[Ben Berman]

A client has recently asked me to review a series of live stereo minidisc
recordings he made with an eye toward editing out some crowd noise,
generally cleaning them up, and then burning to cd. The recordings are of a
jamming band, made in a basement and were recorded on a small Sony console
minidisc recorder circa early 2000. There are approximately 24 discs.

I have never worked with minidisc before, so I thought to pose the
following questions:

1. What is the minidisc format, and can it easily be converted to wav for
import into my editor (Sound Forge)?

2. What would be the best technique for getting the files out of the
minidisc device, and into my pc? I believe the minidisc device has a
digital output (Sony calls it a "digital optical" out); can I use this
output to go direct into my soundcard (Lynx L22 or M-Audio D66), and
therefore avoid going real time via line level output, and so losing a
generation going in? Perhaps it doesn't matter?

Thanks for your suggestions. And a very happy goo year to all!

bzb

THE SONG FACTORY
Words and Music, made to order(TM)

WWW: http://www.thesongfactory.com

[Peter Larsen[_2_]]

Ben Berman wrote:

A client has recently asked me to review a series of live stereo
minidisc recordings he made with an eye toward editing out some crowd
noise, generally cleaning them up, and then burning to cd. The
recordings are of a jamming band, made in a basement and were
recorded on a small Sony console minidisc recorder circa early 2000.
There are approximately 24 discs.

I have never worked with minidisc before, so I thought to pose the
following questions:

1. What is the minidisc format, and can it easily be converted to wav
for import into my editor (Sound Forge)?

Sony did have some software for this, I can't remember the details. But you
also need a minidisk drive in the computer, I don't even know whether they
are available. What I can remember is that I found the softare for the guy
mentioned below.

2. What would be the best technique for getting the files out of the
minidisc device, and into my pc? I believe the minidisc device has a
digital output (Sony calls it a "digital optical" out); can I use this
output to go direct into my soundcard (Lynx L22 or M-Audio D66), and
therefore avoid going real time via line level output, and so losing a
generation going in? Perhaps it doesn't matter?

Yes, you can use the sp-dif output, probably, and you certainly should. But
it is gonna be real time transfer. You need an optical to coax converter if
your sound card does not have an optical input, m-audio makes one ... I
think.

Thanks for your suggestions. And a very happy goo year to all!

I know this wee bit I know because a friend of mine made the error of
getting a minidisk recorder to run parallel with the DAT only to learn that
Sony had made life complicated in all kinds of ways to protect copyright.
Mindisk with lossless compression would have been a good location recording
device if not for that. The flash drives has turned it into a dodo ...

All of the above constitutes imprecise knowhow that needs to be verified.

bzb


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Laurence Payne]

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 08:59:04 +0100 (CET), Ben Berman
wrote:

A client has recently asked me to review a series of live stereo minidisc
recordings he made with an eye toward editing out some crowd noise,
generally cleaning them up, and then burning to cd. The recordings are of a
jamming band, made in a basement and were recorded on a small Sony console
minidisc recorder circa early 2000. There are approximately 24 discs.

I have never worked with minidisc before, so I thought to pose the
following questions:

1. What is the minidisc format, and can it easily be converted to wav for
import into my editor (Sound Forge)?

There is a system (netMD) which allows direct transfer to computer via
usb. If the MD machine you're going to use has this, follow the
instructions - software should have been provided. Otherwise you'll
be playing the audio in real time into your soundcard and format
conversion isn't an issue.


2. What would be the best technique for getting the files out of the
minidisc device, and into my pc? I believe the minidisc device has a
digital output (Sony calls it a "digital optical" out); can I use this
output to go direct into my soundcard (Lynx L22 or M-Audio D66), and
therefore avoid going real time via line level output, and so losing a
generation going in? Perhaps it doesn't matter?

The theoretical best would be to use the digital connection. But if
you don't have an opticalspdif converter box lying around, try
analogue tansfer. I doubt you'll hear any difference.

Also, the MD format is quite heavy on copy protection. I forget he
details, but you may run into problems making digital transfers.

[Mike Rivers]

On Dec 31, 2:59 am, Ben Berman wrote:

A client has recently asked me to review a series of live stereo minidisc
recordings he made with an eye toward editing out some crowd noise,
generally cleaning them up, and then burning to cd.

First off, you can edit crown noise between songs, but you can't edit
out crowd noise that's on top of music. There's a certain amount of
"cleaning up" that you can do as far as reducing hiss and adjusting
overall frequency balance, but you can't put something there that
wasn't recorded.

