mini discs to live?

[bartend7]

hey

remember 10 years ago when everyone was using mini discs to record stuff? (atleast we did in the jazz musician circles anyway). i was wondering if anyone ever got around to turning those into another digital format. i've always wanted to take some old bootlegs, throw them into live for a little mastering and exporting to wav or something. has anyone done this? any suggestions?

[oslonovski]

Depends on what outputs your MD device has: optical, coax, analog line. And inputs on your audio interface.
And I believe, sony, being sony, had more than one way to screw you over in the process.

[beatmunga]

Depends on whether you have one of the later players with USB. Not sure if the files can be read by iTunes, but if so they can converted to WAVs for loading into Live.

Tutorial for iTunes here (2 parts):

http://youtu.be/jOWXkbWsATU
http://youtu.be/-b19MEHvnS4

Otherwise, stereo 3.5mm mini jack cable out of your headphone socket on the MD and record directly into Live the old fashioned way, in realtime. Will be perfectly fine, presuming you've turned any bass boost type shenanigans off on the player first.

[Rabalder]

Ive converted months of rehearsal-recordings from the MD headphones-output into my interface.. All real time transfer.... Recording after recording after recording after recording after recording..........................

[beatmunga]

Ive converted months of rehearsal-recordings from the MD headphones-output into my interface.. All real time transfer.... Recording after recording after recording after recording after recording..........................

Tell me about it!

Don't even want to think about the 10 years worth of c90 cassettes full of half arsed ideas up in the loft...

[doghouse]

The USB on Sony NetMD machines cannot be used to transfer files to the computer, only from the computer. This was a copy protection requirement that mp3 players were not subject to because legally they were not "audio recorders". Of course, now we have plenty of mp3 recorders with zero copy protection

If the player has optical output (most portables do not) real-time digital transfer is the way to go because you can do unattended transfers to your computer if you have a SPDIF input and recording software that reads track marks. There is no way to do high speed rips like a CD.

I still have a few hundred recorded MDs stashed away. I haven't played one for two years at least

[FrankieP]

I have a boat load of old mix tapes when I was still deejaying back in '95 and I was using a jvc portable minidisc back then for recording my sets. I tried archiving them a couple years ago by purchasing a Sony standalone minidisc system and for some reason it couldn't read the data off the discs. I was getting data error messages. So I searched eBay for another jvc unit and it worked this time. Go figure! Transfered them all via SPDIF to a old Soundblaster LIVE! Card/ breakout dock with an optical input. I remember it included a simple software/ utility designed to transfer minidisc recordings to a computer. Worked pretty well.