When it comes to MiniDisc devices you’ve often got to get something recorded on one before you can enjoy it. It’s true that there were some albums released natively in the format, but there weren’t many (and they’re obnoxiously expensive), so recording to a blank disc is often necessary. You’d think that the USB-based NetMD devices would facilitate this with much less time and effort than classic devices that can only record in real-time, but is that the truth? I tried both to find out.
Classic MD
For classic MD players, the process is pretty limited. With the exception of a couple stereo decks, audio has to be recorded in real-time through digital or analog input. That means playing an entire album start to finish or switching discs/tracks over and over to make a mixed album. Want to capture something digital from a streaming service? Go to town, but you still have to record it in real time.
Once recorded, you need to mark each track and name them. If you’re dedicated, you sit next to the MD recorder the entire time and press the mark button to create a track each time a song ends. If you’re lazy like me, you let the whole thing record as a single hour-long track and then play it over again, fast-forwarding through each song to mark it. Either way, you then have to use the MD recorder’s functional, but tedious, interface to title the tracks letter by letter.
Total time for a 60 minute album: 100 minutes
- 60 to record
- 10 to mark tracks
- 30 to title
NetMD
Luckily we have Net MD, which allows us to transfer audio files directly onto a MiniDisc. Just drop them into Web MiniDisc Pro and watch them copy. That must take about… 30 minutes? Yeah. The tracks are transcoded to ATRAC, which only takes seconds, but are then copied over USB 1.1. and written at 2x real time (at least on my recorder). A 60 minute album takes about 30 minutes to copy. And that’s your best case assuming you have audio files to transfer already, but what if you don’t?
If you have a CD, you can rip it to MP3 files and then transfer them over. But if you live in the now (i.e. you don’t even own a computer with a CD ROM drive), you probably need to get something from a streaming service. Suddenly you’re back in classic MD territory but you have to record the audio internally before transferring it to MD. On the Mac you can use the BlackHole driver to route your system audio into GarageBand and record it as one giant song. Then you can split the recording into sections and export each as an audio file that Web MiniDisc Pro can read. If you don’t prefix the titles with the track order you also need to reorder them in Web MiniDisc Pro and then wait for the standard 30 – 40 minute transfer + write time.
Total time for a 60 minute album: 105 minutes
- 60 to record the music into Garage Band
- 10 to split into songs
- 5 to label and export an MP3 for each song
- 30 minutes to burn them
Hybrid
If you happen to have both a Classic MD recorder and a NetMD recorder or a NetMD recorder with audio input, you can combine the two into a hybrid method. Use a Classic MD recorder (or audio in) to record in real time for 60 minutes and spend 10 minutes marking the tracks. Move the MD into the NetMD recorder and use Web MiniDisc Pro to rename them. By using a real keyboard you can probably drop the track titling task down to 5 minutes, tying with a standard NetMD recording for 105 minutes. So… not really saving anything.
And The Winner Is…
| Classic MD | NetMD – MP3s | NetMD – Record | Hybrid | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record 60 minutes of audio | 60 minutes | 0 minutes | 60 minutes | 60 minutes |
| Mark tracks | 10 minutes | 0 minutes | 10 minutes | 10 minutes |
| Title & Export Tracks | 30 minutes | 0 minutes | 5 minutes | 5 minutes |
| Copy Tracks to MD | 0 minutes | 30 minutes | 30 minutes | 30 minutes |
| Total | 100 minutes | 30 minutes | 105 minutes | 105 minutes |
Well, it depends on what audio you have. If you already have MP3 or AAC files, the NetMD is the fastest by far. If you need to record the material, the Classic MD is faster by a hair, but it’s almost negligible. If you decide to not to title the tracks or title them quickly it can be closer to 60 minutes total, a solid second place. The NetMD method would save significant time if the discs could be written faster. Some recorders can write at 4x real time, which saves 15 extra minutes and allows NetMD to pull ahead. If you’re willing to drop audio quality to LP2, write speed goes up to 16x on most devices (even mine), bringing write time down to 2 minutes.
Either way, it’s far slower than just streaming an album off of the internet 🙂
Relatively Ambitious 