using my minidisc: please help

C

Christian

New member
I'm so much a newby here that I don't even get to use my new Yamaha MT4X 4 track till Christmas!

I was very happy when my brother recently brought home a mini disc player/recorder. But how can I use this to improve my recording?? Obviously it's a place I can store the finished stereo out product from the four tracks, but my mind is telling me that I should be able to use it to help in bouncing tracks. But if so, how would I do it?

And could I use my Pentium PC to help me in my recording as well? I don't want to spend much on software, especially if its legally available on the net. I tried plugging my mike into the computer, but the recording through the basic recorder program just crackled over completely.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. You guys are the best

Christian
 
You are correct, the MD would mainly be used for your finished stereo mix. Once it is on there you cannot seperate the tracks. You can split a mix - say you have a song with an intro and you decided to make them two tracks on the MD instead of one, well you can split them at the point of where one ends and the other begins. You can also merge two songs together: again, say you have two tracks and one is the intro, you can add the song onto the end of the intro, making it one track on the MD. What is great about this is that a CD recorder will recognize the MD tracks.

Another thing you can do with the MiniDisk is change the order your songs are in. If your current songs are in of order "ABCD", you can change the order to "CADB" or whatever order you choose.

As for you PC, there are many postings on this BBS about PC recording software and hardware.

[This message has been edited by Fishmed (edited 12-21-1999).]
 
Thanks for your help Fishmed. But I'm still curious:

What if say I wanted to bounce drums, base, and rhythmn guitar tracks, 3 tracks down to one. Instead of the ususal method, wouldn't I lose less sound quality if I
1) put these on 3 separate tracks, then
2) recorded the "final mix" of these three out onto the minidisc...
3) and then plugged the minidisc back into one of the mic/line inputs and recorded it down onto one track.

Is that an ingenius idea or would that be a complete waste of time???
 
Anytime you bounce analog tracks you are going to loose sound quality. If you are going to bounce them, then do it as few times as posible. If you have an urge to bounce them using the MD here is an idea based off of what you mentioned: Record onto all four of your tracks; then mix them down to the MD. Record the MD back to one track and then record onto the remaing three tracks. Continue this process until your song is done. I am thinking this may save you some extra bounces.

Does anyone else have ideas about this?
 
Yes!
It does make sense to bounce to the minidisc. The quality will be very good, and here's a cool trick.....

Don't erase or record over your original tracks; Instead use a new cassette in your 4 track. Fly the minidisc mix back into the 4 track in stereo or mono ( I prefer a nice stereo mix of bass, drums, guitar and keys with reverb and delay salted to taste!)

Keep all your cassettes and minidiscs sorted and labeled...EXample "Basic tracks" 4 track master".... mix with over dubs" etc.

If at a later date you decide to re-mix your original 4 tracks, you will still have them!

I do this using an 8 track and it has worked out very well.

Sincerely;
Dom Franco
 
Excellent, thanks guys. And I'll remember to keep the original tracks like you said, Dom Franco.

Hope my brother won't mind me using his minidisc as much as I think I'm going to!
 
Fishmed, did I hear you say that a CD recorder will recognize mini-disc tracks? What does that mean? You can play a mini-disc in a CD player? I am confused.

Tucci
 
Mr. Christian I presume?

Some great advice and information from the troops regarding MD/mixing, etc.

Here is one thing you might want to remember when you HAVE TO BOUNCE tracks. Once you commit the base line and drums to ONE TRACK, you can only tweak that track; in other words, when you raise the EQ for bass, it also will raise the EQ for drums. That's why I like to use most of my 8 tracks on the MD-8 to do things. Even when I dub-in a music track from a CD, I can still add very subtle drum pops, cymbals, etc. One sound for one track gives you COMPLETE MIXING control for that track and VOILA, that perfect final mix you seek. [sometimes it takes a lot of seeking.]

Green Hornet
 
Here's another tip on bouncing:

I have found that most of the time I can live with the "relative levels" of each track.

Combining several instruments is really no problem...it's just like a mixdown.

The only time I have a problem, is when there is a late/early timing or tuning problem in one of the parts, and I can't fix it now because It would erase all of the instruments on that track! So the trick is to: MAKE SURE
that all of the parts that you combine are perfectly in time with each other and in tune.

Dom Franco
 
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