MD: Isn't this weird?
Hello all, I've bought ten BASF Maxima MDs. I inserted one into my R55, and it won't recognize it as a blank disc. You can hear the mechanism making the MD spin, but it never stops, and no "blankdisc" will ever show on the display. I've tried all ten, and they all show the same symptoms. Then, and here's the weird part, it happened that I inserted one of these MDs while I was holding the R55 about 90 degrees clockwise, in a vertical position. The MDs were magically recognized and "blankdisc" showed on the display. I've tried to insert them all this way, and they are all recognized. I recorded one, and the recording is pretty good, BUT the disc won't play unless I insert it holding the R55 in the vertical position. Can anyone explain this weird behaviour? Keep in mind this only happens with these BASF MDs, and never happened with any other brands' MDs. Luca - who's wondering whether these MDs will work on MD decks, without having to put them in a vertical position! :-) - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MD: digital sound cards
=== The original message was multipart MIME=== === All non-text parts (attachments) have been removed === For those who are interested and don't already know... The Guillimot Maxi Sound Fortissimo sound card has a digital optical output. Forget Hoontechs daughter board for your SBLive. This baby comes complete and retails around the same price as the SBLive OEM version. I don't think it has quite as many connectors as the SB with adapter but if all you want to do is dump a stream of 1s and 0s to your MD recorder then this fits the bill. I bought one a few days again and it installed a treat under 95 while digital recording on a MZR55 worked first time no problems. There's no digital i/p on the cards interface strip but there is a 2 pin SPDIF connector on the card itself which I connect straight to the SPDIF o/p of my DVD drive. Worth checking out if you want to do digital recordings. Peter. - making his debut contribution to the list (for what it's worth) Peter A Barlow. email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel. +33 1 53 78 66 51 === MIME part removed : image/gif; === - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MD: track marking
Hey Everyone, Another newbie question - I'm about to buy my first minidisc recorder (probably a Sharp 831 portable) and I just read something that concerned me a bit. Apparently you can only put track markings in when recording from a mic? Is this true? I will use my MD for recording from the radio a lot, and will want to put in track marks throughout the recording (say 10 minutes apart). Will I be able to do this? Excuse the ignorance. Nick. - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MD: Digital clipping
Um - I havent been following the thread that closely, but I recall the issue has to do with a CD that cant be recorded to MD... it "clips". I do agree that the *source* cant really have a "clipped" signal signal (well it can - but it should also sound clipped in analog mode as well)... But having played alot with mixing between MD, Analog, CD etc I have found that - the recorders have meters that are not necessarily calibrated to each other - some meters in a means to get "headroom" read higher than the signal really is - meter response (esp digital LED bar type meters) will show transient peaks as higher than they really are - Some recording devices have "limiters" circuits built in to handle the weird transients that result from clipping. - I dunno how ATRAC would store a "digital" near clip Id believe the non record-able CD issue if the CD cant be recorded to another CD... If its CD to MD - Id suspect something in the ATRAC causing a psychoacustic signiture that sounds like clipping - or internal limiter circuits causing the problem. I have found that "newer" CDs (aka post say 1994) are recorder "hotter" db wise than older CDs (aka 1980's). Means I really do have to fiddle with the pre-fader levels on the DJM-500 on almost every CD... EWong - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: SPDIF in/out
Gustavo Córdova Avila wrote: I was recently reviewing my computer's motherboard's manual (I was bored... us techies find reference manuals entertaining). I didn't really like this MoBo, 'cause it has integrated sound and video devices, so I can't exchange them for better stuff. I bet you can. There will either be jumpers on the board to disable the on board graphics and sound, or it will be a setting in the BIOS. On my board it's a jumper labelled "VGA" which switches between on-board graphics (shared memory - urgh!) and PCI card. It's very unusual not to have a board with this facility - even old 386s had this ability. Anyway... Upon reading the manual I found out that it has SPDIF input AND output, "**VERY** interesting" thought I. The input can be connected to the cdrom, and the output can be connected to a minidisc --The manual actually mentions that--. They're electronic, not optical, switchable between 0-0.5V and 0-5V. I suppose it's trivial to connect an optical TOSLINK connector to the output. You mean do something like take a trip to www.minidisc.org and build a TTL to Toslink converter (projects section) and connect to the S/PDIF output on the board yes that works very well. Of course, it's far more exciting when you realise you can make a similar unit using a Toslink reciever and connect to the S/PDIF input, giving you digital input from your MD rather than CD-ROM. Here's how I would set up the system: S/PDIF input on board - Toslink reciever module - Socket on PC for in from MD. S/PDIF output on board - Toslink transmitter module - Socket on PC for out to MD. Sound card CD audio - CD-ROM analogue audio output If you want to record digitally from a CD, then rip it to the hard drive with one of the many "CD ripper" programs available free on the net then playback to MD. You can then "normalise" the CD tracks to make them all the same volume which gets around the problem of many portables not having digital record levels. Hope this helps! -- Magic Location : Portsmouth, England, UK Homepage : http://www.mattnet.freeserve.co.uk EMail : mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] "A book judged by it's cover makes for a very shallow read." - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Soundblaster Live! 1024 Player anyone ?
