#81

Things I love about MD:

  • You can seamlessly loop tracks.
  • You can non-destructively add and remove track index points.
  • My Sony players feature the ability to make A-B markers on the fly and seamless loop between them.

Using these abilities I built and used a four MD looping setup for years with my old band. I had two MD drives inputting into my mixer, one on a send and one recording master. I would always record to the output units while I played and when I would want to loop I would eject the disc out of one of them and put it into an input player and put another disk into the recorder. Worked so very well… like a 74 minute looper.

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#82

I actually still have the discs that I used in this process for a whole bunch of shows and recording sessions. It’s great source material.

#83

Ah… this is beautiful. Now THIS I can get behind. I personally don’t get the whole cassette tape revival, but an MD revival would be hard to resist for me.

I still have all my old MD’s and my MD recorder Walkman, but the headphone jack is in pretty bad shape, you have to really bend into it to get sound out of it.

Like others all my original field recordings I still have on MD.

I’ve still got a lot of DAT too. Imagine doing DAT releases lol. Now THAT would be niche. I had one of those DAT Walkman recorders too, I really wish I never sold it, was truly a thing of beauty. But it just became too difficult to source DAT tapes.

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Agreed with others the MP3 player saw the MD’s downfall, and that feature we beloved so much - record - was ultimately lost.

Around that time nice little audio recorders started coming out - I had Edirols R-01 which was one of the first, closely followed by the M-Audio Micro Track.

But I still have a dear fondness for MD. It was always a bummer writing to them tho, the speed of SD card quickly took over but it was a funny transition period there for a while. Things seemed to have really settled into a groove now.

But I for one would be way more on with an MD revival if it happened.

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#85

Reviving this thread. I was curious if anyone had the Gescom minidisc release that could take a high res pic of the packaging. I’m curious what was included in the text.

Still would love to see the revival of the format someday, by the way :slight_smile:

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#86

You and me both. It’s expensive, but there is a place that still does duplication, shell-art, etc… I’m certainly considering some limited level of release on the format; particularly since it was my main means of recording sessions for a good while (on a little portable recorder), and I’ve still got a deck, a Walkman recorder, and two non-recording Walkmen.

It’s certainly far and away my favorite physical digital format–a real treasure, despite Sony’s best efforts to hamstring it.

#87

the portable minidisc was my first “field recorder”. (or second? I can’t recall if it came after or before i found that micro-cassette dictaphone). Anyways, i used to record with this MD walkman™ using earbuds in the mic-in, walking around unnoticed in public settings. I may qualify this as the sonic equivalent of shooting from the hip with a plastic-y, not really lightproof camera.
I recently used some of those old recordings in a piece (probably not very noticeable as such in that track but conceptually at the very heart of it).

I’d love to put a track on a minidisc compilation.

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#89

i’d be down to contribute to an ambient comp, tho my preference would be for a digital download and/or MD option, as i don’t have access to a MD player anymore, and any “discretionary” funds of mine will be going toward other types of gear for the foreseeable future (& i’d like to end up with a copy of what i’m contributing to!).

if anyone’s passionate enough and has the extra time/energy to organize this, legit pick a theme and set a submission date. if it’s on a calendar, it exists.

#90

I’d be into it, Also, I know that I sell cassettes to people who don’t even have players, they just want to support my work or enjoy buying it as a thing to own, an object, I mention this because I think people would buy minidiscs for the same reason, the audience wouldn’t likely all have minidisc players some would just buy because they want the object.

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#91

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This thread brings back memories and made me dig up this photo I sent my former bandmate a while ago. We used to do metal with the typical guitars-bass-drums-vocals lineup. But we had a Roland MC505 to provide a crazy amount of synths, beats and sound effects to go with that. Bringing the MC505 to our weekly rehearsal was difficult, as we all came by bicycle and had to bring our guitars/snare/cymbals/etc.

So a portable MD recorder became our 4th band member in the rehearsal room. We wrote songs/pieces with the MC505 in Cubase at home. We’d then bounce each song as a stereo track with click track on the L channel and synths, beats and sound effects on the R channel. My band mate was superfast at setting the markers. This way we could try out new ideas every week. Songs evolved and many ideas became songs this way. It was a fun and practical workflow. Later we switched to bouncing MP3’s and drag-n-dropping them over usb to a player. Which was easier, yet I always found the early MP3 players plasticky and less of an ‘instrument’ compared to the MD player.

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#92

I loved mini disc. The format was really great. I recorded lots of modular noodling to minidisc “back in the day”. I still have a box full of discs and accessories.

Not too mention minidisc was awesome for recording. The sound quality could not be beat.

Sadly it can’t compete with the convenience of digital.

#93

bouncing audio between norns > md > and daw right now

such a great format

in my current space i cant easily place my cassette deck on the floor (i like to make music there) + all my portable cassette players have died

minidisc does the trick perfectly when i need to sample or record quick and move across the room

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#94

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This thread inspired me to find my mini discs.

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#96

What’s on those if you don’t mind me asking?

Ah I missed your post above. You should somehow archive them and share I’m sure you have some good material on there.

#97

There’s a lot of just music. Then there’s maybe 15 to 20 discs of synth recordings.

I had built a pretty good sized frac rack system, mostly Blacet, some Paia, and Wiard, and home made modules. I’d have the minidisc connected to my mixer and if something sounded good I’d hit record for a few minutes.

I’m trying to charge my minidisc and the battery won’t seem to charge. It could the recharagable battery is bad, there was also some corrosion on the connections in the disc player. I tried to clean this off but it didn’t seem to help. The disc seems to work from the power supply.

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#98

that is a scandalous number of minidiscs to still have around. 120-ish or so?

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#99

Yeah, they were all in a box :package: way in the back of a closet the back of which extends beneath the stairs. I had to clear about 6’ of stuff, then crawl under the stairs and there was a box labeled “minidisc”. I had to shuffle a few things around before I could extract it.

I had Sony CD Minidisc :minidisc: console. It was great, you could put it on fast mode and copy a CD :cd: to minidisc :minidisc: in a few minutes.

Sadly my young child :baby: fed it about 6 discs one day when no one was looking.

Aside, I’m amazed the keyboard :musical_keyboard: is offering me an icon for minidisc :minidisc:!

#100

To get music on and off you still have to use their software right?

#101

it would such fun if you were willing to send them out to a few other artists for reinterpretation/remixing

then perhaps we could release some version of the tracks and/or return the disc to you after mangling

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#102

It’ll be a little embarrassing but sure mail you disc.

#103

There might be a software method but minidisc is more like cassette. You’d more likely just connect the player to your computer and hit play.

Some discs have an optical/digital out. If you have an adapter you can connect the player to your USB.

While minidisc has a file structure I’m not aware of anything that lets you browse and manage files directly. From the player you can add marks to tracks, delete tracks, name tracks, and things like that but you can’t select a group files and copy or drag them to your desktop.

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