yamaha md8. Are they any good

Significant improvement in sound quality over a cassette based PortaStudio, but pretty much the same cheap pres. Not as good as digital recorders that don't use a lossy compression-based format.

More than adequate for demos and as a scratchpad for songwriting...

Bruce
 
MD8s are easy to use. I use mine for demos, practice recording, concerts. Easy to rout signals to different tracks. You can record 1, 2, 4 & 8 tracks at once. Fewer tracks = more time on minidiscs. Can use recordable minidiscs (1 & 2 track) and data minidiscs (1, 2,4 & 8 track) Analog out only. Cutting and pasting is difficult. Still trying to figure that part out. Two aux sends. 8 direct outs.

Here's a link to my first and only "studio" recording. 3 hour rush job. Click on "Havre de Grace Song". I'm not sure what the other songs were recorded with. Dynamic mics were used with reverb from a Lexicon MPX-100 on mixdown.

http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/195/callians_dream.html
 
My perception is that my Tascam 564 (4 track-also ATRAC 2),
and the MD8 are both roughly equivalent in sound quality to
an analog 8 track 1/2", or an analog 4 track 1/4" semi-pro
reel to reel. Does that seem about right to you guys?

Also, by the time you hit ATRAC 3.5 or above, like a Yamaha
MD4S, according to www.minidisc.org, in blind tests, people
could no longer reliably tell the the difference between the
original source material and the mini-disc copy.
(It will show up on a oscilloscope though!)

One tendency I've learned to turn to my benefit is that minidisc
recording seems to cut off reverb tails, so it's worked well for
me in an overly reverberent room, whereas I'd expect normal
digital recording to be too "revealing".

Any comments?
 
Hey Foxy One:]

The MD8 is a good box for its price; I've noticed that the price of the MD8 has remained constant for three years; thus, it must be popular.

The best feature I enjoy over my former Tascam 488 is NO WAITING TO REWIND OR GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING. A simple push of the button, and, Voila, ready to do another track.

I don't like to bounce tracks and the MD8 gives me enough tracks to do what I need to do without bouncing. Once you bounce a couple of tracks to ONE TRACK, you can only tweak that ONE TRACK with three tracks due to bounce; hence, I like to keep one sound/part/vocal on a track. However, I do like to put vocals on two tracks sometimes.

I still don't know how the heck to punch in a virtual cut on a track. I guess it's setting the in point and the out point and I just have not been able to figure that out yet. Help Bruce.

But, for the dollars, the MD8 is a nice box. A better box? Yeah, man, any that does it in 24 bit. So, that's the market place....build one box then build it better. I'll bet Yamaha comes out with a better MD box soon.



Green Hornet
 
as far as frequency response, the md8 isn't even close to my tascam tsr8 1/2" 8 track reel recorder. but the md8 is quieter and heck of alot lower maintenance. i agree with using the md8 for demo's and such. it's great for that. and the built-in mixer really isn't that bad. i do use outboard pre's as the built-in pre's really stink. i did find that it really helps to send the stereo signal thru a decent eq and just a touch of reverb when mixing down to my dat.

tony
 
Thanks tony, I had a demo recorded about 10 years ago with the same
Tascam 8 track. Based on that demo and comparing it with the same
song re-recorded on minidisc, the analog version sounded a bit preferable
to me. Since you obviously have done more recording with that machine,
surely your ears are picking up the difference more than mine.
It is an easier life, however, not dealing with "analog" maintenance!

In one of the recording magazines (sorry forget which) the had a shoot-out
between the MD8, and two other "regular" digital 8 track stand-alones.
Experienced engineers recorded the same source material to see if they
would produce "release" material for commercial release.
The verdict... The MD8 will produce adequate release recordings in the
hands of an expert sound engineer-just takes some more work than the
others.
 
oh yeah, you can certainly record releasable material on an md8! i've recorded several cd's with the md8 and released them. mind you, they're completely indie efforts. but all that is so subjective. i've also recorded projects on my tascam 244 portastudio 4 track cassette (which i still use :-) and released them! every recording media has a different flavor. i love my md8. and it is what it is. i did a compilation cd last year which had various tracks recorded on adat, md8, 1/2" reel, and even the portastudio and i think each held its own. i remixed everything thru just a mackie 1604vlz, a lexicon alex reverb, and an rnc comp. there was various other effects and such too. but all in all, a very diy type recording. even before sending it off for mastering, it all sounded good. when i listen to it side by side with a recording with the same folks, done on 2" 24 track, mixed in pro-tools thru a vintage mci console (with killer gear like neve, nueman, telefunken, etc)down to 1" 2 track, it still sounds ok. certainly made me wonder why we spent over $10K to make that recording. to top it off, we've sold more of the diy cd's than the 'pro' cd! if the music is good and the recording is listenable, all is cool! just look at the gear 'pet sounds' was made on!

tony
 
Thanks again tony, as a recording newbie who likes to gather ivory tower recording info, it's good to hear from those who have
really gone out to release their own recordings so my expectations can be better grounded in reality.
 
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