superboy

A440, I wrote a nice blog about minidisc not too long ago talking about this (it's on this forum somewhere). I have a question for you about the alternatives. Are there alternatives out there right now that can honestly replace the sound quality and reliability of the mindisc? I have an RH1 right now, but I can see myself getting something else in the future because the minidisc is essentially dead. But the sound quality of the recordings on the RH1 is excellent and I've heard it's not so great on the other flash recorders out there.

SuperboyAC's DC blog #5 (The State of MiniDisc and Sony) Hi everyone, I occasionally write a blog for the donationcoder site on a volunteer basis. My newest blog is about the minidisc, and all the things I've learned about it over the years from owning it and this site here. You guys know much more about than me, so please read the blog and I'd appreciate any comments and/or corrections. I wrote it as an easy, fun read for people not too familiar with MD. Thanks for all the help with information on this forum so far, you guys are great! AC

That sums up my feelings pretty good. Sony's a crazy company. They keep diluting the market with cool gadgets instead of trying to make a big splash with something important. Every time apple makes a new product, it creates a stir around the world. Sony, with all their brilliant and cool inventions, continue to implement them in equipment that always seems to fall short.

Yeah, I don't even know what I meant by crisp. I just heard you talking about line-in and the battery box, and I was wondering how that would improve the sound. I thought the recordings were good. I placed the mic clipped, hanging on a curtain a few inches above and in front of one of the two PA speakers. I was right next to it, so the recording sounded pretty close to what I was hearing. I guess it would be better to place the mic more central to the two speakers to get a more balanced sound. The only problem with that is the mic would be closer to the drums, and the drums would totally overwhelm any other instrument. From my experiences, the sensitivity of the mic is the following: drums>female vocals>piano>bass. So, I want to place my mic furthest away from the drums and closest to the bass player. Of course, since everything but the drums goes through the PA, it's best to get the pre-adjusted balanced sound from the PA with the mic close to it, and pick up the drums from far away, and that's essentially what I did. There was no static in the recording, so I don't know if the battery box would help get a cleaner recording. Unless, by cleaner, you mean it would pick up the sounds in more detail. I thought the bass could have been more defined. However, the PA speakers are pretty cheap, so that may be the cause of that, and not the mic. When I get a chance, I'll try to post a link to the recordings somewhere.

OK, I got a chance to record another gig at the coffee house. This time I used my new RH1 with the BMC-2 mics. I used the mic-in jack (would line-in be better)? I clipped the mics a few inches in front of one of the PA speakers, and set the recording levels and recorded. I got a great recording this time, much better. I got the bass fine this time. Everything sounded great. So, that mic really is good, thanks A440. I've been just not using them all this time because they just don't look all that sexy I guess, but they are great mics. My question now is, how do I get a more crisp recording? Would using the line-in with a battery pack be better? It's a jazz trio with vocals, so it's not loud at all. The ears are never ringing, and most people can talk comfortably over it. Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with the drastic improvement so far.

Well, ok. It's not an old unit, it's an RH1. I will say that uploading mp3's to the device is much faster than my RH10, but that's not to say it's all that fast. If you really think about how fast you can transfer 1 GB of data onto and off of a USB drive, the mindisc upload/download speed is very slow. Again, why can't we just download the files straight off of the minidisc? Why does Sonicstage have to go through this whole conversion routine? It's things like this that caused the minidisc to be a failed experiment by Sony. They better get back into the portable recording business because it looks like th flash recording industry is on the cusp of a boom. there are some cool devices out there.

I don't get it, am I doing something wrong? Why is my transfer speed so slow? And how many ways are there to download the wav file from the mindisc? As far as I can tell, there are only two settings in Sonicstage that deal with that...one is the setting that says to transfer the files as-is without conversion...the other is the one that says to convert the file to a wav after it's transferred. Am I correct? Also, how long does it take you people to transfer a full HiMD (1 GB) worth of PCM recordings? It takes me a long time...I'll say around 1/2 hour at the fastest (going through the whole wav conversion BS).

