It's ashamed that minidisc never really took off like the cassette that preceded it. I have no memories or experience of this cool technology that should have been part of my youth, but wasen't due to price and Sony's stupidity. Minidisc I never knew thee.
Thank you so much for the reply and further pictures - very much appreciated. Do you also archive material to other formats - CDR/tape etc., Best wishes, David
Wow, that looks factory produced. But this is what you can do so that the actually MiniDisc looks factory made. You can take a pre-recorded MiniDisc that you don't really care about, and remove the front picture and the side label. Use some sort of liquid to wipe away the track titles on the back of the MiniDisc so that the entire MD looks blank and gray. Slowly and carefully open the MD to remove the disc inside, and insert the disc of your choice that has music that you recorded. Then close the MD and seal it with some sort of adhesive. Paste the front picture and side label, and also paste a clear label with the track titles on the back of the MD. There! You have a genuine looking pre-recorded MiniDisc. I like your MD cases and the labels you put on the cases, they look great! But the artwork for the MD itself needs to have more of a pre-recorded style. It's something about seeing the "Sony" "80" "MD" labels that doesn't quite look right. I would try to use some sort of liquid to wipe away those labels, so that all you see is the MD and your label. Nothing else! Also, for the rectangular label that you put on the front of the MD, you should use the cassette album cover, which is rectangular, and make a label from that. These are just my opinions and suggestions. What do I know, I can't do half of what you're doing.
Uhm, yeah, but you're missing MY favorite Living Stereo; Rubinstein: The Chopin Ballades & Scherzos. And I would like to see my "Mercury Living Presence" Respighi: Ancient Dances and Airs for Lute get the Clark treatment. I'll be patiently waiting.....
Yes, I have archived a lot of officially unreleased stuff -- video and audio -- on DVD-R and CD-R. For the "sets" that consist of 12 to 50 discs, I use these little three-ring binders that hold discs and have an outer, clear plastic wrap beneath which you can slip your cover art for the front, back and spine. Below are some of these sets: The Beatles Story (14-part BBC radio documentary); In My Life (BBC radio documentary on John Lennon); The Beatles In Concert (the best available live recordings); and The Beatles (cartoon series that I 'remastered' by replacing the music tracks with superior stereo recordings). The cartoon series was a colossal pain as I had to isolate all of the sound effects from throughout the series and then drop them back in at the appropriate places where they overlapped with the music! I also had to re-edit some things because the music was butchered in the original series.
Wow!!! Again, wow!!!!!! Well ... I was close to being out of superlatives before but now I have none left! Thank you for taking the time to showcase your work. It is truly inspirational. I'm intrigued by the 3 ring binders you mention - I've not seen those before here in the UK (maybe I haven't looked in the correct places!!!) They're exactly the type pf thing I could use to good effect. Do they cost much? Best Wishes, David
No, the binders are very inexpensive. The insertable "pages" - they have a soft cloth backing with a clear plastic overlay - are a little pricier, but not bad. (The binders also come in black.) I buy the binders and the pages from an outfit called Tape On Line. Excellent service.
Hopefully Apple will hire you as a consultant, when the Beatle grand kids get together and demand this be released officially, in a few years!
Yeah, they should at least issue a "best of" DVD that focus on the few episodes that (1) have no offensive racial stereotypes, and (2) have slightly better animation. There are some significant variations in quality with this series, but a one-disc compilation would be nice to see and it wouldn't damage the band's legacy or reputation - particularly if it was included as a bonus disc as part of a deluxe "Yellow Submarine" reissue.
Clark I've really enjoyed your posts in this thread, thanks for sharing your creativity. You should have been working for Rhino Records or some outfit like that back in the glory days of the music biz.
I loved Rhino... The "Beg Scream & Shout" package, the "Have a Nice Decade" box with the shag-carpet cover, the 70s soul compilation designed to look like a box of eight-tracks... Great stuff. When I made my own multi-disc 70s compilation, I couldn't find any avocado-colored Minidiscs or any faux-woodgrain Minidiscs, so I bought a bunch of those day-glo colored Maxell discs and the only labeling I added to them was a small, 70s-themed sparkly sticker -- sold in sheets at hobby and craft shops -- in the center of the disc, right over the hub. Then I made sure the jewel-case artwork was colored the same as the corresponding disc and featured the same 70s image (peace sign, flower, ying-yang symbol, smiley face, etc.) so I could easily match them up at a glance.
Well ... feeling very guilty for having neglected my MD collection for so long I've spent a few days tidying up my discs. To my surprise, I discovered that I do in fact have over 200, although some have material that I foolishly didn't catalogue correctly at the time!!! Some I made inserts for using a program called 'CaseLinr', which hasn't been updated for a good many years but at the time was excellent for prosucing ibserts for MD cases and DAT tapes too. I'll try to get a few pictures up when I can. Best Wishes, David
Used my old NetMD the other dayfirst time in a long time. Was going to use my Ipod on my morning run and found the battery was flat. So just poped an AA cell in the NetMD pressed play and went for a run. Sound was pretty good but after awhile it sarted skipping the buffer couldn't keep up while running over rough ground. Must admit don't use it very often as its not Mac compatable and can't record any new discs and not come across any pre recorded stuff.
I love minidisc, I've been a fan since I bought my first player/recorder back in 1998. I copy all of my CDs to MD and I usually listen to those and file the CDs away. I have an MXD D40 deck and I recently bought the below unit for the living room for $40 on Craigslist. It was well cared for and works great!
Had to dig but I found some. 1993 Ford Probe GT with a Sony CDX-C910 and a Sony MDX-61 six MD changer. I always enjoyed Sony heads because the upper models came with a wired controller (the protuberance behind the manual shifter) that let you access control of the head and most (if not all) its functions and any device connected to it. Keep your eyes on the road jack; very smooth. Have to keep digging to find pictures with the CDX-C90; now that was a kick-ass head!
Many thanks for taking the time and effort to post this - much appreciated!! That's the exact same changer I had in my last but one car - how dumb was I not to remove it before selling. That's a really neat install all-round - bet it sounded pretty good. Best Wishes, David
I love my MD deck. I got into them when they were new, and quit using cassettes. The MD was more flexible and functioned like a cassette. The edit feature was wonderful. Years back I would dub lps, then edit the dead air out to dub onto CDs for the car. You can do that digitally now but back then it was cool. I bought loads when Target dumped the blanks. I used the portable that came with the bundle but haven't used it in years. I know that theater techs used them for sound effects. It was easy to use. Now the zoom is the preferred recorder and they load the files into keyboard triggers a lot.
I used to have a MD player in the car. It got stolen. bummer. My home unit went on the blink and I never looked back.
Because of this discussion I just bought a Sony MDS-JB920 deck off Craigs List for $50. I plan on using it to record old pre-recorded tapes, mainly 8-track & reel, and then transfer them into the computer for archiving. Can anyone recommend something to convert SPDIF optical cable to USB? Internet searches always seem to come up with devices that take USB out from the PC to SPDIF.
Nice MD deck for a nice price! There's a guy down here in Southern California selling the exact same deck for $45, but he didn't state if it works. I'm sure you can find a optical to USB converter on ebay.
I bought a MD deck back in 1997 or 1998. I was then going to buy a portable unit to use in my car. My plan was to needledrop all of my vinyl onto MD. Before I could come up with the money to buy the portable unit, I got a CD recorder for the computer at work. My boss had no problems with me bringing in my stereo equipment to hook up to the computer, so I started needledropping at work and burning to CD. I still have the deck out in the garage. Last time I knew, it wouldn't take the discs in. The machine would suck them in, but spit them right back out again. Probably an easy fix.
