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Looper's Delight
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These are all the questions I was about to ask! Answered! Magic! I haven't read all of the current thread to "copying minidiscs", but here's another question: s'poze I make a cool batch of recordings of solo loop gigs, and then I decide to edit them using Cakewalk or some other fairly low-budget computer software magic. Can I download the MD to my hard drive and go at it, then copy my brilliant results onto blank CD's for sale at exorbitant prices (with beautiful hand-made graphics on the cardboard jewelbox/envelope)? And does anyone know where to score those groovy cardboard jewelbox/envelope thingies, as opposed to the plastic crap which cracks easily, feels ugly, and probably emits wicked toxins as it degrades? And by the way, I believe discussion of recording in any medium begs the comparison to looping, as this exerpt from Ken M's post shows: "Test the theory if you must.. Take 2 Sony MD's, go line-out to line-in and make a copy. Turn it around and copy the copy, again, again, again until you hear the hiss. Now try it digital -> digital and note that the sound never alters from the original." Looks a lot like looping to me, eh? Douglas Baldwin, Alpha male Coyote, the Trickster dbaldwin@suffolk.lib.ny.us >"Michael S. Yoder" <myoder@tamiu.edu> wrote: > >>Saludos de la frontera! >> >>I have a question for those of you with experience in MD recording: >> >>Is it ABSOLUTELY crucial when making backup copies of MDs to record them >>digitally via the optical output and input? Is there noticeable audible >>difference by going through the line outs of one MD machine into the line >>ins of another MD machine? >> >>I have experience with DATs, and can hear no difference between an original >>DAT and the copy made via the line outs and line ins. This must mean >that >>the D/A and A/D converters are good in the Sony DAT machines I use. I >>wondered if the (much cheaper) MD technology would be about the same. >One >>can get a Sony MD deck for just under $200, but without optical output. > >This is an interesting question. > >MDs perform their magic using a "lossy" compression that throws away >most of the raw sonic information received to compress the bandwidth >and fit all that sound onto that little disk. > >The ATRAC encoding is very sophisticated and uses multiple >strategies to make sure that most of the information lost >is information that you could never possibly hear. > >But information is lost on each encoding->decoding step. >This will snowball and after several generations, you'll >start to hear artefacts. So I'd reckon, I've never tried >it, but this is universal to lossy compression methods. > >Note that this will happen whether or not you go through >an analog stage. And, as Michael says, a careful and >accurate analog copy is pretty indistinguishably close >to the original. > > >BUT, I'd still go with the digital I/O if you have >another device that reads it. It's just far simpler >to make an exact digital copy than an exact analog copy. > >Setting your levels wrong is a classic way to lose >bandwidth on a copy, not a problem with digital. > >Crosstalk or hum from other channels or instruments, >static electricity, these are all things that have >ruined analog copies of mine in the past. > >With digital, you plug them in and press record. >End of story. No work. > > >This is terribly off-topic of course. >