts: 21
Loc: Portland, OR USA
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Boy Arin, you really seem to get around in here! participation is what makes this forum thing work.....
Interesting what you thought about the final results of your CD... we recently recorded some demo tunes on a 16 track tascam DA-88 system, and then dumped it to Pro tools. Almost to a member, my band felt like something was lost when we went from digital tape to hard disc (no minidisc involved in this project). Could have been the engineer, could have been pro tools, could be we just weren't happy and felt like we had to blame it on something....
Another funny thing about minidisc - when i dub a minidisc master to another minidisc, using the analog connections, I almost get better results than the original... it sounds slightly warmer to me.... weird....
I certainly wouldn't use minidisc for a major release... but i wouldn't be embarrassed to add a great live bonus track recorded from minidisc to a CD either - with the right mastering (as you mentioned) i think it can be done well.....
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#881431 - 02/23/00 05:46 PM
Re: minidisc
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John Schauer
Member
Registered: 10/08/99
Posts: 8
Loc: Buena Park CA USA
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The Minidisc is the thing if you want to be able to get reliable performance in a digital format.Tape and hard disk systems are cool, but they can't stand up to transport nearly as well as the MD. Also, if you are just doing stereo (2 track) recording, then check out the local shops for Sony's bundles. The deals are remarkable, if you need portable and deck style together...
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