Subject:NEW USER: Mini Disc conversion

Posted by: ambr

Date:11/15/2001 4:46:53 PM

Help...
I have recordings on a Sony Mini Disc that I need to convert to be able to burn a CD. A friend said that Sound Forge could accomplish this, but it appears to be software, not hardware, and I was expecting it to be a physical card for my computer. The search capabilty on the SF site appears to be nearly useless, so I thought that I would start here. :-)

Subject:RE: NEW USER: Mini Disc conversion

Reply by: VU-1

Date:11/15/2001 5:02:41 PM

You don't even need SF or any other software to put your mini-discs to CD-R if you have (or have access to) a stand-alone CD burner. You can simply connect the analog outputs of your MD player to the analog inputs on the CD burner and record away. If the material on the MDs are recorded at 44.1kHz sampling rate, you can do the same thing using a digital connection (preferrable) assuming they both have the same connection formats.
If you can't get hold of a stand-alone CD burner (get one!), you will have to burn your CDs on a SCSI burner utilizing CD building/burning software like CD Architect, Red Roaster, etc.

JL
OTR

Jlu!

Subject:RE: NEW USER: Mini Disc conversion

Reply by: ambr

Date:11/15/2001 5:14:07 PM

Thanks...
I'm normally pretty darn smart, but this audio thing is a bit out of my league. I do have a CD burner, but how do I tell if it's standalone or SCSI? Just bought it a few months ago.

Subject:RE: NEW USER: Mini Disc conversion: MD Model #

Reply by: ambr

Date:11/15/2001 5:25:45 PM

The model number of my Sony MD is MS-R90.

Subject:RE: NEW USER: Mini Disc conversion

Reply by: VU-1

Date:11/15/2001 6:21:00 PM

A stand-alone burner looks like a CD player but records CD-Rs. It will have audio (and digital) inputs & outputs.
A SCSI burner is much smaller and has a multi-pin computer type connector (and maybe audio outputs). SCSI burners are also used to burn data CDs (CDROMs). If you have Adaptec Easy CD Creator or similar program and an Adaptec (or similar) SCSI interface card on your computer, you probably have a SCSI CD burner as well. Rt click on My Computer, go to Properties then Device Mgr. tab. Look for SCSI Controllers in the list. It will tell you if you have one.
If you do have Adaptec Easy CD Creator, you can use it and/or Sound Editor to Xfer your MDs to CD-R. They're not nearly as complex as SF or CDArch. but they may just work for you.

JL
OTR

Subject:RE: NEW USER: Mini Disc conversion: MD Model #

Reply by: Rednroll

Date:11/15/2001 6:49:09 PM

BTW, Mini discs record at 32Khz sampling frequency. You need an audio card on your PC to record audio. Transfer the audio from the Mini Discs analog outs and record it into your PC using Sound Forge and pluging into your Analog Ins of your sound card. Once it's recorded into your PC, you can save it as a Wave file and then burn it to CD using Sound Forge. If you have a stand alone CDR, which I highly doubt you do, because you would definitely be able to tell the difference, then you won't be able to do a digital to digital transfer, because like I said MDs are recorded at 32Khz and CDs are recorded at 44.1Khz.

Subject:RE: NEW USER: Mini Disc conversion: MD Model #

Reply by: VU-1

Date:11/15/2001 10:00:37 PM

This past spring, I bought a Sony MDS-E10 Minidisc recorder/player which records @ 44.1kHz. It is, however, a pretty new model so what Rednroll says about MDs recording @ 32k was probably the norm for previous models.
I would go to Sony's web site & see if you can find the specs on your model to find out what sampling rate it records at. If, by chance, it records @ 44.1 you should load it into your workstation via DIGITAL connection to your soundcard (if your unit supports digital outputs, it probably uses SPDIF - RCA type - connectors). This is assuming, of course, that the material you recorded on the MDs was recorded @ 44.1.

JL

Subject:RE: NEW USER: Mini Disc conversion: MD Model #

Reply by: ambr

Date:11/19/2001 5:57:00 PM

Okay, my computer source says that the CD is an internal IDE CD-RW, and not SCSI. Will I be able to connect digitally directly from the Sony MZ-R90, since it records at 44.1?

Subject:RE: NEW USER: Mini Disc conversion: MD Model #

Reply by: VU-1

Date:11/19/2001 9:19:48 PM

If you are asking if you can record from your mini-disc directly to the CD-RW - NO - its not a stand-alone CD burner, its a computer burner. Computer burners must receive their "signal" (digital audio data) from your computer's hard drive.
It doesn't matter one hill-o'-beans what kind of CD burner you have in order for you to connect digitally from your M/D to your sound card. Just make sure the .wav file is a 16-bit/44.1kHz file, otherwise your CD-RW won't touch it.

JL
OTR

Subject:RE: NEW USER: Mini Disc conversion

Reply by: joetbn

Date:12/6/2001 4:00:00 AM

Step one: get the audio into your computer. If your MD player has digital output and your sound card has digital input use that. If not, go from the line out of your MD player to the line in on your sound card. Sound Forge 5.0 is ideal software to do the recording/editing and burning of your cd. select the apropriate input under options/preferences/wave/record in Souund Forge. press the record button on SF, press the play button on your MD player, do any editing you want to do then make the CD with the create CD function under tools in SF. the quality of the recording will be directly proportional to the quality of your sound card.

Subject:RE: NEW USER: Mini Disc conversion

Reply by: VU-1

Date:12/6/2001 11:52:08 PM

.....and the quality of your original recording!

Subject:RE: NEW USER: Mini Disc conversion: MD Model #

Reply by: rraud

Date:12/7/2001 8:41:06 PM

I beleave the Sony R-90 is a portable, and like other Sony portables and most portable MDs for that matter, have no digital outs, but most do have digital inputs. Most MDs will accept a 44.1 digital input, it then goes though a digital compression scheme they call ATRAC, ver-4 now I think. I don't beleave they record at 32k... at least not 32k PCM. Can someone elaborate more on this, I'm now an expert or tech writer.