Brendan H Posted March 21, 2023 Report Share Posted March 21, 2023 Hello! I recently picked up a Sony MZ-R90 MD player/recorder from eBay, mostly as a nostalgia kick. I had one back when they were the new hotness and I just loved the thing. I was always sad that Minidisc faded away, but I'm happy to have found a good condition unit to get me back into it 🙂 I don't actually have it in-hand yet but should have it later this week. I've been wondering about somehow recording to the MZ-R90 and could use some input. My current thought is to attempt to connect from SPDIF out on my Win 11 PC to the optical in on the MZ-R90. If I then play MP3s on the PC I should be able to record them to minidisc, right? I know it will be in real time but I'm ok with that for now at least. It might even be another nice trip down memory lane, lol. I would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions on how best to get up and running. I have access to Mac & PC in case that helps. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted March 22, 2023 Report Share Posted March 22, 2023 Hi @Brendan H, welcome to the forum. What you're suggesting should work fine. I've not got an MZ-R90 but have made digital recordings from PC to a Sony MiniDisc deck without any issues. You might encounter some issues with track markers if the music you're trying to record is gapless (i.e. no silence between tracks). Recording from a PC doesn't seem to send over the track marker information in the same way as recording from a CD player does but you can always add these in manually if it is an issue for you. Good luck and let us know how you get on 🙂 Oh, and you might need to silence mail notifications etc on your computer prior to starting to record as any other sounds your PC makes will end up on your recordings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfbp Posted March 22, 2023 Report Share Posted March 22, 2023 If the SPDIF is not the global sink for sound output you may not have a problem. I would suggest sending that to normal speakers/headphones/whatever but use VLC (or some other player) to play to the SPDIF output. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendan H Posted March 22, 2023 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2023 Thanks a lot for the info guys. This is very helpful. I’ll be sure to report back once I’ve had a chance to try it out. Now I just need to wait for USPS 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendan H Posted March 24, 2023 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2023 Thanks again for the help on this. The unit arrived today in perfect condition and I got to work testing an album transfer to MD... I was able to record over the SPDIF connection from iTunes on Windows 11. Thanks for the tips on isolating the playback to the optical out. I directed everything else to my usual speaker output. It worked like a charm. The only unfortunate thing was I had to manually enter all the track marks as it recorded my entire test album on a single track. Not a big deal, but I would like to figure out a way around that. Very happy to have my hands on a minidisc player again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted March 24, 2023 Report Share Posted March 24, 2023 Did you use "Synchro Recording"? The manual states that: Quote If a silent portion is encountered for 2 seconds or more during synchro-recording, a new track mark is automatically added at the point where the silent portion ends. Might be worth a try if you hadn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendan H Posted March 24, 2023 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2023 Just now, BearBoy said: Did you use "Synchro Recording"? The manual states that: Might be worth a try if you hadn't. Yep - Synchro Recording was enabled. That was still useful as it started and stopped the recording automatically. I wonder if there just wasn't enough dead air between the tracks, although there certainly seemed to be between at least a few of them. Maybe other albums will be more co-operative. For reference, the one I recorded was the Daft Punk soundtrack to TRON: Legacy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearBoy Posted March 24, 2023 Report Share Posted March 24, 2023 I've just tried a quick test with iTunes and an MDS-JB980 and am getting similar results to you (four songs in and still on Track 1 on the MiniDisc). The album I'm trying it with does seem to have very short gaps between the songs though. There's a possible solution here: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendan H Posted March 24, 2023 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2023 1 hour ago, BearBoy said: I've just tried a quick test with iTunes and an MDS-JB980 and am getting similar results to you (four songs in and still on Track 1 on the MiniDisc). The album I'm trying it with does seem to have very short gaps between the songs though. There's a possible solution here: Thanks for that! I’ll have to give that a try for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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