I love my RH1 and it's recording abilities, but I'm being fed up with this ATRAC BS. Why the hell can't I just transfer the freakin wav file off the RH1 onto my computer without the damn ATRAC lossless conversion nonsense? What a load of baloney. Look, I want the wav file. It's a pcm wav file already on the disc. Just give me the damn file. I don't need to make it an ATRAC lossless file just to convert it into a wav file. First of all, it takes up twice as much space on the computer. Second of all, it takes twice as long because of the middleman ATRAC file. I am consistently amazed at Sony and their ability to make themselves look useless. Sony is the Rainman of electronic companies. brilliant mind underneath...yet they can't help making themselves look genetically inferior. I love how Apple is the opposite with their ability to take a mediocre product and make the world believe it's the Second Coming. I think it took me 2 hours to transfer 3 hours of PCM recordings to my computer. That's some speed.

Yes, you're right, there are many units that record and playback. But none of the audio PLAYERS also record with the quality mindisc records to, which has always been its strength. There are also very good flash recorders out there like the Edirol that can also playback, but their playback quality is weak. You see, none of them combine the quality of both functions as well as minidisc, but the focus is mainly on the recording quality. Whatever electronics mindiscs use (their mic preamp, or whatever it is) produces very high quality recordings for something that small. That is what makes minidiscs so special, because they can also play back in superb quality. the ipods record like crap from what I've heard, and the same goes for the zens. If the recording feature is just an afterthought or only intended for things like lectures, it's not going to be the same quality as the minidisc recorders.

Well, again, I don't think the ability to split, join, and edit tracks has anything to do with ATRAC. ATRAC is just a compression format, like mp3. I think whatever the minidisc is doing with the ATRAC file, it can do with an mp3 file if it were programmed to do so. And, here's another question. Is it really that important to do so much editing with the mindisc unit itself? I don't know how the majority of users do it, but I upload everything raw (wav) into my computer after I've recorded, and I do all my editing on the computer, because it's infinitely easier and more flexible. Why fiddle around with the tiny controls and display of the minidisc when you can do it with the comfort of your computer? All of my compression, cutting, joining, sound editing, and processing is done on the computer with me. But back to the topic, I don't think you can do anything with ATRAC that you can't do with mp3 or any other compression format (or uncompressed formats for that matter). I would assume that most serious recording enthusiasts would prefer to record in uncompressed formats like PCM rather than record and compress (unless it was absolutely necessary, like taping a long audio lecture).

Thanks Chris, I will try that. Will that accomplish the same thing as erasing the disc from the options on the mindisc unit? Someone said that if I just format, it clears the TOC but doesn't necessarily wipe out the disc. I heard that if you erase, you get the entire disc back as if it were a fresh disc. Am I understanding this correctly?

Again, I don't see why Sony has to acknowledge failure with its MD/ATRAC efforts. They should take the successes they had with it, filter out the failures, and come up with a new device that is even better. We all know what made the MD fail. Sony tried to market it as a CD replacement, but that never took off. What made it a success was its abilities as a great recorder as well as great playback. Now, for strictly playback, there are loads of mp3 players that are better (ipods and such). So it would be foolish for SOny to try to overtake that market. FOr recording alone, the market is much smaller, but there are things out there that might be preferable to the minidisc (Zoom H2, Edirol recorders). But minidisc is still one of the best recorders, so that is something to build on. What really sets minidisc apart is that it is a great recorder AND player. Nothing else out there has that combination with the same quality as the HiMD units out right now like the RH1. So...SOny should build on that! I repeat, make a new recorder/player with the same electronics (same preamp, same recording quality) as the RH1, but just change the media. Offer flash-based recorder/players, hard-drive based recorder/players, or both even. This is Sony's recipe for success. Why is this not obvious to them?! This opportunity is just sitting there for Sony, they just have to act on it. I think this is so freakin obvious, it should have been done years ago. But Sony will probably keep trying to keep competing with the ipod with it's various walkman units. They will admit failure with the MD, retire the format and equipment line, and move on to other things. Sony is one of these frustrating companies that fails to see the obvious implementations of their genius inventions. I mean, they come up with the coolest gadgets, but they find a way to screw it up somehow in its implementation. Why did we have to go through 3 generations of HiMD before manual recording levels can be saved? It's just silly. WHy won't they just make lives easier on themselves and allow firmware upgrades on their minidisc units?

