Mini Disc to CD ???

[spanky]

Thanks everyone for the help on hooking my mini disc to my mixer.... works perfectly.

Now i am after the next step, burning the mini disc to cd.

I have a computer at home, it has a burner and nero burning room, does that help me at all ??

Thanks again !!

[psycho-martian]

hey dude,

bypass the md and connect your mixer direct to ya computer, burn ya shit that way. it will sound better. md to cd is sort of like mp3 to cd. sound quality aint that good.

otherwise ya need a 1/8" stereo to 1/8" stereo lead (shielded) to connect your md to your 'line in' of your computer. then ya use a wave recording program - set it to 16bit, 44.khz stereo, then record ya shit. i think nero has 1?? otherwise d/l one of those freeware/shareware programs from the net.

clear as mud?

[Cales405]

get yourself a copy of Sound Forge 5.0 or higher. This is good for recording external waves. You can record direct from your mixer to pc, but make sure your computer has plenty of memory as sometimes you will find that you get glitches, and you ruin your whole mix. If you record to md first you will always have your hard copy.

After copying from MD you can record back into Sound Forge. Sound Forge will show it on your pc as a wave file which you can look how sound looks as a wave. You can then edit the loss of sound quality from your md on sound forge, by first adjusting the gain so it has a maximum peak level of 0.0, then normalise it to get rid of any slight distortion of bass, which this solves the problem of the loss of quality from md to pc.

I also use Wavelab, which can do the same as Sound Forge, but I use it for putting track marks in my cd, which is so you don't play your cd and it is all just track 1. Wavelab is easier to read the waves and easier viewing for precise track marking than Sound Forge.

[redmond_herring]

I dont worry about the MD, go straight to HD.

using a good recording program, (cool edit pro, soundforge) turn off net/virus checkers etc before beginning recording, you'll be fine.

Quality WILL be better, why take more steps than you need anyway.

:) :P :p

[Cales405]

I agree with recording direct is fine and you make sure you are not on the net and have all applications off, but for pc's that may not have enough memory, cpu, good sound card, etc., it is a bummer to do a mix and find it has a couple of glitches in it, ruining the whole mix. Whilst you may have a more than adequate pc, much like me, for those that don't it always good to have the hard copy of an md recording as it will never get glitches. My Pc is fine for doing direct recordings, but I still like to do it on md first. You may think it is double handling, but really it isn't as I record onto my md afterwards anyway so that I can listen to it.

[Bracko]

Where can i get sound forge for free... or where can I get any wave recording program for free... cause I don't wana pay $300 for something I'll use maybe 3 or four times.

[Khem]

If you want that program for free you are going to need to look for warez, cracks etc, and I don't think that is something you can discuss here.

Ummm if all else fails I am sure that Windoze comes with Microsoft's Wave recorder, but that is very very standard and doesn't give you any options to process your sound.

No matter what you record your mix on to, in the end it has to be recorded onto your PC before you can burn it.

You should be able to get a mini jack to mini jack cable to run from the MD to your PC's line in, then you will just need to record the set in Sound Forge (or whatever) save the file, chop it up if you want seperate tracks, and burn baby burn.

[psycho-martian]

that's why i said use shareware/freeware stuff, there's heaps of recording programs on the net. i actually use some cheapo freeware program i got off a 'pc user magazine' cdrom. it's decent and it's got a lot of features eg. remove pops, clicks, normalise volume etc.

check out the download section in cnet.com, lots of stuff there.

later

[driload]

use SPDIF to transfer the data digitally to your soundcard... so you dont have to give a fuck about the whole "more steps" issue because you dont have to use analog

most MD's have SPDIF out as standard

if your soundcard has SPDIF you're laughing

[Bracko]

spdifawhat???? please explain?

also I meant what is available in shear/freeware, not cracks, I don't believe in ripping off large multinational programming orig's ;)

any that are particuarly good that you can offer me?

[meandarkdirty]

What driload said. SPDIF, or optical out, is the way you should be doing it. Jumping between analog and digital is a terrible vice.

[N4TE]

what do you do? You're a DJ, you've got a MD recorder, home PC you've never used to make or record music and you want to record your mix live at the club THEN burn it to CD. It's not difficult.

First, before you record your mix, check the recording levels on your MD. Use a RCA to 1.8 to connect your mixer's line out to the MD input jack. Put on a record. Hold pause and press record on your mD, you should have sound coming out from your MD unit if you plug in the phones. switch off any bass boost on your MD. go through your options to find rec lvl (record level) and cue up a nice noisy section of a track on the decks. Set your mixer volume so your tracks are not peaking (clipping) into the red, and adjust your MD record level so the signal never peaks there either. Too much signal from the mixer will create distortion, so it's well worth setting up your recording session to handle the loudest you'll play. Now you're ready to hit pause again, and start recording your mix.

You've got your freshly recorded disc home, time to rip the audio to the hard drive. If you've taken care to record a fairly clean mix, even a low quality soundcard or (gasp) onboard sound device WILL DO THE JOB. There's a difference between doing the job and doing the job right, essentially it's a question of dollars. how much do you want to spend on equipment? For around $500 you can get onto pro quality soundcards, most of which ship with software you need for live recording sessions (the old "record what I hear" setup.) If you're working on the cheap, get over to here (http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/win95/AUDIO_RECORDING/) and download a shareware recorder that will work for 3 or 4 sessions. I'd choose this one (http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/FlexiWaveEditor/) because it's shareware, it supports 44khz 16 bit recording, has a volume enhancer (similar to wave hammer in sound forge) and looks and feels like soundforge. Download this app, install it and plug in your MD output to your soundcard input using 1.8 to 1.8 cable. Have a bit of a poke around the recording tab on your sound recording software, check to make sure you're recording from line input at 44khz 16 bit. Have a look around, it won't crash on you.

You may have to muck around with your sound recording settings. Click the volume control on your taskbar (on PC) to open the volume settings. click options, properties. and change the radio button in the pop-up window to record. check that the line in option is checked, and close the pop-up window. set your recording levels "start playback on your MD and dick about until you get sound coming through" is about the best advice anyone can give you from this point onwards. Again, check the levels to ensure there's no clipping, there really shouldn't be, but DO check it. turn off any bass boosting feature on your MD. You're now ready to record your mix onto the harddrive as a CD quality .wav or .mp3 start recording, thenm start the playback. Go make a cuppa, this may take a while. save the recording as original or master or something like that on your desktyop, where you can find it later.

Now, have you used MD long play to record a 4 hour set? because you can only fit 80min onto 1 CD... how do you get around this minor problem? you edit! 1 option is to record 79:50 seconds off the MD, pause playback, save the session you've recorded as originaldisc1 or masterdisc1, start a new session and resume playback, and call the next session original disc2 or masterdisc2 . I do it this way myself, and drop in track markers on the MD every 75 minutes or so. If you record the full MD and chop it up later, just use the cut and paste option to cut each section onto a new window in the wav editor/recorder. You can use fades in and out to clean up the transitions from one disk to the next. I find a big wash or delay effect in a breakdown is a good spot to wrap up a disc, then you start the next disc as a fade in from the same wash/breakdown.

Okay, so yuou've mastered off a bunch of 79 min wav or mp3 files, you're ready to burn. Using nero burning rom, create a new audio CD. using the window on the right of screen, navigate up to your desktop and drag the file across to the left window. Press the burn button. Nero will re-encode wav and mp3 data as CDDA format for playback on any CD player. folow the prompts and in a short while you will have the CD ready. there'll be no track markers though, just one long track. If anyone else want to explain how to insert track markers using nero, feel free, I'm going to bed. this post is too big.