MiniDisc, maxi-sound

>> Step aside MP3, Sony's MiniDisc gives you music to go

By MICHAEL CITROME

MP3 is revolutionary--it's made the latest Moby single available to every teenage keyboard jockey the world over, for free. MP3 may do more to globalize pop music than MTV ever will. Plus, it gave the record companies the first threat that they couldn't neutralize with a pack of lawyers. Unfortunately, as soon as you try to get MP3 off your computer, the sheen of brilliance fades a little.

Portable MP3 players haven't come very far since they hit the market a few years ago. Sure, instead of half an hour of music, you can now get an entire hour, but they're stupidly expensive and are better at impressing nerds than providing music on the metro.

Your other options seem pretty basic: be old school and plug a tape deck into your PC, or get a CD Writer and burn a disc every time you make a mix.

Take note, though, because amongst the savvy there exists another option, and it goes by the moniker of MiniDisc.

Portable prodigy

The MiniDisc format was created by Sony in one of those incredible feats of engineering prowess that creates a great product with no real reason for its own existence. At first nobody knew what to do with MiniDisc--it was weird and exotic. The sound was CD quality, but it was recordable like a tape. Sony's attempts to compete with CD and sell albums on MiniDisc were a profound failure; nobody wanted to switch to a new and unproven format with no clear advantages over the old one. Affordable portable MD recorders were still a few years away, so MD became the prodigy at the back of the class, full of potential but unable to apply itself.

Sony rethought its strategy and began marketing MD as a portable digital recorder. Sales took off in Europe and Asia, where MD is phenomenally popular, but for some reason failed to make waves in North America. Until MP3 hit the scene, that is, and finally MiniDisc had a mission.

It takes guts

Techwise, MiniDisc and MP3 have a lot in common. They both use compressed audio, which means they take normal audio and make it smaller by leaving out bits that are redundant or can't be heard. MP3 uses a method called MPEG, which is mainly used in video and MiniDisc uses ATRAC, a system developed by Sony specifically for music. Compression, in part, is how 74 minutes of audio get squeezed onto a 7cm disc. ATRAC has changed over the years, as each new generation of MD decks use newer versions. At this point ATRAC has evolved to the point where it has higher sound quality than CD. So if you want to take your vinyl with you, MD can make it sound better than anything else can.

DJ's choice

That's why DJs have been quick to realize the utility of MD. Local drum & bass DJ/producer SaseOne has been using MiniDisc since he got his deck a little before the new year. According to him, the advantages of MiniDisc are voluminous.

"CD-quality sound, digital recording, it won't go stale like cassette or DAT," Sase explains. "It's portable DAT quality sound, the perfect thing for recording a live set. I archive everything on MiniDisc now."

MiniDiscs have also become the new standard for field recording, with the sound quality of DAT at a fraction of the cost. At its core, MiniDisc is digital recording, so it can take the digital output of your soundcard and put it on disc with no distortion and no loss of quality. It's also re-recordable and easily editable. You can cut tracks into little pieces, change their order and even insert a new track right in the middle of a mix. With two buttons you can accomplish more than an afternoon with a pile of reel-to-reel tape, scissors and splicer.

The fact that MD was developed for recording, and not just playback, is part of why it's so much more versatile than portable MP3 players. To put things into simple Star Wars terms, a MD Recorder is R2D2, bristling with gadgets and special capabilities, and your MP3 portable is Gonk, the trashcan droid whose main function is whistling wildly and getting turned upside down.

Money talks

If MiniDisc's sonic superiority and inherent freshness haven't left you convinced, consider the price advantage over MP3 portables. The Samsung Yepp, a popular mid-priced MP3 player, sells for $251 for the 32 Meg model (or $341 for 64 Megs if you want an entire hour of music). A nice portable MD recorder from Sony or Sharp sells for less than $300, and you can use it with your vinyl too.

Of course, the big advantage comes in the $4 blank MiniDiscs, which hold 74 minutes of audio each, which means you can fill your pockets with about 30 hours of music for about the price of half an hour's worth of MP3 player memory, then erase it all and start again. zxyxzxx

Catch SaseOne, MiniDisc and all, at Angel's (3604 St-Laurent) Thursdays for the rudest drum & bass in the city

A QUICK AND DIRTY GUIDE TO MP3 TO MINIDISC DIGITAL RECORDING
1) Have a PC running Windows or Linux. Mac users can still record their MP3s onto MiniDisc but not digitally--Apple still hasn't built digital audio outs into their computers, although USB digital audio systems are becoming available.

2) Get a sound card with an optical digital out. You can tell if your soundcard has one by the presence of a little square black connector next to the normal headphone jacks. Many recent computers have one built in, but if you don't, try the Guillemot Fortissimo. It's an excellent all-around card and sells for less than $80.

3) Take the optical cable that came with your MD Recorder and plug the square end into your sound card. You should notice a little red light coming out of the other end. That means it's working. Shine it in your eye for fun, it's harmless.

4) Make a playlist in your MP3 player of choice, separating each song with a blank 4-second wave file. Why? Because the blank space tells your MD Recorder to skip a track with no effort on your part. It's easy to create a 4-second space and you can download one from many of the MD sites listed on Yahoo!

5) Plug the other end of your optical cable into your MD Recorder. Set it to synch record and let the digital magic happen.

Congratulations, you have just made your first MD mix, with no switching of CDs or recording stuff to your hard drive. If you get sick of the track order you can switch them around, or erase "500 Miles" after you can't stand it for the third time. zxyxzxx --M.C.

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