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I'm using mini disk at the moment when i go out playing with the duo, its a bit of a pain to keep hooking it up to the daw to record tracks.......So i'm pondering on the idea of buying a dedicated rack mount mp3 player, if i use a high bitrate to convert the files how much quality loss are we going to take or will it not be noticable?
Any thoughts....
Rob

I believe the bitrate of a standard play MiniDisc track is about 292Kb/s, not sure thats the correct KB term though. I record all my backing tracks onto MP3 at 192, which I find is adequate. The next generally bitrate up is 320 from the MiniDisc bitrate, which you might be more happy with.

I also use an Ipod Nano for my tracks when out live. I'm a bit of less is best when it comes to gear, my solo gigging gear fits into a 2 seater!! One speaker does go on the passenger seat though!!

The Minidisc uses Sony's ATRAC own compression process (also used for the movie sound SDDS system). Difficult to say which is better for the same bit rate, as all MP3 codecs are not equal.

Didier

I have a Sony RH1 minidisc recorder which records in PCM lossless format, which can be uploaded to a PC via USB and Sony's software, and saved to wav. Using a 1Gb data disc, the RH1 will record 95 minutes of lossless music - great for recording live gigs as well.

There are various other attrac formats of course, I sometimes use LP1 for a recording longer than 95 minutes - you can see the difference in Adobe Audition, but to my ears there is no difference

Slightly off topic. I use a stack/rack size sony minidisc player for solo, duo and trio perfomances with my own backing tracks on. The player has a feature / setting to automatically pause at the end of each track and display the name of the next track, ready to hit the start button. This is a most useful feature as you progress through the set list. If there is any other product out there that can perform the same function but much smaller I would be pleased to hear about it.


Roger

This is the unit i was looking at, i believe it will play a track and then pause at the next track, i think you could add a footswitch across the pause control to make it foot operated.
http://www.electromusic.co.uk/American- ... rator.html

Thanks for all the info, i did try a little micro sized mp3 player and encoded an mp3 at different bit levels and then compared the 2 recordings, the higher bit rate really gives a cleaner sound to my ears.
Thanks
Rob

Hi Rob

Have a look at the cortex range of media players, i use both the hdc1000 and the hdc3000 for work and have no problems both units are twin players and will read mp3 or wav from memory flash sticks or from an external Hard drive. They do a single unit i think it's the hdc500. Plus build quality is excellent also cortex are very helpful on the phone.

Hope this helps
Dave

rocky wrote:The player has a feature / setting to automatically pause at the end of each track and display the name of the next track, ready to hit the start button. This is a most useful feature as you progress through the set list. If there is any other product out there that can perform the same function but much smaller I would be pleased to hear about it.

When I first wanted to scale down from a MiniDisc that was my exact worry, because you can not do without autopause on a live situation. My setlist looks like this on my iPod Nano:
Song Name
.........
Song Name
.........
Song Name
.........

The ......... is actually a 5 minute silent track, which in theory acts like an autopause. The benefit of this over using iPod over minidisc player is that you can cue up a track mid song. I had to previously use 2 minidisc players in rack because sometimes any pause in a performance (especially the slowies) caused people to sit down.

We,ve been using the American Audio Player for some time now at our club.Its easy to operate the screen is bigger than that of a Mini Disc player.
theres no obvious difference in sound quality. We have a 4gig sandisc which carries all our backing tracks
At the moment we use 45 folders = 45 Cds or Minidiscs on a 4 gig disc.
It also has a USB port for flash drives, which can be used independantly, it can be set up to stop after each tune.
Cheers Tommy

Its that big display i need too, and a new set of glasses
Rob