Yes, that's a great way...use SOny's own flash memory cards, they have nothing to lose! Why wouldn't the ability to record and edit tracks be the same for a flash card as it is for the minidisc? As far as I'm concerned, it should be the same. The media doesn't affect that (or it shouldn't).

I love minidisc and am very thankful for HiMD and the RH1, however, it's evident that minidisc is on its way out with all the stuff available now. But Sony should take the strong points of minidisc and adapt it to a next generation recorder/player. What's the main, practical advantage of mindisc? It's the phenomenal recording ability in such a tiny device. That's it. The other stuff is mainly superficial (such as the cool discs, the sound quality of the player, ability to exchange media, etc.) We all know that recording ability is what has kept minidisc around, period. So, why doesn't Sony build on that? Take the same electronic guts of a mindisc recorder, and instead of reading/writing onto a mindisc, let it use flash cards, or hard drives, just like the ipod line. I know we all are nostalgic to the mindisc medium, but I would still love to see this as the next evolution of this technology, and I don't see why it can't be done easily. After all, the recording capability of minidisic recorders has nothing to do with the minidisc, but with the electronics inside it. This would open up to market beyond our little minidisc cult here, it's more practical, and it could potentially put Sony as the market leader in portable recording technology. And you know all of us RH1 users would easily convert also! Oh, I forgot to mention the other great strength of mindisc recorders. Not only is it a great recorder, but it can be used for playback also with great sound quality. Yes, it would be no good if it were simply a recorder. The fact that it can do both extremely well is the main draw to it. Again, it's nothing that can't be easily adapted by Sony into a flash or hard-drive based device.

Yeah, I know what you're saying. I think people rave about the 40ELK because it's the best of the bunch out there. I agree with you that the 35ELK is better designed, but you need the 40elk for more functions. Either way, both of them are very limited. That's true, it is a little silly, the remote being as fancy as a standalone flash player, but it's not ridiculous! I mean, if you think about the RH1, it's kind of a weird thing: they put a really cool OLED screen on the unit, however it's so limited in its display, that most users are relying on the remote for most operating procedures. So what's the point of having such a cool screen on the rh1? You might as well put it on the remote! I think it makes perfect sense. I'm staring at the remote 90% of the time anyway.

OK, I know most of you are not interested in this thread, but I am (ever since I finally got a beautiful rh1), so chew on this: Sony already has a couple of devices that would make PERFECT remotes for the RH1. I mean, really, it would be a awesome thing if they did it, and I am almost positive that all of us would pay top dollar for just because it would complement the RH1 perfectly. ANyway, enough of that, check out these OLED devices made by SOny and picture it as a remote for a HiMD unit: Sony NW-S205: Sony E-series flash walkmans: Can we beg Sony to do this for the RH1? Am I the only one that is getting giddy over this idea? Why should we drool over the 40ELK with all of it's annoying limitations? I mean, it's a fine remote and all, but let's face it...it's 90's technology at best and the only reason to get excited about it is that it's simply the best option available so far. If this is indeed the last minidisc unit that Sony is going to make (a great one at that) then at least complete the job with a fabulous remote and let us enjoy for decades, despite other technology emerging in the future. OK, I'm done dreaming.

