Andrew Hinge Posted July 14, 2023 Report Share Posted July 14, 2023 2 minutes ago, BearBoy said: Nice work! Although it reminds me I have a load of discs I need to sort out labels/inlays for 🙁 Thanks! How do you do yours? Pix? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted July 14, 2023 Report Share Posted July 14, 2023 So a few years back I bought a load of the mini jewel cases and started to use a free template that was online (www.minidisccover.com). Unfortunately I'd only made a small number when they started charging a fee to access the template (I think it was something like £50 for 6 months) and I haven't really found a suitable alternative since. I'm not really up to speed with design applications etc so don't really know the best way of creating one of my own. Anyway, here's one I did whilst the site was still free: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted July 14, 2023 Report Share Posted July 14, 2023 I had a little play about in Microsoft Publisher and have managed to pull together a template for jewel case inlays using the measurements from https://www.bandcds.co.uk/minidisc/minidisc-duplication-and-production/ Might try to make an insert to go in the MDW80T slipcases next. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted July 15, 2023 Report Share Posted July 15, 2023 I made a template for the MDW80T slipcases. It fits well enough but the sort of frosted finish on the cases means that the inlay doesn't show through terribly well, at least not with the test one I made. Might need to experiment with different colours/fonts a bit and see if I can make it more legible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted July 29, 2023 Author Report Share Posted July 29, 2023 Mike Lindup Changes2 CD just arrived in the post, so a little SP dub job for my MXD-D4 today… …yes I am sad and try to match the MD colour to the album artwork! https://mikelindup-official.bandcamp.com/album/changes-2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted July 30, 2023 Report Share Posted July 30, 2023 On 7/29/2023 at 12:38 PM, kgallen said: Mike Lindup Changes2 CD just arrived in the post, so a little SP dub job for my MXD-D4 today… I've been wondering where I knew that guy from as he looked familiar. Was even wondering if it was someone I actually knew before I finally twigged 🤦♂️ On 7/29/2023 at 12:38 PM, kgallen said: …yes I am sad and try to match the MD colour to the album artwork! One of the little pleasures the format brings 😀 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted October 28, 2023 Report Share Posted October 28, 2023 I should probably do some proper pictorials for these, but I'm a bit lazy, so for now I'll just throw in a selection of random shots of some recent (well last 6 months let's say) acquisitions.. . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted October 29, 2023 Report Share Posted October 29, 2023 Wow. Nice (not so) little haul there @Richard! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted October 29, 2023 Author Report Share Posted October 29, 2023 On 10/28/2023 at 3:58 AM, Richard said: I should probably do some proper pictorials for these, but I'm a bit lazy, so for now I'll just throw in a selection of random shots of some recent (well last 6 months let's say) acquisitions.. . "I'll just chuck in some shots" he says, then proceeds (as always) to upload studio-grade pictures! Nice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted October 29, 2023 Report Share Posted October 29, 2023 9 minutes ago, kgallen said: "I'll just chuck in some shots" he says, then proceeds (as always) to upload studio-grade pictures! 🤣 It's always a bit embarrassing when I see @Richard's professional shots compared to my feeble "taken on my desk with a phone in bad light" efforts. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted October 30, 2023 Report Share Posted October 30, 2023 18 hours ago, BearBoy said: 🤣 It's always a bit embarrassing when I see @Richard's professional shots compared to my feeble "taken on my desk with a phone in bad light" efforts. Nothing to be embarrassed about! All photos are appreciated! I have a kind of standardized setup that I have been using for a few years, with a light tent, my handheld camera and some minor edits on the computer afterwards. Far from pro, but it still takes a while sometimes. I usually go through short "spurts" of output, often punctuated by months of having no time and / or laziness😅 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted November 6, 2023 Report Share Posted November 6, 2023 Here's another one of my dodgy photos 🤦♂️ 🤣 I made a couple of MiniDiscs of "deluxe" versions of a pair of old PJ Harvey albums. Plenty of space using LP2 to get the original albums, bonus tracks, B sides, radio sessions and demos etc on each. Just need to print out a couple of inlays for them now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted November 6, 2023 Report Share Posted November 6, 2023 On 10/30/2023 at 8:29 AM, Richard said: I have a kind of standardized setup that I have been using for a few years, with a light tent, my handheld camera and some minor edits on the computer afterwards. Far from pro, but it still takes a while sometimes. I usually go through short "spurts" of output, often punctuated by months of having no time and / or laziness😅 Well, you might not consider them "pro" @Richard, but they certainly look very professional to me. And your pictorial posts are always very much appreciated. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted January 21 Author Report Share Posted January 21 It’s pantomime season in the UK and hence for me with my local drama group. For the past two productions I’ve not run sound on the performances (as well as lighting, set, …) as I’ve been bringing on the husband of another member to lessen the burden on me trying to be an octopus. A week before our show went up (a few days before our tech and dress rehearsals) he told us he couldn’t do the shows. The sound wasn’t well prepped (grrrr) so I had a mad couple of days and some long meetings working out and editing up the music and sound effects. As others here will know I use minidisc and the reasons are many including that doing lighting as well I don’t have time (or space) for fannying around with laptops and mice: I need a play button I can hit and the required sound comes out on cue and a machine that auto-stops at the end of the track. Hence I have a number of MDS-E12 ‘pro’ Sony decks. A pair, specifically, that handled the music and sound effects for the show, plus another as a backup that is racked with a Sony CDP-D12 that I used for interval music. I had a slight panic at the get-in (when we rig the show) when machine #1 wouldn’t eject, but fortunately was reading the disc reliably. I had chance to take the machine home that evening to replace the load/eject belt. After then, solid performance from the machines, which is what I need. No time for technical hitches with 100 lighting cues and over 50 music and SFX cues - plus radio mics, to juggle on my own. So that’s been my past couple of weeks. In prep now for the next production in May - when I’m not expecting to have to do the sound last minute, so it will be full on with the lighting and set, and the E12’s get a brief rest! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted January 22 Report Share Posted January 22 Must have been stressful getting thrown in at the deep end at such short notice like that but it sounds like you, and your trusty MD decks, managed to get Cinderella to the ball (or whichever panto it was you were doing 😉 ) I wonder what the life expectancy of an eject belt is? I've only ever replaced mine when they've failed (or sometimes as a precaution if I happened to have a deck open and know the belt is old). Bit different if you're reliant on them for something like a live theatre show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted January 23 Author Report Share Posted January 23 On 1/22/2024 at 7:00 PM, BearBoy said: Must have been stressful getting thrown in at the deep end at such short notice like that but it sounds like you, and your trusty MD decks, managed to get Cinderella to the ball (or whichever panto it was you were doing 😉 ) It was Aladdin. I got "lucky" in that I had a couple of days annual leave I needed to burn (use or lose), so that was those two days written off! I have done sound for the best part of 20 years and it's all my kit so in that respect it wasn't an issue - other than the last minute notification, needing to do all of the prep double quick and then running what was a lot of cues for one person (intense concentration for 2.5hrs is hard going at my age!). On 1/22/2024 at 7:00 PM, BearBoy said: I wonder what the life expectancy of an eject belt is? I've only ever replaced mine when they've failed (or sometimes as a precaution if I happened to have a deck open and know the belt is old). Bit different if you're reliant on them for something like a live theatre show. Usually I replace them when I get a new machine, but possibly I had this one before Charlie got those 0.7x17 belts made for us. The one I took off looked a bit thicker, so either I didn't replace it or I used some "A.N.Other" belts that I was using at the time. I guess my machines get it a little harder than your typical machine as they are stored (albeit in rack cases) in an outbuilding, where it gets pretty cold (and warm in the summer). I usually put a label on the back with the date when I replace a belt, but there wasn't one, so again, either I didn't replace it or it was before I got into the habit of labelling them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted February 1 Report Share Posted February 1 I thought I had recorded somewhere which belts I had replaced and when but I cannot find it now 🤦♂️ Probably should have used stickers on the back rather than a spreadsheet, which I now can't seem to locate. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted February 8 Report Share Posted February 8 Despite having 3 decks connected up in my office, I've spent today listening to my MZ-R909 hooked up via line out into my office system. Variety is the spice of life and all that 🙂 The disc I'm listening to was recorded yesterday using my CDP-XB740 / MDS-JB940 combo so that the CD Text track titles came over with the recording via Control A1 II. I decided to go back to the old school methods after spending a few hours doing some tests with NetMD Wizard and CD2NetMD. Sometimes simple can be more satisfying, I think, even if it is slower 🤔 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted February 8 Author Report Share Posted February 8 Any why not! In a stack I have a 520, 940 and 770 (plus a 530 CD player). Whilst I admit I tend to use the 940 most (and probably the 770 least) I do move around them, even if just to listen to a particular track that I'm intrigued with in respect of how ATRAC handled it! Plus, pah, my 909 no longer works! 