minidisc and OS X

I

iknownotwhoiam

Registered
i have been considering purchasing a minidisc recorder but i am wondering if there is any software that allows me to direct the output from my iBook into the minidisc so i can record on to it from my computer. does anyone know?
thanks
axel
 
Yeah, or what about the other way around: capture the digital output of the minidisc and burn a cd from it! How does one do this? What kind of cable and software would I need?

Thanks!
noordkmp
 
I have a Sony MZ-R70 with the Digital PC link that connects to the computer via USB and the mini via optical in. It works out of the box in both 9 & X (which is kind of funny since Sony cliams that it doesn't, and after about an hour of trying I never did get the thing to work with my PC). In Preferences/Sound/Output the mini disc appears as "MD-PORT DG1" and you can either send the Mac's sound output to either it or the "Built-in audio controller" but not both at the same time. The mini Disc then records the sound in real time, nothing fancy.

The MZ-R70 only has optical in and headphone out, so I don't know if the PC Link gizmo is two-way or not. But unless you're an audiophile willing to plop down a tidy sum of cash, the headphone out to the mac's line in should work just fine. If ITunes doesn't record line in audio, then there's some other shareware that will that you can find on VersionTracker.
 
Sony does claim that it doesn't, as I called them last year just before I bought 3 minidisc machines. Quite annoying how they don't know what their own products do.
 
I'm gonna bust out my personal opinions here. I purchased a Sony MD player/recorder about 2 years ago. I did use it a lot studying in the library, or at home. Doing yard work because it was so small, etc. It was pretty nice but here were my complaints:
  • recording at 1:1 when you record to a MD, you don't just 'transfer' the music over, you have play it from the source while the MD player records it .. real time. In other words, if you want to make a one hour disc, it's gonna take you one hour to create it.
  • creating song breaks the MD player doesn't create breaks in between songs on it's own unless you use a digital source. therefore, you have to either sit there and hit the 'break' button in between each song while it records or skipt through it all afterwards
  • song titles after you record it, you then have to manually go in and edit all the song names, that tends to take a while
While that stuff maybe not to bad .. it caused me jump all over the iPod when that came out. I sold my MD player on eBay and got an iPod and believe me, it was worth every penny. Sure, it cost about twice as much but you save time and hassle with it. The iPod is definately the way to go if you're looking into portable music players.

Now I'm not a total Mac freak. I got my first computer (iBook) about 6 months ago and enjoy this community more than the computer, so pushing the iPod isn't a ploy or anything. I truely believe that it is at least twice as good as a MiniDisc player. Just thought I'd throw that in. :D
 
You forgot about maintaining and creating all those individual 74 minute discs, what a hassle. If you add the number of discs you would have to buy to have the same amount of music as an iPod, the costs would be about the same.

I think the only reason anybody would want one is for the sound quality. MP3 is lossy compression, the mini disc isn't lossy. They are also useful for making good sounding ambient (or very portalbe studio) recordings.
 
Minidisc uses various levels of ATRAC encoding which, although superior to mp3, _is_ lossy!
Just wanted to clear things up.
 
You cannot make recordings with an iPod, can you? That's what's the nice thing about a minidisc, the recordings are really great! I'd love to be able to put those on a cd easily, preferably over the digital cable, that would give the best quality.
 
I like minidiscs.
They are rugged, and you can do many things with them. I dont like the 1:1 encoding, it just stinks cause it takes lots of time.

I wonder can you move songs from the MD to the mac or is it one way ?

The iPod is nice, but when I travel and want to get MP3s out of someone's computer, the fact that they dont have firewire (or i.Link) makes it impossible. With the MD it would be easier, would take time, but its easier :)


Admiral
 
minidiscs are especially good for recording lve stuff, as the compression is quite similar to what a sound engineer would do to master a cd. Most of the time, the end result sounds clearer and punchier than the original copy, apart from with classical music, which just loses it's depth and colour.

They're so easy to work with and edit, even my mother knows how to use one. :p

It's a shame they never made a data version for computers that could read audio minidiscs - 140Mb on that little thing.
 
Actually a data version was made but it was at 1x so it was slow, as slow as recording a CD at 1x every time you wanted to put data on it so it did not catch on.


I like MDs, its just getting info to them :p
I was thinking I could put my mixes on them, but then again most of my friends dont have MD players :p
 
Actually it was rather less than 1x CD speed if I remember correctly - MD recording in realtime only needs to write data at about 1/5 CD write speed because the data is compressed (5:1).

It managed a bit more than 1/5 speed though (which is why MD recorders stop and start when they record - they write in bursts)...

Jim
 
I once had a sony multi track (8 tracks I think) which recorded to MiniDisk Data Disks. worked great.

However, my home-audio-quality md player doesn't work anymore. Refuses to record. I wouldn't get into it personally - get a sony dat player or something :p

MD is really sweet though! I must say if mine had not have broken, I'd certainly still be using it.
 
i am doing the same thing that putamare is talking about.

MD headphone out to line in MAC.
Record AIFF file to your HD.
burn AIFF on to CD.

and it sounds just as good as listening to the original md does.

now, you may be one of those people in the world that can hear
the diffrernce between MD master & CD copy (i cannot) and
therefore need the digital hookup... Maybe minidisco has the
equipment you would need, or maybe minidisc.org has some
guidance.


insofar as iPod vs MD...

MD for live shows, iPod for tunes on the road.

iii
 
Here's a little trick when recording to your MD:
Create a blank ~3 second mp3. When you're creating your iTunes playlist, insert the blank.mp3 in for every other song. MD automagically creates the breaks. :)
(Or search for QTPlay or PlayQT on versiontracker)

I also remember reading a couple years back about a company (blue thunder, thunder something, or something, I can't for the life of me recall, nor find it through google) who were developing a product that would allow "drag & drop" mp3, keeping it all digital, and also something about data as well. (pre-encoded so as to avoid the 1:1 requirement). *shrugs* I can't find anything about it now though (vaporware?)
 
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