Re: [microsound] [ot] minidisc recorders

[derek holzer <derek@xxxxxxx>]

I used a Sony MZ-R35 for years. It's from about 1999, back when they 
built things a bit more sturdy, and it has yet to fail me. I'd be a 
little nervous about the newer make MDs, which get closer and closer to 
the size of a credit card and generally don't look nearly so robust. I 
also really liked the "jog-wheel" function. See here:

http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-R35.html

In general, however, the things I disliked about Minidiscs were this:

1) Bad AD converters, very noisy!!! Consumer grade stuff will always be 
like this. I tend to record *very* tiny sounds, and every dB of noise 
floor I can remove counts.

2) No digital outs. This means the DA converter of the MD, and then the 
AD converter of whatever you are capturing with, add up even more noise. 
You could get a full-sized MD deck for the digital out, but that doesn't 
really help you "in the field" if you need to capture and edit something 
right away.

3) No professional connections. This means balanced, XLR microphone 
connections. Ask any audio technician, and they will probably tell you 
that the mismatched impedence between a pro mike and the consumer-grade 
input probably adds more noise than all the other factors combined!

3) No digital ins [at least on newer models, my old MZ-R35 had an 
optical line in]. This I suppose is some Digital Rights Manipulation 
scheme, to keep clean copies of CDs from making their way between MD 
players. But it's a pain if you want to bypass the crappy MD mike inputs 
and AD converters with an aftermarket preamp/AD unit. The only 
consolation is that you can use an external preamp and then the line 
input, allowing the use of balanced XLRs [if you have such a preamp], 
but the transfer to the MD is still analog.

OTOH, the ATRAC compression never bothered me too much. But for the lack 
of professional mike inputs, I might even consider the new HiMD format 
except that the software to extract the audio is proprietary Sony stuff, 
and I'm just not down with that. Use an open standard and you'll get my 
attention and hard-earned cash.

I would recommend to get a portable DAT from EBay, but as most people 
know, this standard is going to be quite dead soon enough, as nobody 
makes parts or tapes any more. A Sony TR-[something] usually goes for 
between USD 300 and 500, and I am still using just such a model. Inputs 
aren't great, but it has full digital IO which is something I really 
needed. I could record something and then immediately offload it 
digitally to my laptop and get to work on it.

My honest advice would be to save your pennies a little longer and go 
for one of the new hard-disk based recorders. They usually have much 
better inputs and AD converters [although maybe not with XLR inputs], 
can do 24/96 [usually] and most importantly are fully digital IO 
compatible, so you can use whatever preamp/AD you want, so can easily 
offload to your computer with no sound quality loss or stupid 
proprietary formats.

The R1 Editrol looks like a nice starter unit, and goes for +/- USD 500:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/R1Edirol/

Getting a recordable MP3 player [like the some of the IRiver models] is 
an option, but your still stuck with many problems, namely compressed 
audio format and crappy consumer-grade inputs. In general, there seems 
to be a huge conspiricy on the part of hardware manufacturers to keep 
decent-quality sound recording *out* of the hands of the masses...

Good luck,
d.

--
derek holzer ::: http://www.umatic.nl
---Oblique Strategy # 36:
"Consult other sources
-promising
-unpromising"

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