😞 Being a non-NetMD kind of chap, my CD dubs are all done with a Sony MXD-D4 or Tascam MDCD1... and which, depends on how lazy I'm being - the menus on the Tascam are more of a faff than the button on the D4 (for switching between SP and LP modes), but the Tascam copies the disc name as well as the track names whereas the D4 never copies the disc name. Go figure! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted February 8 Report Share Posted February 8 26 minutes ago, kgallen said: Plus, pah, my 909 no longer works! 😞 Anything salvageable? Although I'm not sure I'd fancy pulling a portable apart with my middle aged man eyesight and sausage fingers... 🤓 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted February 8 Report Share Posted February 8 27 minutes ago, kgallen said: the Tascam copies the disc name as well as the track names whereas the D4 never copies the disc name. Go figure! I was having some weird happenings with this yesterday. The MD I recorded came from multiple CD sources. Sometimes it would overwrite the MD disc name with whatever the name of the CD was but sometimes it didn't. Wasn't really paying enough attention to pick up on whether there was any sort of pattern 🤔 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted February 8 Author Report Share Posted February 8 36 minutes ago, BearBoy said: Anything salvageable? Although I'm not sure I'd fancy pulling a portable apart with my middle aged man eyesight and sausage fingers... 🤓 It's annoying because I can take it all the way through the calibration process and it passes (and have done this a couple of times). But then it won't read a disc. Game over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted February 8 Author Report Share Posted February 8 35 minutes ago, BearBoy said: I was having some weird happenings with this yesterday. The MD I recorded came from multiple CD sources. Sometimes it would overwrite the MD disc name with whatever the name of the CD was but sometimes it didn't. Wasn't really paying enough attention to pick up on whether there was any sort of pattern 🤔 Really for me it tends to be a non-issue because usually after a recording a disc I just whack it into one of my MDS-E12 with a keyboard and title the lot up in a minute or so! 🙂 Some CDs seem to have the track titles all in caps which I'm not a fan of... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted February 8 Report Share Posted February 8 My CDP-XB740 displays CD Text in all caps but, so far at least, recordings to my MDS-JB940 seem to render them on MiniDisc with the correct mixture of capital and lower case letters. Like you say though, using a keyboard to title/correct titles only takes a minute or so anyway. Was a gamechanger for me when I got a keyboard compatible deck as I'd previously been using the remote for my MDS-JE500. Don't really recall it being a huge pain at the time but I cannot imagine going back to it now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted February 8 Report Share Posted February 8 1 hour ago, kgallen said: It's annoying because I can take it all the way through the calibration process and it passes (and have done this a couple of times). But then it won't read a disc. Game over. Way beyond my technical "abilities" to offer any advice but maybe someone on here might have some suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted May 21 Author Report Share Posted May 21 This month we've... mostly been trying to resurrect the Forum from suspension! Well done to @sfbp, @Richard, @BearBoy for persevering with contacting the owner! We're good for now, let's hope we can secure a more stable future 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted June 14 Report Share Posted June 14 On 2/5/2022 at 9:13 AM, kgallen said: @BearBoythanks for the follow up! I think we’re concluding iTunes CD burner is definitely where the bug lies… Fast forward a couple of years... I burned a CD-RW from iTunes earlier and all the track titles came across correctly. It was only a six track CD so I tried again with an 11 track one and, again, all CD Text titles present and correct. I then pushed my luck with a 20 track playlist and it all went wonky again. So they've clearly not completely fixed the issue but it does seem to be better than when I burned a load of test discs a few years back. Might not be much help to you though @kgallen as I think your issue was with sound effect discs with high numbers of tracks? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted June 14 Author Report Share Posted June 14 1 hour ago, BearBoy said: Might not be much help to you though @kgallen as I think your issue was with sound effect discs with high numbers of tracks? Yes that’s right. I gave up with iTunes and paid money for Nero Burning ROM. However whilst titles are fine with that, I have a different bug with it, that when I add tracks beyond about 20, it sometimes swaps the position of one or more. I’ve raised this as a bug report but they claim they can’t repeat it - but it happens for me regularly (but not always in the same way). Obviously I’m just trouble… I’ve a show coming up in August so I’ll be revisiting this all again soon… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted June 15 Report Share Posted June 15 Oh, that's a bit disappointing that you're having issues with Nero too. I can sort