The recordings are of a
jamming band, made in a basement and were recorded on a small Sony console
minidisc recorder circa early 2000.

In that era, Sony did a pretty good job of protecting Minidisk
recordings from unauthorized digital copying. The newest Minidisk
recorders have accepted that a recording that you make yourself might
be legal but the old copy protection system that they used to use
would not allow you to digitally transfer an analog recording to a
computer. I don't know if this travels with the recording or the
recorder.

If you're going to have to buy a new Minidisk player for this project,
then you might get lucky and you'll be able to convert the ATRAC
compression that Minidisk uses to something else (maybe even linear
WAV files) but chances are you will find that your only alternative is
to do an analog transfer in real time - connect the output of the
Minidisk player to the input of a computer sound card, play, and
record. If you have a decent sound card and you're careful setting the
record level it really isn't going to be substantially worse than
making digital copies, though it will take longer.

1. What is the minidisc format, and can it easily be converted to wav for
import into my editor (Sound Forge)?

It's a proprietary file format and a proprietary data compression
scheme. It cannot be easily converted with things you have lying
around the house.

2. What would be the best technique for getting the files out of the
minidisc device, and into my pc? I believe the minidisc device has a
digital output (Sony calls it a "digital optical" out); can I use this
output to go direct into my soundcard (Lynx L22 or M-Audio D66), and
therefore avoid going real time via line level output

Yes and no. The Neither the Lynx L22 nor Delta 66 has an optical
digital input, so you'd need a converter such as the M-Audio CO2
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/CO2-main.html to convert between
the two different physical interface types. Even when you get the
connectors to fit together, you'll still have to make a real time
copy. The advantage of a digital interconnection over an analog
connection is relatively small. Given the source, probably the
greatest benefit is that you won't need to check the record level - it
will be the same on your copy as it is on the original, for better or
worse.

The L22 is an excellent card. I think you should just hook up the
analog output of the Minidisk player to the L22 input (you'll probably
want to set the L22 for -10 dBV input level) and just use that for
your transfers. Don't worry about the loss converting to analog and
back to digital. It isn't so bad, really. You should try it before
worrying about what you might be losing.

[Ron Capik]

Mike Rivers wrote:

On Dec 31, 2:59 am, Ben Berman wrote:

...snip...

In that era, Sony did a pretty good job of protecting Minidisk
recordings from unauthorized digital copying. The newest Minidisk
recorders have accepted that a recording that you make yourself might
be legal but the old copy protection system that they used to use
would not allow you to digitally transfer an analog recording to a
computer. I don't know if this travels with the recording or the
recorder.

If you're going to have to buy a new Minidisk player for this project,
then you might get lucky and you'll be able to convert the ATRAC
compression that Minidisk uses to something else (maybe even linear
WAV files) but chances are you will find that your only alternative is
to do an analog transfer in real time - connect the output of the
Minidisk player to the input of a computer sound card, play, and
record. If you have a decent sound card and you're careful setting the
record level it really isn't going to be substantially worse than
making digital copies, though it will take longer.

1. What is the minidisc format, and can it easily be converted to wav for
import into my editor (Sound Forge)?

It's a proprietary file format and a proprietary data compression
scheme. It cannot be easily converted with things you have lying
around the house.
...snip...

The latest (buggie) Soundforge 9 now has a full set of ATRAC codecs.
[including some loss less and 5.1 multi-track formats]
The trick will be getting the ATRAC data files from the mini-disc to the PC.
I haven't worked with the new mini-disc players, so I don't know their
dump/lownload options.

Later...

Ron Capik
--

[Mike Rivers]

On Dec 31, 9:29 am, Ron Capik wrote:

I haven't worked with the new mini-disc players, so I don't know their
dump/lownload options.

The Sony MZ-M200 has a USB port for file transfer. It's pretty cool,
and a good alternative to the popular flash memory recorders for
people like me who like to have a physical backup (or rather original)
medium that can go on the shelf. But that's not what Ben has, and I
don't know how far backwards compatible it is. It'll probably play
older format disks but may not ship the data out the USB port. The
poop sheet that I have lists only ATRAC3 formats as being up- and
downloadable by USB.

[Bill[_5_]]

I just recorded onto an older minidisk (not HD) and successfully
transferred the files to computer through the USB port.

You can access the files on my MZ-M200 with Windows Explorer, but they
are in proprietary format, so, I didn't think they were any use...
until now. I don't have the latest version of Sound Forge, but sounds
intriguing... I find SonicStage Software (Sony) really annoying, though
it works. It wants to manage all my music files.