Christopher Spalding wrote: OK, while we're on the topic, i have a crappy SB PCI 64V, is there a really cheap way i can get an optical output from it or do i have to buy a whole new card? You could tap into the digital data stream going to the input pins on the DAC. This is usually a standard format 16 bit stereo data stream which can be encoded with something like an S/PDIF encoder (CS8210 ?) chip. You would then feed this to a Toslink connector and viol - one digital MD output. The problem is that doing this would probably cost you more than to buy even a cheap card with S/PDIF output on board, so you'd be better off replacing the card. PS, there is a "digital/analogue" output setting in the software - what does this do? I've seen similar software bundled with other sound cards. I *think* it's because the card has no dedicated drivers and uses generic ones for that chip set. Some systems have a digital output, and some don't, so they put an option to enable / disable that output into the software. If your card doesn't have the facility then obviously it wont do anything. -- Magic Location : Portsmouth, England, UK Homepage : http://www.mattnet.freeserve.co.uk EMail : mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] "A book judged by it's cover makes for a very shallow read." - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Found a CD that cannot be digitally recorded on MD
Andrew Hobgood wrote: | No, the LSB gets dropped and you still end up with a signal that will not | overflow the register. All that happens is you lose the extra 1 bit | resolution from the LSB end. And this is significantly different from "clipping" in what way? Loss of data is loss of data, no matter how you try to spin it. Well, clipping manifests itself as chopping the MSB (bit or bits, depending on the severity of clipping) because the incoming signal has a range far beyond the sampling range of the A/D converter. I just suddenly remembered something about digital sound data - the MSB is a sign bit. If you imagine a sine wave being fed into a system that chopped the MSB, i would turn into an 'm' shape. and it still wouldn't clip. -- Magic Location : Portsmouth, England, UK Homepage : http://www.mattnet.freeserve.co.uk EMail : mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] "A book judged by it's cover makes for a very shallow read." - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Soundblaster Live! 1024 Player anyone ?
