BearBoy

Not sure if you have found a suitable keyboard yet but when I picked up an MDS-JB980 a few months back I bought one of THESE from Amazon.co.uk for £6.99 Probably not the best keyboard money can buy but perfectly satisfactory for titling MDs.

Are you talking only about MDLP compatible models here sfbp? The other JBs (except for the JB980) and the ES decks have this don't they? Although they are SP only.

Good point. All of the units I bought, bar one, came with blanks too. Many of which were still sealed.

Funnily enough I have found myself in the same boat. Since getting back into MD a month or so ago I have picked up an MDS-JB980, MZ-E909, MZ-N910 and an MZ-N710. The perils of eBay. Had a number of other units on watch lists too but have decided to call a halt to my buying before it gets out of hand

Thanks (again) Philippe. I've got Windows 8.1 but it looks like it's in the same place as you described. Plugged a PS/2 keyboard into my MDS-JB980 for the first time today. Wow. Makes titling discs so much easier. Wish my MDS-JE500 had had this functionality back when I was making lots of discs.

Thanks for that Philippe. I'll follow those instructions when I give it go.

Just a quick update: I managed to pick up an MDS-JB980. It's in great condition - looks brand new. The only real downside for my purposes is the lack of a coaxial digital output but I have an optical to coax convertor I can use. I have downloaded the SonicStage 4.3 "Ultimate Edition" from this site but have not attempted to install the relevant drivers for the JB980 as yet so have not tried out any of the NetMD functionality. I have, however, been making my first MDLP recordings - only 15 years after Sony introduced it. Only tried LP2 mode so far, and have not carried out any real comparisons to SP mode, but it sounds pretty good tbh.

I never realised that those "music" CD-Rs were anything other than a marketing thing. ​Didn't realise that they were necessary for consumer CD-R decks. ​Yes, I seem to have dodged an SCMS shaped bullet fortunately. Useful to know that there is a solution though if I come up against an issue in the future with a different set up. ​Thanks. I've been reading through the various manuals and information on minidisc.org. Got my eye on a few on eBay at the moment. Will hopefully find a suitable one before too long. Thanks for all your help - it has been very useful.

​That's interesting. Are you referring to the Aiwa CD-R as a "SCMS-killing device" or a separate device? SCMS does not appear to be an issue with the way I was intending to copy them. I made a couple of test recordings last night, of both MDs containing original recordings and copies of CDs, and do not appear to have encountered any issues. I copied a couple of tracks across to my PC and have been able to transfer the files to iTunes and my iPhone without any difficulty. I have not tried burning any CDs as yet but was assuming SCMS would have stopped me in my tracks by now if it was going to. Just in case anyone ever comes across this with a similar query, the set up I am using is: Sony MDS-JE500 > optical out > optical to coaxial convertor > Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 audio interface > Windows 8.1 PC running Reaper software. The Focusrite interface and Reaper allow me to capture audio in a variety of different bit depths / sample rates so I need to do a bit more reading and testing to see which is likely to give me the best results (not sure if bigger is necessarily better when dealing with the output from my JE500).

Hi sfbp. Thanks for the reply. I had a quick look on eBay and you weren't joking about the MZ-RH1s being expensive! I remember almost buying one of these when they were still available new but did not in the end as I wasn't using the format as much and, in the absence of a Hi-MD home deck, I had little inclination to move to Hi-MD. Looks like I missed out on a potential profit there If I had a large number of discs that I wanted to transfer then I could definitely see the value in uploading but the number of original recordings I want to back up, as opposed to most of my MDs which are copies of my CD collection, is relatively small and so copying them over in "real-time" won't be too much of a chore.

Thanks very much for the reply Bluecrab - it was very helpful. I had not realised that some of the decks had switchable digital inputs/outputs. I had, mistakenly, assumed that as Minidisc was considered inferior to CD from a sound quality perspective that it wouldn't ever be more than 16/44,1 - looks like I was completely wrong on this! I will spend some more time reading the information on minidisc.org and the linked manuals and see if I can understand the technical differences better. I should be able to test out my question on SCMS later today now I have all the relevant leads/boxes to hand. Thanks again for your help.

Hello. New to the forum but pleased to see there is still an active MiniDisc community out there. I first got in to MiniDisc back in 1997 when I bought an MDS-JE500 (which is still going) and an MZ-E30 (which was sadly stolen) and was a big fan of the format until finally succumbing to the lure of the iPod's greater storage around 2005/2006. I was a somewhat reluctant convert to the iPod, as I preferred the sound quality of my MiniDiscs, but convenience won out. Anyway, following a recent house move I have finally got my players and discs back out of storage and have been having a nostalgic play around with them. Was pleasantly surprised to discover, amongst the recordings from my CD collection, a number of radio shows and recordings of various bands I had been in. After my MZ-E30 was stolen, I replaced it with an MZ-E501, which works fine but the original battery only seems to hold enough charge for about 10 minutes of playback. I am pretty sure I have the external battery case somewhere but impatience got the better of me and I ordered a Vapex replacement for my Sony NH-14WM. It arrived yesterday and, so far at least, seems to work pretty well. My MDS-JE500 deck also appears to be fine although I have not tried to make any recordings on it as yet. Anyway, to my questions (sorry for the rambling). 1) I want to transfer my original recordings (not those made from CDs) to my PC so that I have a back up and can burn them to CDs etc if I want to. My MiniDisc equipment predates NetMD so I was intending to copy them digitally via my Focusrite audio interface. My interface only has an coaxial input so I would need to use a convertor to convert the MDS-JE500's optical output to coax. Am I likely to run in to any issues with doing this? I was specifically thinking about SCMS related issues as I seem to recall having problems copying MiniDiscs to a Boss digital multitracker about 15 years ago. Also, what does my MDS-JE500 output through the optical out? Is it PCM 16/44,1? 2) Although impressed at the reliability of my MiniDisc equipment, I did start thinking about future proofing and whether it might be an idea to purchase a "spare" deck in case my MDS-JE500 ever broke down (I have an MZ-E300 in a box somewhere in case my MZ-E501 packed up but I am more worried about keeping an operational deck tbh). I have been looking at a few of the Sony QS MiniDisc decks on eBay (MDS-JB9XXs). The MDS-JB980 seems to attract the higher prices (presumably due to its NetMD capabilities?) but, if I am really only looking for a device to playback SP discs recorded on my MDS-JE500, does the MDS-JB980 really offer anything over the 940/930/920? I notice on minidisc.org that they have differing versions of ATRAC but am not 100% sure how this relates back to playback of my existing discs. Also, given that my laptop is running Windows 8.1, would I be likely to have any joy with getting any of the NetMD functionality of the JB980 to work? Sorry for the epic first post; I will try to be a little more succinct in future!