Minidisc Guide
Guidelines | Recommendations

While portable cassette decks are still solid performers, and might be the most reliable medium in certain regions and environments, these days there are options that are smaller, cheaper, and avoid some of the sonic compromises inherent in analog tape. DAT recorders avoid the hiss and wow and flutter of analog tape, but they're expensive to buy and maintain, and still subject to the vagaries of tape: occasional breakages, tangles, crumples and head-wrap problems. Direct-to-disc and solid-state recorders will certainly be the way of the future, but right now it's still hard to find a machine with decent inputs, full-bandwidth file format support and large storage for an affordable price. So, minidiscs are a popular choice, especially the portable consumer recorders. They are inexpensive, tiny and easy to use, and while there is some data-compression in the recording process, the sound quality is still very good.

These consumer minidisc machines do still have some down-sides: you can't find blank discs in the local convenience store; the microphone inputs are less-than-ideal minijacks; the built-in mic pre amps are often not strong enough to record loud, clean signals from dynamic microphones; and there's a risk of losing your audio if the unit loses power before a table-of-contents is written. There are techniques for recovering a lost table-of-contents, but it's not always simple.

Some of the Sony minidisc recorders make it difficult or impossible to change the record level while recording, other machines beep when the record level is adjusted, and some have no manual record level at all, relying on the Automatic Gain Control (AGC) to set the record level based in the input strength. AGC can be very useful for untrained recordists, especially non-professionals making audio diaries. It can also be a lifesaver in uncontrolled, "run and gun" situations where there's no time to twiddle with settings, one just needs to get sound on tape. But in most cases, a stable record level sounds better than one that's constantly adjusting to the input, so ideally, one wants to set the levels manually, and be able to turn them up or down as needed.

Do a degree, the old axiom holds: you get what you pay for. If you're doing lots of critical recording, it makes sense to spend the money on a professional machine like the HHB. It has good XLR mic pre amps, reliable metering, and several digital and analog inputs and outputs, including a very handy real-time USB output, for direct transfer to a computer.

It's worth noting that despite the ambiguous terminology in product descriptions, the USB connections on the small portables, including Sony's "Net-MD" models, only support moving audio from the computer to the minidisc, and not the other way around, as most sound-recordists would like. This could change, but for now the way to get sound from a small portable minidisc to the computer for editing, is via the analog outputs, in some cases the headphone out. That analog output is connected to an audio-in on your computer, either built-in to your sound card or on an external interface.

It seems counter-intuitive: you've recorded digital audio onto the minidisc, and want to edit digital audio on your computer, you should be able to just move the files over, but it's not that smooth. Even the HHB can't just transfer the files, it plays the audio out in real time. In effect it has a built-in USB audio interface. Even in making an analog transfer, you still have the sonic advantages of recording to a digital medium, with less noise and wider bandwidth than cassettes. And when done carefully, the analog transfer can be done with minimal negative impact on quality.

Consumer portables have the great advantage of being small enough that one can carry them easily, and they provide an inexpensive way to get started collecting sound. Keep these things in mind:

Read the manual, for the sake of space limitations some important controls are accessed via menus and submenus, via several button-pushes. Machines made by Sharp tend to have easily accessed record-level buttons. Sony controls tend to be buried a few menus down, when they're there at all (the volume controls on top are headphone levels for listening, not record levels.)

Use a good mic, and get a good cable for connecting your mic to the mini-jack mic input. We like the cables built by Sonic Studios. Buying a cable built for this purpose will assure that you get proper wiring for a mono mic to send signal to both channels of the mini jack. You might want a right-angle mini jack to maintain a better connection. Those jacks are notorious for wearing out, so if practical, leave the cable plugged-in to reduce damage. Don't built a conglomeration of adapters and converters, every added connection increases the potential for noise and short-circuits.

You may have trouble getting enough volume out of low-impedance dynamic microphones, such as the RE-50. You can try a mic with a louder output, such as a condenser mic, but be sure you can provide "phantom power" with a battery in the mic, the small minidiscs cannot supply the needed charge for condenser mics. A better choice might be to get the $50 Shure A96f cable, which raises the impedance of the microphone a bit, giving you some more volume without requiring extra power (it also converts from XLR to mini, so it may be the only cable you need.)

