Any MD Recorder Mac Compatable?

[Tweertinelle]

Actually, both iTunes and Audion can distort if you don't set the Sound Control Panel at around 50-60 percent and keep your mp3 player within the same range or less. Another good side effect of keeping the master volume lower: Your ears won't flee to Yonkers when Ye Olde G4 restarts. (I was just discussing this -- distortion, not elopement -- with an engineer on the motu-mac e-list.)

I happen to really like Audion as well (let us start with how spiffy it looks, my baked Alaska), but in OS 9, iTunes seems just a bit more stable -- at least on my sepia hue.

I'm speaking about OS 9.2, BTW; I haven't switched to 10 yet and neither have any other music producers I know. We'd all been waiting for 10.2, with its music drivers and MIDI implementation. Now we're awaiting graceful leaps to that platform by Digidesign, Mark of the Unicorn, Cubase and Native Instruments.

(Music yokels are always the last to upgrade because the software they use is so slow to adapt and because their environment has to be as non-volatile as possible. Once the Swee'pea Ewwww's chemistry's crash-free, you don't want to shmoog with the elements, Mister Wonga.)

 

[badtz]

for studio purposes......

would recording with a MD & transferring to the pc/mac yield acceptable sound quality?

or should one find something else to do on-the-fly recordings? [portable dat?]

 

[Tweertinelle]

Quote:

Originally posted by Badtz for studio purposes...... would recording with a MD & transferring to the pc/mac yield acceptable sound quality?

It depends on what you're doing. For bootlegs, and for certain kinds of field and foley recordings, most MD-Rs would be fine (but be mindful of rumbling low end sounds -- get a decent mike pre and battery if you intend to record a pipe organ, for example (and get a windscreen for field recordings in general)). But for real tracking, and for better-quality field recordings, I would pick up a Sony M1 DAT, which I've seen advertised new for as little as six hundred and change.

Quote:

Originally posted by Badtz or should one find something else to do on-the-fly recordings? [portable dat?]

Yes, a DAT would be better than an MD-R -- though tape is an ancient, perishable and absurdly time-consuming medium.

MD was meant to be an end medium, not the medium with which to make a professional *first*-gen recording. Yes, recording live with a MD is very convenient. But cheaper? Not really, when you consder everything you'll need. Digital transfers with MDs don't end up being cheaper than a DAT, because you need a portable MD to record and a high-end home deck with which to do digital transfers and, in some cases, even an SCMS stripper. Whereas an M1 DAT is SCMS free, records at 48k and does so without data compression of any kind.

Yes, a DAT is better for professional use than an MD. That a digital medium which is now nearly twenty years old should be better than more recent media is disgusting, and shows the stranglehold of music corporations on the availability of current technology, even though a portable 24-bit 96k copy-free field recording device could be made cheaply and easily using today's swinging mod-implant-enhanced technology.

At least Marantz's new portable CD-R is a step in the correct direction. (It does record live, by the way, Bishop Mammilando.)

 

[badtz]

thanks for all the great 411! if you don't mind, another interrogating session

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how does that marantz portable cd-r recorder fair?

I'm primarily interested in finding a portable recordable medium to do field recordings for usage in music/studio productions...

I would like the best quality 1st-gen recordings.

Are MD's sufficient in the studio? Or is the atrac encoding not efficient enough for studio usage?

For MD recordings, are there any well-known mic pre/mic that I should look into?

I'll take a peak @ the Sony M1 DAT

thanks!!

 

[Tweertinelle]

Quote:

Originally posted by Badtz how does that marantz portable cd-r recorder fair?

Can't say -- no one I know has tried it. There must be reviews (though I rarely trust those). I have time. I'll wait.

Quote:

I'm primarily interested in finding a portable recordable medium to do field recordings for usage in music/studio productions...

Me, too. But beware: MDs are carefully designed fetish objects. If you buy one, you'll grow enamored of its size, cuteness and efficiency. Then you'll buy more paraphenalia. But you won't end up with recordings you can use, unless your field stuff can be a low-tech.

Quote:

I would like the best quality 1st-gen recordings.

The money route would be a laptop with the latest version of the MOTU firewire 828 (I'm forgetting the model number) and a mike plugged into that. I don't think you can get more direct than recording into your computer. That's where the recording will end up anyway.

Quote:

Are MD's sufficient in the studio? Or is the atrac encoding not efficient enough for studio usage?

On another thread, we were just talking about a broadcasting engineer who loves MD.

Must go, work is over. Time to lean and dream, as 50s junkies used to say.