Is My MiniDisc Recorder Good Enough for My Needs??? (Age-old Question)

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Ma/T

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Hello, What I have is a SONY Portable MiniDisK Recorder, the MZ-R70. I bought this about 5 months ago and have still yet to use it due to procrastination. What I bought it for was to be a portable DAT alternative. I want to record various sounds out in the field and than feed them back to my computer. I am looking for pro quality 100% of course. The recorder has no digital output so I might loose some quality sending it out through an audio cable into an interface for my computer, but in the end, will I have a good sounding product? I can always edit the sample in sample editing programs but will the source of it be of quality? I would appreciate any feedback concerning this topic. This has been somewhat of a major setback for me because I need to know if what I have will do the trick for some interesting, creative sound sources before I know what kind of Audio-to-USB/Sound Card hardware to buy. Oh yea, the mic I would be using is the SONY ECM-MS907 made especially for minidisk recorders. Please help educate me on the potential of what I have or any suggestions about my situation!! Thanks!!!!!
 
You want 100% "pro sound quality" and you think "minidisc"... hmmm... something wrong here! You want something even close to portable "pro sound quality" you better be looking at a portable DAT.......

Minidisc - *way* better than cassette or MP3, but *WAY* below "pro sound quality".

Bruce
 
Bruce is right about not being able to get "100% pro sound quality"...but don't despair, you *can* get a good recording with a portable minidisc recorder.
 
Okay, well I knew that I wasn't going to get 100% but Minidisc's price was very attractive to my budget. So if I wouldn't get 100%, what percentage would you say that I would get?

How much would a portable DAT cost me?

And since I have a feeling that it will be expensive, how much do you think it would cost to rent one?

As far as where I am concerned, would Minidisc work out for me keeping in mind that I am trying to get some interesting undefinable sound samples that I will be able to retool in my comp? Or would the quality just be too noticeably poor quality regardless?

Thanks mucho for your help!
 
As much as it's not "pro", I bet for your needs - the minidisc will do just fine...

Bruce
 
Aw, geez, Bruce, you gotta think layman with the rest of us...

I LOVE my minidisc recorder. Portable, no noise (shut up, Bruce :D), random-access whatevers, and rather inexpensive media. Groovy.

What Bruce doesn't realize is reverb is a lot like duct-tape... used NEATLY, it can fix any problem...

:D (bring it on!) :D
 
You already bought the MD, before you start thinking of upgrading to DAT you should properly outgrow it. Use it constantly until you can go no further with it. As far as sound quality is concerned, your microphone will have a greater influence than your recording device (between MD and DAT). Also live recordings on location may also have a lot of ambient noise that makes little audiophile "compression issues" useless.

My MD recordings sound great. The MD is excellent (they all are nowadays) and the core sound binaural mics are too. Mic positioning is the biggest issue for me now, as well as the MD preamps. As far as positioning is concerned, right practice will get it right. The next purchase will be better quality external mic pre-amps. The ones that came with the MD work well only up to setting 14 (of 25). After that they introduce noticeable noise. The line inputs work great.
 
hold on before you give up on that minidisk

dude your minidisk is alot more user friendly than your run of the mill dat (a dying media in kc , just try to find one here) besides do you really want to lose your valuable recordinggs due to moisture causing the tape to stick together. rewind and fast foreward to parts instead of skipping
a solution for doing the digital out to your sound card for mastering in vegas or something like that is get a home unit with digital out ( ill bet theres a pawnbroker close to you with one under 100 bucks) alot of the reviewers in home recording magazine reccomend the minidisc over the dat for convinince and the fact that tapes are not near as depenable and easilly destructable.
hell you allredy got the disk use it dude

read minidisc verses dat in one of last years home recording mags.
 
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