The small meters are not particularly reliable, experiment a bit to find what they really mean, you may need to record what looks like a little louder or softer than you would normally, in order to get good levels. As with most digital recorders, "overs" sound really terrible, but very low record levels will sound bad in a different way, hissy and coarse, once they are brought up to the proper volume at the mixing stage.

Be sure to check the default operation of your recorder, some automatically record at the end of your last track, others require you to do an end search first, otherwise they will record over your earlier tracks.

Minidiscs record a Table of Contents (TOC) at the end of each track, creating pointers to where the data resides on thee disc. The most common problem with minidisc recording is lost or damaged TOCs making the audio inaccessible. Be careful to allow the recorder to finish writing the TOC after you press stop, try not to jiggle or bang it before it finishes, don't try to eject the disc until you're sure it's done. And watch your battery levels: if the battery runs out while you are still recording, there's no power to write the TOC, and it will appear that you have no audio since the last time the TOC was written.

Of course sometimes accidents happen, and the good news is that often a new TOC can be created by "cloning" an intact TOC from a good disc onto the damaged one. It's a complicated procedure, outlined here: http://www.minidisc.org/cloning_procedure.html Be sure to clone from a disc the same length as the damaged one, and that it has audio recorded for the entire length. You will lose your original track marks, but the audio should be intact.

So with those guidelines in mind, if you're looking to buy a minidisc, what should you get? If you have the money, buy an HHB. If you don't, almost any small portable with a mic input can work, but here are some recommendations for machines that seem better-suited than others.

We asked the folks over at This American Life, knowing that they had bought some rigs recently to give out to traveling recordists and folks making audio diaries. Here's the response from TAL producer Wendy Dorr.

From Wendy Dorr:

Dave Kestenbaum recommended to us the Sony MZB-100. We gave these out to soldiers going to Iraq. They have built in stereo microphones and are easy to use and of course, very very small. Dave told us that all the NPR reporters use them. It's a little expensive - a little less than 400 bucks. But so far, we've been happy with the results. They actually used the built in mic - that was a big selling point for us - that way the diarists didn't have to deal with mic and a cord. For diaries, the quality was pretty good - but for other stuff, it might be a little awkward shoving the entire device into someone's face for an interview...so...there's your disadvantage. But in terms of advantages...It's lightweight, compact and will take a beating as far as we can tell. One of our guys took it into combat with him in Iraq and apparently, it's still working.

One caveat, these B-series recorders, such as the MZB-100 or B-10 were designed with business dictation/transcription in mind, and do NOT seem to have manual record level control. The built-in mics and automatic gain control do make them very simple to use in circumstances where the user won’t have the time or training to worry about mic technique or setting levels properly.

For some more recommendations, we turned to Michael "the MD Guru" Johnson, who trains reporters at KQED-FM, and has prevented many of us from tearing our hair out with his helpful posts on the AIR email list, and columns at the Stories1st.org website.

From Michael Johnson:

Sony MZ-N1 which you can find for around $260.00

Sharp MD-DR7 for about $290.00

For not too much more one can get the Sony MZ-B10 as low as $299.00 has the built in speaker and Sony time and date stamping on the minidisc recording.

The Sony MZ-B10 seems to be the successor to the B-100 ($334.00 ) and though their prices are only about $40.00 apart and the design is different, they seem to be a near match, though the B10 has stereo speakers. Neither of these machines seems to have manual control of record level.

The usual Sharp/Sony caveats:

After these models the price leaps into the $1,000- plus range with the Marantz PMD 650 & the HH B Portadisc MDP-500, the HHB being the better designed of the two. The Marantz has a confusing array of buttons that invite screw-ups.

HHB has 5 user-programmable settings profiles, accessible from a touch or two of the multifunction soft-touch buttons. It has good mic pre-amps, coaxial, optical and USB (real-time) digital I/O. It remembers the TOC if the batteries run out or the power goes, and writes it back to the disc when power is restored!!! Rehearsal mode before certain features. Battery life is fair: 2.5 to 3 hours on a single charge. Overall, a fine, rugged machine.

Michael "the MD Guru" Johnson is Digital Training Manager and the Producer of the Hot Soup Program at KQED-FM. His tech columns appear at Stories1st.org. Thanks to Michael and the folks at Stories1st for sharing this advice.

There's extensive information on all things minidisc, including helpful feature-comparison charts and links to other resources at minidisc.org.