IF so a cmopany called opcode (www.opcode.com) produce a device called the DATPort which is a digital input/ouput device. This may be the ideal solution for you - no MIDI, XLR, COAX or anything other than 1 input and 1 output. Looks interesting, but unfortunately has no optical connectors. And at $250 I'd rather buy a new soundcard, since I need a new one anyway. Thanks for the tip though ! Regards, Alexander -- | Alexander Dietrich | Norderstedt, Germany | | e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Digital clipping
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 * [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Fri, 15 Oct 1999 | I do agree that the *source* cant really have a "clipped" signal signal | (well it can - but it should also sound clipped in analog mode as well)... But not if the record level is set low enough that it is not clipped. [...] | Id believe the non record-able CD issue if the CD cant be recorded to | another CD... If its CD to MD - Id suspect something in the ATRAC causing a | psychoacustic signiture that sounds like clipping - or internal limiter | circuits causing the problem. The first two times I tried copying the CD, I used my 702. I then switched to my R30, and it still happened (though not as badly). I dunnow. | I have found that "newer" CDs (aka post say 1994) are recorder "hotter" db | wise than older CDs (aka 1980's). Means I really do have to fiddle with the | pre-fader levels on the DJM-500 on almost every CD... Thing is, the CD in question is mastered from audio tapes made between 10 and 20 years ago. That probably does not matter, though. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.0d (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE4B1mLgl+vIlSVSNkRAiAJAKC86GtOC3W0TXP/lN2vZmJgDCxdMwCgxUhC ZbkDZlxSEQD3GR8RMIdPz1s= =ulQT -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- Rat [EMAIL PROTECTED]\ Warning: pregnant women, the elderly, and Minion of Nathan - Nathan says Hi! \ children under 10 should avoid prolonged PGP Key: at a key server near you! \ exposure to Happy Fun Ball. - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Found a CD that cannot be digitally recorded on MD
I just suddenly remembered something about digital sound data - the MSB is a sign bit. If you imagine a sine wave being fed into a system that chopped the MSB, i would turn into an 'm' shape. and it still wouldn't clip. Are you sure? That format of the data depends entirely on the platform on which you're doing the data transfer... most computers (in PC PCM format) use signed word (16 bit) storage... though, some use unsigned word... *pondering* ahck. my head is broken. I can't figure out whether or not that'd make a difference. =P Although... if it is using signed word, and the sign bit gets dropped, if its using two's complement, it'll screw up the two's-complement conversion, and possibly throw off the data stream. /Andrew - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MD: friendly advice
If you're going to post this on every single message: "A book judged by it's cover makes for a very shallow read." you might want to get rid of the apostrophe, it's "its" not "it's" don't get offended, just trying to save you some embarrassment - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MD: MiniDisc data drive (and other stuff) on eBay
Well, I've decided I really have no time for my prized little MDH-10, so I've put it up for auction on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemitem=182302682 I also bought a card with built-in TOSLink output, so I no longer need my coax-optical converter: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemitem=182282296 And, finally, I'm using Windows NT pretty much permanently these days, so I won't need my PC-Link kit anymore: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemitem=182294764 Sorry for the interruption... -oscar - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Digital clipping
Stainless Steel Rat wrote: The first two times I tried copying the CD, I used my 702. I then switched to my R30, and it still happened (though not as badly). I dunnow. I've manages to get hold of your Columbia version (they had one at the library) and it just recorded perfectly from a Sony portable CD player to the R55. Voth discs, no clipping, and no drop outs. My conclusion is your CD is buggered. Thing is, the CD in question is mastered from audio tapes made between 10 and 20 years ago. That probably does not matter, though. Even if you managed to completely bend the laws of physics to get your digital input to clip, it still wouldn't result in drop outs. As mindblowing as some of BOCs music is, I don't think it's quite in the realms of Hotblack Desiato's planet shattering group "Disaster Area". -- Magic Location : Portsmouth, England, UK Homepage : http://www.mattnet.freeserve.co.uk EMail : mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] "Creativity is more a birthright than an acquisition, and the power of sound is wisdom and understanding applied to the power of vibration." - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Found a CD that cannot be digitally recorded on MD
Andrew Hobgood wrote: I just suddenly remembered something about digital sound data - the MSB is a sign bit. If you imagine a sine wave being fed into a system that chopped the MSB, i would turn into an 'm' shape. and it still wouldn't clip. Are you sure? That format of the data depends entirely on the platform on which you're doing the data transfer... most computers (in PC PCM format) use signed word (16 bit) storage... though, some use unsigned word... *pondering* Minidisc uses 16bit signed audio data as input. Well that's what comes out of the S/PDIF anyway so I assume it must be part of the standard. ahck. my head is broken. I can't figure out whether or not that'd make a difference. =P Although... if it is using signed word, and the sign bit gets dropped, if its using two's complement, it'll screw up the two's-complement conversion, and possibly throw off the data stream. Just tried it using assembler the wave you end up with is really wierd looking. The sine wave starts off ok until the point where it goes negative - it then appears as a U shape at the top of the graph. You and up with something a bit like this (cue the poor ASCII art) __ nununununu __ where the underline represents 0 Sounds very strange too almost like a pulsing square wave.. very harsh...- it it was "clipping" this way you would really notice it. If the data was unsigned, you get a really odd wave that looks like this //\\//\\//\\//\\//\\ Sounds like everything is in a wierd echo tube strange might try and make a circuit to do this for the electric guitar, it's phreaky but cool -- Magic Location : Portsmouth, England, UK Homepage : http://www.mattnet.freeserve.co.uk EMail : mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] "Creativity is more a birthright than an acquisition, and the power of sound is wisdom and understanding applied to the power of vibration." - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: [Fwd: Recording from minidisk to CD]
