"Ticking" sound when recording

[syn010110]

I don't have a lot of discs, so I'm hoping that my discs aren't actually bad, but I wonder if they are.

I have five Memorex clear 80 minute discs. When I record to them, and only to them, they make a "tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick" noise every so often. The recording does not seem to be affected by this. I have 27 discs total; 10 Victor CLEAR MD 80 minute, 10 Sony Niege 80 minute, one Sony Color Series 74 minute and one Sony Color Series 80 minute, and these 5 Memorex clear discs.

Only the Memorex discs exhibit this behavior; all the Sony and Victor discs record with hardly anything other than the whirring of the recorder's internal mechanisms. They do not appear to be damaged in any way, and my recorder is still just chugging along. The ticks seem to last for about 10-15 seconds and then stop. The volume of the ticking sound can vary.

Wondering if this is anything to worry about, if I should avoid using these discs? I'd rather not throw them out, but then again it's better to lose five discs than damage my MD units.

[SileEeles]

I hear something similar to this with alot of discs, it ususally when recording towards then end (outer edge) of a disc, the recording head makes a rapid-ish tick-tick-tick-tick noise, only ever with portable devices though, never heard it with my deck.

[syn010110]

It's only doing it with the Memorex discs. None of my others, the Sonys or the Victors, make this noise. I'm just going to set them aside and not use them.

I'd hate to wreck my E520, finding another pink one would be super hard.

Edit: Well, okay, the other discs make the ticking noise too, but it's almost totally inaudible. The Memorex ones were ticking so loudly that I could hear it over the sound of music on headphones. Also I noticed the seams on my Sony and Victor discs are very even, where they're so uneven on the Memorex discs that I can almost fit a fingernail between the two halves of the outer cartridge casing and pop 'em open.

Well, I know which ones not to get in the future. I remember back in the old days I had bad luck with Maxell discs as well. I'll stick with Sony, Victor, TDK and Axia...

[Azureal]

There was a time years ago, before I found sources of various higher quality MD blanks that I bought half a dozen of those clear Memorex discs in the clear plastic box. I got them at a computer store named Micro Center and they were all I could purchase locally at the time maybe around 2000 or 2001.

The best thing about these discs was the reusable box! As you have noticed, these disks seem to be a lower quality. I don't use them any longer, maybe some day if its all I have left, I'll bring them back out.

[trott3r]

I have this problem with my jb980 and sony 80mins discs.

It is only after i have done a lot of editing on a disk.

I record football games on the radio and edit them to keep the goals for the season.

Near the end of a season i get this noisy working harder sound on a well used MD.

[magnaflux]

I have had problems using these Memorex CLEAR discs as well. I suggest not to use them as they are of inferior quality and may cause you to lose valuable recordings. Seems that the tolerances on them are off ever so slightly. No problems with any other discs.

Th Memorex COLOR discs are not affected by this anomaly. Hopes this helps.

[punkrockaddict]

I can´t imagine these are bad discs. I´ve ever had 1 disc that broke.. among 2000.

I would suppose it is thje redorder at first..

The only ones that are knownto me to have issues are the maxell with plastic shutter.And that effects only the disc ejection afaik.

Do you own a 2nd recorder to test with ?

I´ll have a look at bthese discs and test by myself with different recorders asap.

greetings

[sfbp]

In my limited experience of failing disks high rates seem to go to ones which have highly reflective surfaces.

There's even an adjustment on some units called "Stray light adjustment".

[bluecrab]

Memorex MDs have had a reputation for quite some time as being less reliable than others. They are not the only discs users have complained about, but they do seem to get more than their fair share of negative attention.

Here's an example from almost 10 years ago in this very forum;

IIRC, issues with Memorex were reported going back even farther...late 90s....maybe earlier. In all fairness, though, I think I had a problem with one or two Memorex discs, but I have some that seem to be perfectly OK for use. I think you are taking the correct approach for now. Why risk the MD unit if it seems sensitive to the Memorex discs?

[syn010110]

So I also noticed when attempting to set track marks that the Memorex discs would sometimes not seek properly. I'd hold the seek buttons down and it'd just sit and spin, the time neither decrementing nor incrementing. So yeah, they've been junked. The Sony Niege discs track, seek, play and record flawlessly with no problems; same with the Victor ones.

I played with one of the Memorex discs for a minute and realized that the discs rattle around inside the cartridge way, way more than the others. Oh, and the metal shutter actually got hung up in my recorder when I removed it. >_>; That sealed the deal for me. I'll stick with the brands I know work well... fortunately there seems to be a pretty good supply of new Sony and Victor discs floating around out there.

Edit: The clear plastic box is amazing. I threw out the discs, but totally kept the box. It's perfect for taking albums with me and tossing them in my backpack. It's a bit bulky for my purses and handbags, though.

[bluecrab]

Oddly, only earlier this evening I had a problem with reading a Princo disc on a JB930. The disc (a recording I'd made years ago) has always read OK, but the 930 rejected it over and over with a TOC error. I acquired the 930 recently, but no other discs have yet caused a TOC error. I re-recorded from the original source CD onto a JVC MD. No problem reading it.

I also noticed that the 930 also played, without complaint, a Memorex MD. I hadn't even thought about its being a Memorex when I played it. It's a disc I have played a lot on various decks without any issues. BTW, the "Problem Princo" is read just fine by my MXD-D40 and MXD-D400. Maybe the 930 is just a bit sensitive.