oscillik

yeah we had an Allen & Heath G3 desk in the analogue suite, where we'd train on the ADATs. the O2R was in the suite that was hooked up to an Akai DR16 for hard disk recording. i still loved the O2R more though, due to the automation capabilities. but the analogue suite had the Nord Lead 2....and that synth is great!

after more playing about with my new toy, i'm really impressed with the clarity of the audio coming out of this thing! compared to the iPod it really does shine. even at low volumes, everything is extremely clear. and i'm already really appreciating the on-board editing features. it's very simple and easy. i've been getting a few people scoffing at my decision to switch over to Minidisc, but i'll certainly be championing this format!

hi there TC, thank you for the welcome. it definitely seems like you've had a lot more experience than i have, my only experience so far has been my 3 years at college studying Music Technology at the Halton College in Widnes, Cheshire (UK) where i helped out with various recording sessions for the bands at the college and i also did my own personal production and engineering work. outside of college i've been working with a few musicians here and there, in a collaborative capacity. only one of those side projects is still "up-and-running" at the moment. as for what i can play, i am an electronic musician and as such i stick to synthesizers and drum machines. i was lucky enough to own (and stupid enough to sell!) a rather respectable collection of hardware synthesizers and drum machines. the only hardware equipment i still own are my Akai S6000 sampler (which i'm trying to sell at the moment) and my Yamaha AW4416 audio workstation. i'm keeping hold of that as long as i can though, i trained on the Yamaha O2R96 at college, and the AW4416 is a nice slimmed down version of that. i also extend to you the courtesy of PM anytime, although i'm sure there's little you would like to ask me if you ever want my opinions on autechre's work, i'll be happy to ramble on!

nope, i've never bought any music on the iTunes store, i've always ripped my own cd's at 160Kbps AAC. (iTunes store, at least used to be, very low quality and DRM'd to the balls) i have confirmed though that it is the ATRAC3plus compression artefacts and not a transcoding issue. just finished recording the same track as Linear PCM and it's perfect. wish i had spent money on some Hi-MDs now!

thanks for the welcome guys well, i've tested a transfer from my existing digital library (which is all in Apple AAC format due to my initial adoption of the iPod) to the MZ-RH1 using SonicStage. i had the settings auto-convert the AAC file to 256kbps Hi-SP (ATRAC3plus) and i must say that the result is a bit disappointing...although i'm very sure this is more than likely due to the transcoding needing to be done. i'm trying the same track from the vinyl as a direct line-in, recording at the same setting...just to see if it was the transcoding that was at fault. update: oh dear, looks like it is the lossy compression artefacts i can hear. it's acceptable for now, but it looks like i'm definitely gonna want to try to get hold of some actual Hi-MD discs for Linear PCM recording

well, after years of iPod and MP3 / Apple AAC use (and various disappointments from Apple's shoddy hardware quality) i've finally jumped in with both feet into Minidisc. i've had a MZ-N10 for a while and due to the remote being useless and its battery failure a while back, i never really paid much attention to the format. my MZ-RH1 arrived today, which i'd been eyeing up for a few weeks now. i thought i'd better get one before the stocks start running out. i'm definitely not disappointed. i'll mainly be using this to record my burgeoning vinyl collection, and at the moment i'm just using standard 80min MDs formatted in Hi-MD mode. hopefully i can grab enough Hi-MD discs in future to be able to record in Linear PCM. so far the only pre-recorded mindisc i own is the GESCOM Minidisc release. i never really fully appreciated the zero-seek time until actually hearing it properly. it's quite funny that the iPod only recently acquired this capability (and even then, only on the relatively newer models). i would like to think i have a good ear for detail, i've been a sound engineer and musician for the past 10 years as a personal hobby, with (albeit unrealistic) aspirations to be a professional sound engineer or musician. with my admittedly limited tests i'm really impressed with the audio quality. i've only had the unit since about 12:30pm so not really had much of a chance to test stuff out. so far i've recorded a couple of tracks from vinyl, and a whole cd (Boards of Canada - Aquarius 7" and autechre - Quaristice). i think these will prove to be a good test of the format, however i plan to record autechre's Draft 7.30 from vinyl to really test it out! i'm really looking forward to using my minidisc recorder to it's full potential, and i hope that in time i can contribute something to this forum. it's such a shame that this format never picked up momentum.