What are you archiving to?

[santacore]

Did anyone else get into the mini disc craze like I did? Before CD recorders and computer recording became popular this was a great option. At the time I was getting out of vinyl and put a couple hundred of my rare LP's and singles on mini disc. Nowadays, the discs just sit. I run everything off hard disc now either from my computer or a dedicated music server. Once in a while I get the urge to spin my remaining vinyl, but that's rare since I have little kids running around. How much stuff do you guys just have sitting around that you don't play because it's in and old format? I still have hundreds of LP's and like I said at least 100+ mini discs with all this old reggae. PS-If anyone is still running mini discs give me a shout, I'd love to pass these on to others.

[ranking trevor]

hail santacore

i gotta say my daughter got me into the whole minidisk ting, and i converted couple of cd's and ting onto the minidisks i to nah use it no more, a just wma flac and mp3, now.

i have hundreds of LP's and some i-man given away over course of 40-45 years to bredrin or just lost.

But LP / CD or MP3, dont really matter too me a just the music.

Howvere LP's and tapes are a pain in the way that they require a lot of care and will ALWAYS detriorate imn sound quality and condition no matter how good you keep them as they are anologue and exposure to tings like sun and even certain teprtures can damage them.

http://playlistmag.com/features/2005/05 ... /index.php

But i see where u coming from with the minidisk stuff.

JAH LOVE

[santacore]

Respect Ranking Trevor!

You pretty much said it all. As much as I love LP's, and I do think they can sound better, I still prefer my hard disc playback. As you said LP's and cassettes loose sound quality with every playback. That's a fact. Recording engineers have known this forever. As much as they praise 2" tape for recording everyone knows the high frequency content goes down with every play. Plus there's the weight factor and instability of storage.

So I'm with you I'll stick with hard disc systems and high resolution discs. The mini discs were great for a few years but they just didn't last. Since digitizing my collection I listen to a lot more of my music. It's so great to have 1000 albums ready at the touch of a button depending on my mood. As much as I respect vinyl I have no desire to go back.

[ranking trevor]

agreed my bredrin

[callu]

Dont forget about how much of the low frequency that mp3 lose.Only vinyl can deliver that.With proper care they can stand the best of time but that also means putting them on mp3 so you dont play the heck out of them.If you can resist the temptation of hearing the lovely vinyl that is

[leggo rocker]

I still have lots of Minidiscs, and a hi-fi grade MD player, in fact I was only looking through them all this morning. I always thought they recorded vinyl with better than MP3. I'm fed up with my car CD player eating CDs so I was thinking of swapping it out and fitting a MD player in there instead.

I also still use MDs to record interviews for my job. In fact I got six interviews on MDs today at Donington World Superbikes! I favour this still over using an iPod because I like to keep ALL the interviews I've done in a PHYSICAL archive and MD is ideal. I have archived to CDR in the past only to find the CDR simply stops working after some time (CDRs are just not as permanent as people think).

The key with vinyl ownership is to own so damn much of the stuff it's almost impossible to play them more than a few times each!

Anyone who reads here regularly knows I don't favour MP3s, the sound is too harsh and the bass is usually flabby.

CD is better, but the problem with many reggae CDs is they are poorly mastered so any advantages the media has is lost (especially when, like the Jet Star re-issues, the CDs are simply recordings of dirty old vinyl!)

I know buy ALL my reggae on Vinyl, even re-issues. But just about all other music (except vintage Blues and Disco) I buy on CD.

[James]

Another reason I usually buy vinyl if the option is offered is so the labels get the idea someone still wants it. Lately I've even been finding music in other genre than Reggae on vinyl--color vinyl in many cases. Hadn't seen that in years.

Unfortunately not all the re-issues are available on vinyl, so I settle for CD--even iTunes if I'm REALLY desperate.

To get back on-topic, I digitise vinyl to AIFF then burn to CD. Then I rip the CD to 160 kbps AAC for the iPod, etc. I have a big external hard drive where I keep the AIFF files backed-up, so there's a CD and files on disk. I use MAM-A brand blank CDs, but I understand Taiyo Yuden have equivalent longevity. That all assumes proper storage, etc.

And if worse comes to worse, I can always re-digitise the vinyl.

[toucan]

I use mini disc quite a lot but mainly for home use. The great thing about them is they are difficult to damage, they come in their own cover inside a cover, and they dont jump (yet).
I do the occasional disco and have two cd players, one turntable and two minidisc players. One of these minidiscs is permanently queued up with a 'neutral' track for when both cd1 & 2 have cd's in them that jump. Also the minidisc tells you what you are about to play which can be quite useful at 3 in the morning.
The trouble with minidiscs is that they are too small and keep hiding themselves - I wouldn't even dream of using them in a car, they would find their way between the seats etc.

Santacore, do you no longer want your minidisc collection? Would love to take it off your hands
Downstairs minidisc, vinyl and cd. Upstairs hard drive and cd.

[santacore]

As others have said there are a lot of positives with mini discs. Portable, durable, and erasable. It was a good technology that just never went mainstream. Such is life. It's not always the best format that wins.

As for MP3's I never touch them. Although they have gotten better I still think they sound poor. I much prefer the lossless format such as flac. Pretty much all my stuff is either AIFF, flac, or AAC. I'm happy enough with listening to any of those.

toucan, give me a shout, I'm sure we can work something out. I've got a ton of great stuff on minidisc that should be enjoyed by someone that is actively using the format. You can e-mail me at: santacore@gmail.com

[selecta bing]

I went to Japan in 88(stayed 12 years) and started missing my vinyl soon after,
so I started buying back issue CDs of my old favs(never owned a CD before that)
Then MDs came out and I bought a CD/MD unit for home and an MD walkman for train travel (40 min each way to work)
so for me CD replaced vinyl and MD replaced BLANK cassette......
I loved it and it soon became my hobby to just make "MIX TAPE" on MD.
The greatest thing about MD is you can EDIT, so I would run good riddims together and delete tracks or delete silent sections.
(This helped me train up for selecting as a DJ later)
I still have about 2 hundred on MD.
and I still use it to test good selections for DJing

It is academic now,what with MP3 and File share,
but I feel the reason MD never took off outside of JAPAN (where it was HUGE )
was because most people had just "upgraded" to CD and did'nt want to spend more money "upgrading" to MD.
MDs were promoted as a replacement format for CD eveywhere except in Japan
where it was promoted as a replacement for BLANK cassette and CD walkman