"Jason K. Fritcher" wrote: The ISA bus is typically chained to the end of the PCI bus with a PCI-ISA bridge. Basically the ISA bus appears as just another device to the PCI bus. Anything that consumes all of the PCI buses bandwidth for a long period of time, or anything device that stays in its IRQ handler for too long will disrupt communication on the bus. The AGP bus is typically runs parallel to the PCI bus, so they don't affect each other. Dont count on it :( Anything that is labelled as a "Winmodem" or compatible with only MS Windows. winmodems cover both software (the bad ones) and controlerless ones (the ok ones) the Lucent winmodem is pretty darn good, I actually have less cpu utilization with that then my old external, and it never disconnects. The conexiont soft 56 flex, or the HSP chipped modems are the ones to avoid. Only the winmodem will suffer from bus disruptions. The modem now relies on the system's cpu to generate the carrier signal that keeps the modems connected. If a bus disruption occurs, thay carrier gets disrupted and the modems disconnect. Basically in a software modem, the modem signal is made by the software, and carried over the bus just like audio, so anything that messes up your sound will mess up the modem signal. The remote modem will hear the jumpy sound as noise and most likly disconnect because of it. controlerless modems (conexiant HCF and LT winmodems) carry data over the bus, but its the raw data thats getting sent along with instructions for the DSP on what to do. Hardware modems send the instructions and data as one stream like it was going to a serial port - this is less efficiant, and means that while you are online you cannot send commands to the modem. Some drivers for the controlerless ones will let you see line conditions and speeds etc while you are connected, whereas the hardware ones make you wait till you are disconnected to see why. With a normal modem, all of the signal processing and carrier generation is done on the modem itself and all the system cpu has to do is send the modem the data to transfer. If a bus disruption occurs, the modems stay connected, but stop transmitting or receiving data. Generally they will have a comm overrun where the computer misses out on data, PPP will take care of that and request a retransmition. but in any case, if the sound is disrupted when scrolling, then its a video driver issue and you should not let up untill your card vendor admits there problem. -- Richard - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Found a CD that cannot be digitally recorded on MD
James Montgomerie wrote: Remember that 'clipping' is not the same as just losing a bit of data. also polite voice... although somewhat fed up of this thread because of its complete irrelevance to the actual problem There are many types of clipping. Register or data clipping is where bits of data are clipped from either end of a stream. The most common method for this is truncation where LSBs are removed. Waveform clipping occurs not in data transfer but in calculation such as applying digital gain through ,multiplication arrays, or adding data sets together. This type of clipping (the type we more commonly see via the "over" indicator is associated with the data registers going into an "Overflow" situation, where the number to be stored is too large for the register, resulting in a flag being set and the register (dependant on CPU) holding the maximum allowed value. Anyway, all this is academic, as TosLink should transmit the 16-bit data exactly as it receives it from a CD - it's /impossible/ (not just improbable, but impossible) that what is being discussed on this thread is caused by any form of 'clipping' or truncating of the data from the CD. Yes, I know, but Mr Rat seems to insist otherwise. I agree that there must be *something* causing his drop-outs, but it cannot be clipping. The only thing I can think of that would cause drop-outs in consistant places is a problem either with the S/PDIF output on the CD player being triggered by soething *or* errors on the CD which are enough to cause the S/PDIF output to "break", resulting in a drop-out, but which are not large enough for the ear to percieve the brief break in the signal on an analogue system. The drop-out may be smply because the MD needs to re-sync. P.S. the idea floating around about sign bits is probably also a red herring - there are MANY different ways to store a sign in binary, [and none of them is the 'right' one, though some are easier to handle than others]. Anyway, I would imagine (though I don't know - perhaps I need some polite correction too?) that MD uses a straight 16-bit positive binary number to store data, and doesn't dabble into any of this negative nastiness. I would imagine internally that MD uses straight 16 bit data, but the decoder chips I have supply signed 16bit data in 2s compliment form from S/PDIF input, so I presume that this is the standard. -- Magic Location : Portsmouth, England, UK Homepage : http://www.mattnet.freeserve.co.uk EMail : mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] "Creativity is more a birthright than an acquisition, and the power of sound is wisdom and understanding applied to the power of vibration." - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MD: Internet and international car audio dealers
I know this is kinda off-topic but I'm after a set of JBL 508GTi speakers which appear to no longer exist here in Australia (and I need the 200W RMS power handling these splits have!!). Anyone know of good (and cheap) internet/international dealers? Adios, LarZ --- TAMA - The Strongest Name in Drums --- - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: repair costs (was Re: Takes a lickin ...)
