recording with a minidisc recorder

[hiroprotagonist]

Hi,

I was just wondering if anyone has any advice/comments/experience with recording using a minidisc recorder. Is it possble/advisable to hook up a heavy duty condesor (e.g CAD E200) mic up to it (with proper adaptors and phantom power) to one? Yep, just wondering, thanks.

hiro p

[owel]

I have a minidisc recorder connected to my mixer, using the Tape in/Tape out RCA jacks. It works. But my mic and instruments are plugged into the mixer, not directly to the minidisc.

[Rizm]

Hi Hiro,

Just remember that the hardware compression used with Minidisc's is pretty woeful if you plan on mastering from the Minidisc. Through headphones the sound is really good unless you really try hard to hear the difference betweeen it and CD. But if you play a Minidisc through loud enough speakers you will definitly notice the difference. For rough mixdowns a MD is fine but master to CD or better yet DAT if you can. Have the desk going into the minidisc via the tape outs and try having the Mic going into the desk too so you can at least control the sound in a more sensitve way than just having it straight into the mic insert on the MD player/recorder.

Rizm.

[owel]

Rizm is right. There is a certain sound character difference after sound is recorded on a Minidisc. I use the MD mainly to try out ideas, not as a master.

When recording a master take, I just run Sound Forge on my PC and record the sound mix back to the PC... that way I can record at 24bit, 96Khz. Then from Sound Forge, burn to a CD.

[owen]

rizm.. do you mean that the atrac compression of the minidisc format is bad for mastering? i don't understand how it could be made better by going to disc. is atrac compression not a lossy compression? i'm curious because i'm thinking of buying a minidisc recorder as a backend for a field recording setup. then buying a portable mic pre and a variety of mics.

[Uncle Colin]

Yeah it certainly is lossy, it's alot better than MP3 but if this is your final copy then you will loose alot of high end, just record some cymbal tails to hear the effect.

If this is for atmospheres etc. to use in the mix of a recording then you will probably get away with MD especially if you have a new Sony with ATRAC 4.

As a matter of fact sony do a very nice stereo T piece Mic that I'm look at for exacly that.

If you go the the expence of high quality pre-amps and mics then don't put it into the MD you'll be wasting your money. A good dynamic will outshine ATRAC.

[ron]

I was just wondering if anyone has any advice/comments/experience with recording using a minidisc recorder

Just wondering - are you using the minidisc to capture the original - say as a field recording setup - or at the end of the chain as the mixdown?

I'm interested in portable recording setups - partly for sampling (church pipe organs), but also for (literal) field recordings of ambience and sound FX.

Of course if I $1500+ to spare I'd get a Tascam DAP1

[Underground_Wisdom]

Hiro---

Nice nickname! I loved that book.

I've played around with ATRAC 3 on an older minidisc recorder. Plugged in into the mains coming off my mixer, and noticed a definite difference between mini and regular cd recorder. Mostly noticed a loss in the high end during the quiet passages...for dance music, it's not quite as noticeable during the busy sections...

UW

[owen]

Of course if I $1500+ to spare I'd get a Tascam DAP1

not me... dat is dead. hard disk is preferrable. do you know any good ones?

[Tweak]

I think DAT is in its last days, even for its last bastion, field recording. In the latest MIX there is an ad for a smart media recorder that uses 1 gig smart cards, with all the pro features of the DAP1. And it costs about half.

[leoh]

I think you are talking about solid state memory. Smart Media is a brand, a type of memory used mainly in digital photo cameras and MP3 players.
You might be referring to Flash memory.

[owen]

In the latest MIX there is an ad for a smart media recorder that uses 1 gig smart cards, with all the pro features of the DAP1. And it costs about half.

do you have a link for this?... i'd be mucho interested.

[Tweak]

I think it was a Marantz. might check their site. Flash memory I guess. It was 1 gig.

[leoh]

In Flash format, you can also buy bigger capacities. A few years ago, IBM released its "MicroDrive". It is a true hard drive (with spinning platters, reading heads, etc), in Flash format (and size!!! - that's about 30x40x1mm).
So, you can get high capacities and use the MicroDrive with any device that uses Flash memory.
Now Hitachi took over IBM's storage line. So go to their site.

[ron]

I think it was a Marantz. might check their site. Flash memory I guess. It was 1 gig.

Just looked at their European site - the PMD670 sounds like the beast.

http://www.marantz.com/p_product.cfm?id=2418&cont=e&line=prd&cat=pro

Oh - and it's here too http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--MARPMD670

[Tweak]

Thanks for pointing that on out, zzounds must have just got it. (In fact, looks that they don't have it yet). I notice it has a s/n of 86db. That's below most DATs.

[ron]

The also do a similar thing that writes to CDR/RWs directly ... Wonder if that's worth investigating?

[owen]

www.core-sound.com

their pd-audio sounds promising. any other opinions?