or go straight to Using Minidisc Recorders
On this page you will find advice on which brand, buyer's guide, studio recorders, what mic, which minidiscs and a list of suppliers.
Why Minidisc?
I've been using one for about 10 years and I'm a great fan. Even at £450 my first Sony MZ-R3 was a little marvel. Indistinguishable for speech from a Nagra or a DAT, but a tiny fraction of the weight of the former and more reliable technology than the latter. Now there's a range from several manufacturers at under £130, and if you shop around you can often find one under £75. Unbelievable.
Portable recorders: Sharp, Sony or Denon?
Apologies to other manufacturers -- these are the three I know about. Best choice for radio recording is the Sharp for two very good reasons:
(1) for
many years Sonys had a daft
system which made it easy to record over previous recordings. If
you buy one of them you have to remember to press the little "End
Search" button
before recording each time, or you wipe out your earlier material.
More recent Sonys,
like the MZR900, allow you to over-ride
this
setting, so that "end
search" is
automatic and chance of over-recording minimal -- but the default setting
is still,
stupidly,
the
dangerous one. Worse still it can revert to default without warning.
(2)
you can't adjust the record level while recording on early models -- you
can on later models -- but level-adjustment now requires you to go through
a series of lever twiddles. Very user-unfriendly.
Apologies to Sony if current models are better but I gave up on them a couple
of years ago.
The Sharp always defaults to the next blank section of a part-used minidisc and always has done (in fact it's quite difficult to over-write, even when you want to). And you can easily adjust the record level. There's a dizzying range of models and they seem to change every few months (eg mine's an MD-MT20).
The Denon is a Sharp by another name, but there aren't that many around now. There were a lot of DMP -R70's three or four years ago and very good they were, but if buying a 2nd hand one beware that it uses a unique rechargeable battery that's pretty costly and hard to get hold of (and no option to use ordinary batteries instead).
Both the Sharp and the Denon also offer a neat little auto-track-incrementing facility. See "Using Mindisc Recorders" to see why that's useful. back to the top
Buyer's Guide to Choosing a Sharp:
My only criticism of Sharp is their very frequent change of model number, making it impossible to recommend a particular one. So look for the following:
(1) Is it a recordable model?! Some are players only.
(2) Has it got a "mic in" socket? Some only have line-in.
(3) Does it take standard AA batteries? Avoid custom rechargeable batteries -- mine has one that can be swapped for two AA cells which is great. You get hours and hours recording from ordinary AA batteries now, so they are fine (and of course you can get them just about anywhere in the world).
(4) Try it in the shop! Take along a mic, lead, headphones and blank minidisc and try recording. Check the level meter display is clear enough for you and the controls useable. If you're not happy look for other models -- there's a variety of designs.
(5) Don't worry about the frills. You'll often want to play your minidiscs in BBC studios or workshops and they're only guaranteed to work with standard length normal minidiscs. So forget "long-play", "HiMD", MP3, etc -- not needed for radio. back to the top
If you can afford a professional deck, great -- I've used a Denon one that's very nice. But if you can't afford it, I think the various cheap end consumer hi-fi decks are fine. I've used a Sony JE520 for about five years and had no problems; it doesn't have any weaknesses to compare with the Sony portables. If you use digital links into and out of your digital editing PC or Mac then there's no concerns about loss of sound quality in converting to and from analogue signals.
Sharp does a lovely little compact hi-fi MD deck
TIP: if you find that the digital connectors on your MD deck don't match those on your PC/Mac sound card, get a neat little "CO2" adaptor (about £50) which converts SPDIF (coaxial) to optical and vice-versa. Obtainable from Dawson's of Warrington. back to the top
Tricky one this. The ideal is probably to get one of the neat little adaptor cases, with built-in mic matching and other useful facilities which turn a consumer recorder into a semi-professional one. I like the small size of the MD recorder though so I stick to plugging a mic straight in. And that's the problem, as the one often supplied, the very affordable Audio-Technica 804 (typically under £80) doesn't really give enough output. That means you'll often wind up the recording level to the maximum and at that setting it sounds rather hissy. If you can get an Audio-Technica ATM10 or 10A that's much better, and only marginally more expensive (in-built battery gives it double the output).
If you want to use a clip mic, the AT810 gives a very good signal (I know, I'm recommending Audio-Technica again -- well they're professional, but affordable!). For stereo work, the Audio-Technica AT822 seems well-matched, though rather more pricey in this country (at about £250) but you can get a more affordable one through eBay if you're patient.
If anyone's come across a better mic -- still a good rugged general-purpose reporter's mic -- I would like to know! back to the top
You can get minidiscs that mostly work just about anywhere in the world, and that's one of the advantages. However for best results get studio or professional quality (sometimes cheaper ones have clicks and dropouts in recordings). BBC/British Library chose TDK Studio MDs for their "Century Speaks" Millennium Oral History Archive, and there were few problems with them, but they've not been available since summer 2002. However HHB do a Pro minidisc which appears to be similar spec (and price). Order the "HHB MD74 Professional" to be sure (they also do an 80 minute version). Apparently Sony do a similar spec Pro version but I've not tried it. back to the top
Little Sharp
portables: Comet, Dixons, Currys, Richer Sounds etc. See who's got
the best price.
Adaptor cases: PASS seem to be the main manufacturer of these. Website
at www.pass.uk.com
Studio/hi-fi decks: Richer Sounds is hard to beat. Look for the model-before-the-current
one, they're usually real bargains -- eg I got my JE-520 when it was replaced
by the JE-530, and there was sod-all difference between them as far as I was
concerned.
Microphones: www.digitalvillage.co.uk
is cheapest I can find for ATM10s.
Minidiscs: www.riverproaudio.co.uk
offers "HHB Professional" minidiscs at best prices I've seen (around
£1 ea). I'm also finding their service very good. back
to the top
© Mike Hally 2001-4
last update: 27 November 2004