Mike Rivers wrote:
On Dec 31, 9:29 am, Ron Capik wrote:


I haven't worked with the new mini-disc players, so I don't know their
dump/lownload options.


The Sony MZ-M200 has a USB port for file transfer. It's pretty cool,
and a good alternative to the popular flash memory recorders for
people like me who like to have a physical backup (or rather original)
medium that can go on the shelf. But that's not what Ben has, and I
don't know how far backwards compatible it is. It'll probably play
older format disks but may not ship the data out the USB port. The
poop sheet that I have lists only ATRAC3 formats as being up- and
downloadable by USB.

[Mike Rivers]

On Dec 31, 2:45 pm, Bill wrote:

You can access the files on my MZ-M200 with Windows Explorer, but they
are in proprietary format, so, I didn't think they were any use...
until now.

According to the brochure, Sony supplies a program called Sonic Stage
that converts the ATRAC files on a Minidisk to MP3 or WAV format in
the process of transferring them to a PC. Did you get a copy with
ytour MZ-M200? I saw it demonstrated at an AES show, but it was a
while ago and I don't remember the details.

[John Lamp]

Ben Berman wrote:
A client has recently asked me to review a series of live stereo minidisc
recordings he made with an eye toward editing out some crowd noise,
generally cleaning them up, and then burning to cd. The recordings are of a
jamming band, made in a basement and were recorded on a small Sony console
minidisc recorder circa early 2000. There are approximately 24 discs.

I have never worked with minidisc before, so I thought to pose the
following questions:

1. What is the minidisc format, and can it easily be converted to wav for
import into my editor (Sound Forge)?

As you say early 2000, then I assume they are MD and not HiMD disks.

Sony's latest HiMD machines have a two way USB port. Early MD machines
have nothing and the netMD machines have a one way (PC-MD) USB port.[1]

I have a netMD machine and use a great little utility called winNMD[2]
which uses the USB to control the minidisc device and an analog
connection to transfer (well, play actually) from the MD to the PC. It
is a real time process, but runs unattended quite happily.

I recommend using winNMD because it preserves all the identification
data, including track names, and it happily works a minidisc at a time.
It will save to wav or mp3 as you desire.

That's one operation per minidisc, rather than one operation per track.

I have been happily using this sort of setup for live recording for
broadcast on community radio for over four years and it was extremely
reliable and convenient.

I have now moved to a Zoom H2.

Cheers
John

1. Well it's one way as far as the music is concerned. The commands go
both ways for handshaking, but you get what I mean.

2. http://winnmd.net/

[bzb]

John Lamp wrote in
:

As you say early 2000, then I assume they are MD and not HiMD
disks.

Thanks to all who responded. I had no idea it would be MORE
complicated to try to go digitally with this, but obviously the way
we'll be going is to record in real time using the analog outs.
Thanks for all the advise, and saving me from buying a CO2 device
I'll not be needing . . . 8-)

bzb
--
THE SONG FACTORY
Words and Music, made to order(TM)

WWW: http://www.thesongfactory.com

[Peter Larsen[_2_]]

bzb wrote:

John Lamp wrote in
:

As you say early 2000, then I assume they are MD and not HiMD
disks.

Thanks to all who responded. I had no idea it would be MORE
complicated to try to go digitally with this, but obviously the way
we'll be going is to record in real time using the analog outs.
Thanks for all the advise, and saving me from buying a CO2 device
I'll not be needing . . . 8-)

Minidisk probably still exists, but the short story is that Sony hardware
had a good digital media concept that should have taken over all car radios
of that day and age and have gotten installed in a large number of PC's as
removable media drive and Sony software promptly killed it off by making it
too difficult to actually use.

Reminds of the non-launch of the consumer DAT recorder ....

bzb

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Bill[_5_]]

Mike Rivers wrote:
On Dec 31, 2:45 pm, Bill wrote:


You can access the files on my MZ-M200 with Windows Explorer, but they
are in proprietary format, so, I didn't think they were any use...
until now.


According to the brochure, Sony supplies a program called Sonic Stage
that converts the ATRAC files on a Minidisk to MP3 or WAV format in
the process of transferring them to a PC. Did you get a copy with
ytour MZ-M200? I saw it demonstrated at an AES show, but it was a
while ago and I don't remember the details.


It actually appears to transfer the files first, then convert them.
Aside from the extraneous functions, it does seem to work pretty well.