MINIDISC!

[surfjazz]

hey guyz! whats up with the minidisc story? my favorite recording medium is being shoved down the drain! i thought the cd would go first! whats up with that? i love the minidisc! do you think it should remain a foundational medium? any good or bad experiences?? and for those others who rock the town with minidiscs... lets keep the momentum goin!!!!!!

[Roto]

I would have to say the mp3 players killed minidisc. Mostly because nobody is handing out minidiscs with free music on them, unlike mp3s which just last year you could download anything you wanted. I have a minidisc recorder that I take to concerts occasionally, but now I also have a Nomad Jukebox with a 40 gig hard drive that I could take to concerts and record uncompressed wav files.

 

I think the only thing minidiscs get used for now are props in movies like The Matrix, because they are so damn cool looking! 8)

[surfjazz]

well mp3 sucks! i can record 72 min of stuuf on 1 mini for 8 bucks or blow 50 bucks on a 32mb smartmedia card! ill take minidiscs any day!

[Dan O]

Hey surfjazz ,

I am with you brother .........I am not so sure that smart media is a good thing ! Dano

[ViLo]

Originally posted by surfjazz:

well mp3 sucks! i can record 72 min of stuuf on 1 mini for 8 bucks or blow 50 bucks on a 32mb smartmedia card! ill take minidiscs any day!

 

I still love the flexibility of minidisc!!

 

I will keep using them as long as they are available.

[Jonathan Hughes]

Was there some kind of official statement that MD is no longer going to be made/supported?

[Mossberg]

I use MD for rough mixdowns to play in the car. I also make compilations of other music. Besides, I am too rough on CDs. These MDs are not easy to scratch or break like those pussy ass CDs. Did I mention it doesn't skip. It will have to last for me because of all the minidisc stuff I have.

 

A couple of home recorders (one in the studio)

A six MD changer in my car's glovebox (I love it)

 

Long Live Minidisc!!!!!

[KTempo]

Hi,

 

I always mixdown to minidisc BEFORE burning a CD copy!! I'm with y'all about MiniDiscs. I love minidiscs. Sony is coming out (or it's out already) with a computer system that'll make use of Minidisc recording. According to their website, the new computer w/minidisc can hold 300 minutes or more audio on one minidisc. So, I don't think the little discs will be obsolete anytime soon. With a company like Sony to backup the little guys will make minidisc a little more popular, (hopefully--once again)!

[steadyb]

Originally posted by surfjazz:

well mp3 sucks! i can record 72 min of stuuf on 1 mini for 8 bucks or blow 50 bucks on a 32mb smartmedia card! ill take minidiscs any day!

 

 

Yeah, mp3 sucks, but so do minidiscs. The audio quality on both is substandard, thanks to data compression and/or lower sample or bit rates. Both mediums are the AM radio of today. And while CD's aren't in the same league as DVD's, they are very good and don't have any of that horrible data compression that the mini's use.

I say good riddance to MD. A high quality cassette sounds way better than MD's or mp3's, but the corporate world needs to sell you something new (not necessarily better) so along came the Mini Disc and then mp3.

[RABid]

Two things hurt MD's.

 

1. Compression.

 

2. People usually skip every other tech improvement because they are too vested in the last format and not willing to pay out for a slight improvement in quality or convenience.

 

As far as MP3's, I use a HipZip player from Iomega which uses Click Disk. It is cheaper than memory and more reliable than my Rio800. Heavyer, but much more reliable.

[meccajay]

<>

 

Obviously not an MD owner ugh Steady??

 

Im also a home and car MD owner and previously owned the Yamaha MD-8...I love them all!! No scratches, no compatability problems(pro vs consumer)etc....and NO HISS!!

 

I do realize the sound quality of MP3 suck pretty badly, but with the latest 4.5 Atrac compression that MD's have the quality is right behind CD, compression and all!! Ive tested the sound with all my non-musical friends who do listen to a lot of music and not a one of them could tell the difference! Atrac compression has gotten so much better that I believe only the people on this forum can tell the difference -- and many of us still enjoy Minidisk!! I ask you, would you really prefer tape hiss over Atrac 4.5??

[steadyb]

Originally posted by meccajay:

Obviously not an MD owner ugh Steady??

 

Im also a home and car MD owner and previously owned the Yamaha MD-8...I love them all!! No scratches, no compatability problems(pro vs consumer)etc....and NO HISS!!

I ask you, would you really prefer tape hiss over Atrac 4.5??

 

You mention the Yamaha MD-8. With multi-track minidisc recorders, every time you record compression is used. That means when you record a few (compressed) tracks, and then do a bounce, all those tracks are compressed again. Another bounce... compressed again. By the second or third bounce, depending on the material, the tracks have become unusable.

So as far as multi-track MDR's are concerned, they really suck.

As far as the consumer and pro 2-track models, they're only getting that first generation of compression, so it would be much less obvious.