That's nothing. My JA30ES has been confirmed to have a dud optical block. It's costing AUD$380 (including labour) to replace. I would have done it myself but I didn't have $3000 worth of tools to confirm that it was the optical block (otherwise, it would have been an unnecessarily expensive exercise). At any rate, the deck was worth $1700 new, but I bought it factory 2nd for $950. Given the money saved, it's certainly worth repairing. Besides, it received about 1.5 years of hard labour given the amount of MD's I've worked on with it, so I can't complain. It all depends on the equipment. High-end decks like that aren't cheaply substitutable as are some of today's portables. Adios, LarZ --- TAMA - The Strongest Name in Drums --- -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Stainless Steel Rat Sent: Tuesday, 12 October 1999 2:05 To: MD-L Subject:MD: repair costs (was Re: Takes a lickin ...) I recently had to have the main circuit board of my MZ-R30 replaced. Fortunately it is still under extended warranty, because the repair costs would have been $150 for the board plus $80 for the labor. Plus another $50 I did not spend on a replacemnt remote because the old one was broken. Total repair cost: $280. I paid ~$300 for the R30 new, shortly after its initial US release. The MD-MS702mk I bought as a temporary (and now more permanent :) substitute cost less than it would have cost me to repair the R30. - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: Live Recording Setups
Sony MZ-R50, Core Sounds Binaural mics (not the low-cost version) with battery box, no filters. Record at conservative levels to ensure no clipping during recording, dump digitally from JA30ES to PC (using Cool Edit Pro to record, and EQ, and Soundforge for dynamics processing). Adios, LarZ --- TAMA - The Strongest Name in Drums --- -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Wayne Robbins Sent: Wednesday, 13 October 1999 23:59 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:MD: Live Recording Setups I am having so much fun as a new MD user! I am recording live music for my church and I am introducing many people to the wonderful world of MD. I would like to know what some of you are using for your live recording setups (MD Deck, Mics, etc.) that give you a good result. I am using a Sony MZ-R55 and a Sony ECM-MS907 stereo microphone. This setup works okay, but I am looking to buy a better mic. The frequency response on the MS907 is 100-15,000, and I would like a better sound. - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: Best Buy
-Original Message- Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 08:08:08 EDT From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: MD: Best Buy The Best Buy chain is opening a store in my area. I think I've seen it mentioned a few times on the list. Is it a good place to shop for MD stuff? Yes, it is. Best Buy is where I purchase about 98% of my MD stuff. They carry MD products, which in and of itself is a HUGE plus, and their prices are pretty competivie. They were even selling a portable MD player for only $99!! Also, they frequently run adds with sales on blank MDs. Hassen [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: repair costs (was Re: Takes a lickin ...)
I cant believe these Sharp units, this thing has been dropped numerous times, nothing major except for once before, it was all carpet and such. But to survive a bike crash, it was scratched to hell and back. I go inside, reset the magnetic thingie (Props to the person who mailed me with directions), and fixed the little write protect pin, and now it works as good as new. And I thought Sony stuff could really take a beating. Shawn - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
