Easy! SONY mini disk-laptop-audio CD, Audacity!

[jazzjunkysue]

Damn! I spent all day trying to get my Edirol interface to accept a recording from my minidisk, and it turns out it's easier without it.

My Gateway laptop has a line in or mic mini plug. I had a mini plug cable from my SONY minidisk to the laptop line in.

I downloaded Audacity for FREE and it captured and edited the mini disk files instantly, exported them to my desktop and I burned them onto audio Cd with plain old windows media player.

One recorder, one cable, one free program.

Damn! That was so easy and the quality is great!

I use this at school: Orchestra teacher. So, I now have a really good quality recording I can play for my kids at school on whatever player is handy. no need to bring my laptop or minidisk to school where I can lose/break it.

BTW: The signal from the Minidisk really messed up the Edirol: I tried everything: Stereo/mono cables, every setting. I always got a half speed distorted noise. You could tell what song it was, barely, but it made some awful grinding sound from hell.

I love technology.

 

[A Reel Person]

We all do!

Is it the standard Minidisc with ATRAC encoding, or is it the newer Hi-MD with CD compatible files? When you say "import" sound to the laptop, are you referring to a real time "dub" of the music over the audio line outs? (is what it sounds like).

Hi-MD is supposedly more versatile than the older ATRAC minidisc, one being it's USB compatible to the ol'puter. A usernamed Queepy does lots of live rehearsal recording with Hi-MD. You'll find lots of his stuff in the MP3 forum.

I have the older ATRAC minidisc units, home stereo console style and a few walkman playback units. I've never upgraded to Hi-MD, based on cost and I already have too many obsolete formats lying around. I never liked that Hi-MD only came out as handheld portables (walkman), and not home stereo console style. Had they done that, I might have bought in. Anyway, CD is the defacto standard now, as we all know.

Thanx for posting!

 

[Agent47]

I love technology too. When it works like it's supposed to...

I have Hi-MD and original MD at home. I often use the Hi-MD as a quick master recorder for backing tracks etc. as it's completely lossless 16Bit/44.1kHz. I love it.

I also use my Hi-MD as an outdoor recorder, and have used it hanging over waterfalls and rivers. Great little device, although we have the more versatile flash recorders these days.

I'm even thiking of getting a new one, before they all disappear!