But while we've tried to raise the bar each time from 78's to vinyl LP's and high quality cassettes, to CD's, to DVD's...mp3 introduced a new low in quality which MD's compare well against. (and I believe that people bought into minidiscs, simply because they were marketed as "digital", just like CD's, and since most people aren't hip to what compression (as it applies here) is, they thought "cool, a more compact, recordable, CD type thing")

 

If MD's sounded CD quality then the standard for sending in your music to record companies would have gone from cassettes to MDs. But it didn't, it went strait from tapes to CDs.

 

I guess I'm a little bummed from a musician/producer standpoint in that now an entire generation of kids who only know mp3, Minidisc, and Napster, have a much lower standard of what audio high fidelity is. Meanwhile the corporate fat cats get richer shoveling out low quality and low fidelity crap to the masses.

 

I was hoping with DVDs becoming more popular that the popularity of audio DVDs would too. New albums coming out in 5.1, 7.1 etc., pushing producers once again to go further. But it doesn't look like it's gonna happen anytime soon. Too bad.

[meccajay]

Well yeah, of course we know they dont sound as good as CD's, and they certainly were never going to be the standard etc. Im just saying they dont sound that much different than CD's, are easier to use and a lot more fun. As far as the MD-8 compression, you are 100% right, which is why I never bounced tracks and eventually replaced it with DAW. It was a nice $1000 unit which pound for pound did a nice job at the time. As far as the consumer/car MD decks go, I love em, I use em, and wont be replacing them anytime soon! Of course my CD recorder wont be going anywhere either!!

[Jose Cobelas]

I am not that sure that it´s going down the drain. Quite the opposite, I am seeing more and more units around, at least here in Spain. The new LP mode, and USB connector to transfer music from PC does suck, sound wise, but it seems to be a good idea for the MP3 crowd, that should keep the format alive. And those who say that ATRAC 4.5 and MP3 are the same kind of compressed shit obviously have never listened to a MD.

 

Best,

 

JoseC.

[Roto]

I think they should move mindisc to dvd (audio not video) technology. I thought I heard about this possibility some months back. You could fit a whole cd on there without compression. Better yet, have a compression on/off switch and end up with a super long play mode.

 

I like the md format, but it's going to die if they don't update it.

[coren]

i think i read somewhere that the compression kill's off 17khz and up.. or at least shreds it pretty bad, but who can here over 10 years old can hear at 20khz anyways?

thats why your friends cant tell the differnce between cd and md, although repeated recording will distort it to audible levels..

 

personally i dont think its bad at all, since thier intended uses is for jogging/etc etc, and im sick of my cd player shutting off everytime it skips.. im 10 seconds away from smashing the damn thing

i dont use md, but id consider it if i had some money

[Gulliver]

I use minidisks for demoing my own ideas before I start working on full productions. I find that dealing with them in this regard is much more convenient than with DAT tapes (I don't even have a DAT recorder ). Hey, at one point I even mixed on MDs! ...And my wife uses them quite often for her live performances in bars and clubs. Usually she accompanies herself on a piano but sometimes she sings to the full backing tracks playing from a MD player. And I'd bet that nobody from an audience can tell the difference whether music is sounding from a DAT, a CD or a MiniDisk.

So, I am one of those who loves minis and if they would go, I would miss them a lot!

[KTempo]

As far as sound quality is concerned, I can't tell the difference between that and recordings on CDs with the latest ATRAC technology. I record to MDs first and if it sounds great on those discs, then it'll sound great on CDs when I burn 'em. I don't own a DAT machine so MDs takes it place in my little setup. Plus, I would rather tote around the MDs than CDs anyday. I'm all for minidisc recording!!

[Monkey Mouse]

I am an MD power user and love the flexibility and the sound quality. Of course, it isn't perfect but eats a 128kbps MP3 in sound quality.

 

I have 4 MD boxes: 2 portables (1 that records) and two home units (one is the MDRE1 Sony - the top model). Except for the old non-recording portable I use them all at least 2 times a week - mostly at the gym and making CDs from LP dance tunes. I can say that with my full digital DJ mixer setup and MD, the noise level is at least 5db lower than the best analog setup made directly to CD (a UREI or Rane). I never really noticed any high-end cutoff or shredding, but again I'm all digital - no A/D converters to muck it up.

 

If you follow Sony PCs, you will notice their newest multimedia PC has a built-in MD player recorder. Supposedly it can transfer back and forth and even record streaming audio from the net. The MD is part of the PC, which sucks - no retrofit will be available.

 

If it is gonna be killed, why did Sony release a new portable lineup a few months ago?

[Jeff Klopmeyer]

Just FYI...we still sell the hell out of our three models of two-track MiniDisc machines (although admittedly they are more popular in Europe than in the U.S.) and have no plans of discontinuing them. The newest ATRAC v3 compression scheme sounds better than ever.

 

- Jeff