of understand that Apple might see the CD burning functionality in iTunes as an increasingly redundant feature, and therefore it wouldn't be much of a priority to fix, but you'd have hoped that Nero would ensure it worked given that it is the primary purpose of their software. Hope you manage to work out what's going wrong. Any chance you could use something like Web MiniDisc Pro and bypass the need for a CD-R in the first place? Can't remember if you were just using the CD as a method to get the sound effects onto a MiniDisc or whether you used it at the shows as a back up or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted June 15 Report Share Posted June 15 18 hours ago, BearBoy said: I burned a CD-RW from iTunes earlier and all the track titles came across correctly. It was only a six track CD so I tried again with an 11 track one and, again, all CD Text titles present and correct. I then pushed my luck with a 20 track playlist and it all went wonky again. So they've clearly not completely fixed the issue but it does seem to be better than when I burned a load of test discs a few years back. Continued with my not very scientific testing this morning. Just tried a 14 track playlist and it got as far as track six before the titles started getting out of order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted June 15 Author Report Share Posted June 15 Yea I’m only using CD-R as a means to get stuff off the PC and onto MD. Other than the pain points of titles (iTunes) and unintended track reordering (Nero) going via CD-R isn’t too much of a pain (*) as I can just chuck it into my MXD-D4 (or Tascam MD-CD1) and roll off primary and backup discs. (*) The other pain point (and I don’t know if this would be solved my WMDPro or similar) is where I have short tracks that I need to play quickly back to back in the show. CD has a minimum track length - Nero seems to enforce 4 seconds (iTunes was 6 seconds). So where I have say a doorbell sound effect (say 1 second long) quickly followed by another sound effect I need to manually trim the doorbell track once I’m in MD land. This is a pain if I need to change something and have to go around the loop again plus the manual edit(s). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted August 1 Author Report Share Posted August 1 This week I’m mostly… going wild and using three Sony MDS-E12 for a show 😀 (I’m not using the Sony CDP-D12 also in the left rack, I’ve put my interval music onto MD). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted August 1 Report Share Posted August 1 I'm sat burning a new disc using Web MiniDisc Pro and an MZ-N910 whilst Googling @kgallen's new mixer. Always great to see you using the Pro decks for a show. Hope it all goes well! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted August 1 Author Report Share Posted August 1 On 8/1/2024 at 7:52 PM, BearBoy said: I'm sat burning a new disc using Web MiniDisc Pro and an MZ-N910 whilst Googling @kgallen's new mixer. Just a likkle one for this show - no radio mics. Two stage mics plus three (stereo) minidisc machines. My X32 would have been way overkill! (And I have to carry the bugger 🤣). Behringer Flow8 (but I’m sure you sussed that!) https://www.behringer.com/product.html?modelCode=0603-AEW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted August 2 Report Share Posted August 2 Was initially searching for a FlowB before I worked it out 🤣 Have been looking at mixers recently with a view to upgrading my Xenyx 1002. They suddenly seem to leap up in size/features (I don't need) though once you get to more than 10 inputs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted August 31 Author Report Share Posted August 31 This week we went to Cambridge (UK). The Centre for Computing History remembers minidisc briefly… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted August 31 Author Report Share Posted August 31 Then when I got home there was this new find to fix and service. Working just fine now with a new load belt and a damn good clean and de-label! No I don’t know why either… it was spares or repairs at a good price! …and it’s the later ‘Pro’ (with SCMS programmability), which you only find out about when you turn it on ("MDS-E12 PRO") - there are no labels or other indications which indicate it's a later model with the updated firmware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted August 31 Report Share Posted August 31 16 minutes ago, kgallen said: This week we went to Cambridge (UK). The Centre for Computing History remembers minidisc briefly… Good to see they put it front and centre 😉 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted August 31 Report Share Posted August 31 Another lovely Pro deck @kgallen. You must have quite the collection by now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted August 31 Author Report Share Posted August 31 18 minutes ago, BearBoy said: Another lovely Pro deck @kgallen. You must have quite the collection by now. Too many! But if folk are’t gonna buy the spares and repairs, why let them go to waste! It doesn’t say but these are often ex-BBC. There was an asset label on the front that was a bu**er to remove. Immaculate inside, just needed a belt and external clean up. The bezel around the power switch was detached so I had to disassemble the front panel to sort that out. 😃 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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