How hard would it be to make a 3rd party custom remote for the HiMD players like the RH1? Personally, I would be ecstatic if the RH1 was the last minidisc machine made, but if better remotes were offered later. I know the 40ELK is the remote to have for the RH1, but there's a lot that can be improved upon. I'm sure this is true for a lot of people, but when I'm using my minidisc machine, I use it through the remote 90% of the time and 10% with the onboard controls. I think a lot of people use it that way. This seems to be one of the great advantages that the minidisc has over ipods and other players still. Imagine a nice, ergonomic remote controller with a great LCD screen (OLED perhaps?). It would have great resolution, it would remember display settings between sessions, it would be able to access all the options inside the HiMD unit. A really good remote would make the rh1 the perfect instrument, it really would. I'm sure a lot of us wouldn't hesitate top spend $100 on a great remote. I think Sony should think about it or another company should try it. Is the remote so proprietary that only Sony can do it?

Question: Can you change the option for the backlight on the 55elk and 40elk so that it stays on all the time? I can do this with my 35ELK, and I'd like to be able to do the same with the other remotes. Also, there seems to be conflicting information...another thread shows that you can show album, artist, and track simultaneously on the 40elk, but here, you say you can do that. Which is true? Finally, there seems to be problems with unwanted interference/noise with the 40ELK. I haven't noticed this with my 35ELK. Is this the case for all 40ELK users when recording? How about the 55ELK, is there noise when using that remote for recording?

Yeah, no kidding. You'll search for a couple of keywords, the results will send you to a 20-page thread, but not to the actual post where the keywords appear. So you might as well read the whole freakin thread. What annoyed me was how so much stuff is "common knowledge", yet when you go to find the source of the information in the threads, you'll see it was a little comment made in the middle of a large thread! How is that such common knowledge!?

I visit a lot of forums, and I have to say that finding the information I want here is pretty difficult. I know everyone here is going get all mad now, but it's true. There's a lot of great information here, but it's hard to find it all. I can't quite put my finger on the cause, but it's a combination of the forum design and some other things. The only forum that is worse that I've seen (much worse) is the foobar forum, otherwise known as the hydrogenaudio forum. Now, that one is terrible. The best forum design I've seen is the donationcoder.com one. The worst part is that in some threads, someone will ask a question, and someone else will respond with "This has been well-documented and/or discussed in other threads", but I don't blame the guy because it's not so easy to find what you're looking for. Anyway, what prompted me to do this is that I just bought an rh1 from my friend, and it was such a pain finding the answers to all the questions I had. I'm thinking of putting together a nice-looking FAQ for the rh1, but it would take some time.

Does anyone here notice with their HiMD discs that as you format and reload content on the disc, it loses a little bit of capacity? I think my HiMD discs start off around 940 MB of space, and I'm slowly dipping around 920 and below now. Am I formatting wrong? Should I erase instead of format or something like that? Does anyone here notice with their HiMD discs that as you format and reload content on the disc, it loses a little bit of capacity? I think my HiMD discs start off around 940 MB of space, and I'm slowly dipping around 920 and below now. Am I formatting wrong? Should I erase instead of format or something like that?

When you turn the car off, does the rh1 automatically stop playing, or do you always have to remember to manually stop it?

Ok, cool. I don't know what mics I have, but I do know I got them from Sound Professionals. Are there any model numbers or anything anywhere?

A440, thanks for that great explanation, I think you may have hit it on the head. I need to find out what the brand and model of my binaural mics are, and I'll post back. I might have been lying when I said I have the same problem with the binaural mics...I don't think I can say that for sure yet. Thanks for the mic suggestions, boojum. I'll consider those if I don't have anything else to cut it (although they're a little expensive).

Hmm...ok. So if I understand it correctly, my problem is a little different than what is usually talked about. So when the FAQ's talk about a bass problem, the problem is that the MD recorder picks up too much bass and the recording is clipped/distorted. Yes, I have the opposite problem...I'm not picking up the bass much at all. The two mics I have tried so far are the Sony ECM-MS907 and a binaural mic (not sure of the brand). If you want to hear a sample of the recording I've done, listen to the track here: http://www.myspace.com/rootdownorgantrio If you can hear anything interesting in there, please let me know. I will test the mic on the computer and see what I get.