Six Ways to get Music onto a Minidisc 

Thanks!

man, as a kid in the 80s-90s my Sony cassette Walkman was everything to me. I know it’s nothing compared to an iphone, but back in the day having your tapes & radio in one wherever you went was so cool. I embraced minidisc when it came along and I still use it today, even though I’m 100% up with today’s tech.

When I was a teenager in Hong Kong in the late 90s/early 2000s I used to download totally legal mp3s to my computer, rip the mp3s to an audio CDR, then transfer the CDR to MD on my dad’s home stereo system, then use said MD in my portable MD player. I had about a dozen such MD mixtapes rattling around in my backpack at any one time. Sure, it sounds like a pain in the ass now but I was a teenager obsessed with music so what else was I going to do? Study?😆 To be honest it never occurred to me to actually use the recording capabilities of the various portable MD players I had over the years. Could have saved myself a lot of time lmao

Well done mate! Top-notch video, all the editing and bother was worth it! I feel your pain!

Great video mate,very informative.Just getting into the minidisc world after picking up a Sony MzR50 on eBay recently.Could never afford one back in the day but am loving the format,great audio from such a small device!👍

I found my old MZ- NE410 mini disk player while moving recently. TY for the guide!

This is a great video for people exploring Minidiscs like me, to learn how to record on them. I heard of them as a child in the 90s but never used the format so I'm exploring them now.

So glad you made this video. I have two minidisc Walkman's with no way, I thought, of getting music onto my blank discs!

Great summary!! I got into MD around 1999, never entirely got out. Today I use either a Sony CD/MD deck to do direct record, or WMD Pro to convert wav to ATRAC using one of my NetMD portables. It’s awesome to see a resurgence of interest in the format - tons of great resources out there now- label generators, templates and some enthusiasts will even get their discs UV printed with artwork, which gives a collection a very professional and unique feel.

Brilliant video @cbitstech! Great to see sonic stage working properly. I didn’t know about the last method you used at all… looks really cool. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks for the video, very good info.

THANKS so much for the very informative content. Wow wish I experimented a bit more back in the day via PC to record. I’ve very recently rediscovered my love affair via my Sony R55 MD player on a beach holiday where I trialled a ‘NO Smartphone / Social Media’ getaway and loved it! Being a 70’s / 80’s child creating the mixed tape was fun and experimental just as I had done in 2000-2003 with Mini Discs. I now plan to ripp a few CD’S from my late 80’s / 90’s / early 00’s collection onto PC then transfer to Minidisc. I guess I better stock up on some blank discs and purchase a Net MD portable.

Oh yeah! Webmd renew my collection easily

I was an original MD user in the 90’s and recently got back into them. Encouraged by some of your earlier videos on repairing I have managed to restore 4 faulty devices to working order. Regarding optical out - a lot of older MacBook Pro laptops output optical from their headphone socket. Not clearly documented but tested by myself on a 2012 model and works a treat. Regarding Net Md , I restored a sharp net md recorder but the USB connection on the device is proprietary and I can’t for the life of me find a cable that fits .

Thanks for this video. I’m going to get the Sony Walkman MZ-S1 and I’m researching how to put music on it.

I bought like about 16 years ago at a hamfest (amateur radio flea market) a portable Sony MZ-R500 MD Walkman recorder. I got it cheap. Not a NetMD version. Maybe $20, but I don't remember. That included a recorded Gleen Miller MD minidisc. I'm just starting to use it again. It has one input for regular line input or digital optical input. I use the SPDIF output from my other PC. Both of my PCs have Linux on them. The digital input of the Sony takes the skinny male input end with the red light from the optical digital cable. I use the SYNC function for the digital connection and recording. That way it records digitally only when something with volume is output to the Walkman. It pauses if the sound level goes out or low until sound comes again and automatically records. Unless I give it about two seconds of no sound, it will skip marks between tracks or make too many marks between tracks if sound waits too long. I do have to later manually mark or unmark marks between tracks some. I use the normal speed for 80 minutes of best recording. I don't bother with the LP2 or LP4 speeds. It does sound pretty good. A MD stand alone home recorder would be more convenient to use, especially with the small menu on the portable, but the home units cost more than CD recorders still.

Well explained 👍🏼

Nice video!!!

Great guide, thanks a lot

Nice video! I have SonicStage 4.3 running on Windows 11 with 64bit netMD driver. It's a litttle bit tricky to install the driver, but Howto of installing it on Windows 11 can be easily found.

If you use a split headphone/optical jack, you can record from your phone if it has one. Just put optical out in headphone socket, play from say Apple Music n hit record. You don’t get any titles but it does work

Brilliant 👍

Can you specify the optical cable type used

will the second one work with any other cd player i got a cd 916 cd player anti skip

I'm kinda going through all the 90s and 2000s tech I wanted but never could afford. Right now I have a HP Ultrium LTO-4 fibre channel tape drive in my desktop and a external SCSI 1gb Jaz drive and I'm thinking about getting a minidisc player.

i like your video. the problem i'm having is that the minidisc player is not showing up for me to transfer music to. the minidisc player shows that its hooked up and so does my computer.do you have any ideas? i can't seem to find the driver

Very nice sir. So in my opinion Web version is the more affordable to make a "MIX TAPE" minidisc? Thanks and greetings from Seoul- Korea

Hi again, thanks for your response and time. I've just bought two sony minidisc players on eBay and a Optimus cd player with an out line socket to transfer music to the mini disc player. Is it possible to transfer music from a phone from RU-vid or spotify to a blank mini disc please?

Hi, can you connect a mini disc player to a personal cd player through the headphones jack connection please?

Hey, Wonder can I connect my minidsc deck recorder to my laptop via hdmi ? I want to recrd that way. Minidisc web pro works for portables but those discs dont work in the deck.

If the cd player hasn’t got an output connector and I will use a phone jack is avls going to help or I still need to adjust the volume manually? Thanks

Wonder if anyones found a way of getting video on to a minidisc then played back via optical with some sort of pulse converter?

Hello, I've just found your channel and I hope you have the time to read my comment! I am a big jazz fan and back in the ninety's I loved nothing more than taking my portable cassette tape recorder around London jazz pubs and clubs, and secretly record the jazz sessions, which was difficult because the machine was quite large and hard to conceal. Then the minidisc player/recorder appeared and things became much more easy to conceal it in an inside pocket, with a tiny mike pinned to my jacket lapel. Fast Forward to today, and I find myself with over a hundred unique minidisc recordings. I have two working minidisc decks, and five non-working portable recorders. My question to you is, is there a way I can transfer from minidisc to my computer, in the form of computer files (mp3s) or similar? Hoping you can help, regards, John, (aged 86)

Hi Cbits Tech there's an issue with web mini disc pro right now I think they're having technical issues do you know what that's about? I can't seem to connect right now

Does anybody knows how to delete the native drivers from a Sony HiMi idisc player in order to install the new from Zadig?? I am triyng anything, but of course the installation always fails because the native drivers must be deleted. I have genuinely no clue!

Can DCC music tapes be transferred to Mini Discs?

Thanks for putting this video together. Have you done any research on how to get the music OFF of the discs and back onto a PC?

For web mini disc pro does it have to be a WAV file? Or can it use Mp3 files and convert it to atrac?

Excellent guide! Im just having an issue with webminidisc pro: Ive installed the drivers into the aiwa player, and when connet to the web application, a disclaimer pop up: YOUR DISC IS WRITE PROTECTED: "PLEASE SLIDE THE TOGGLE AND INSERT IT AGAIN". but the disc is not in writing protected mode, so I dont get it. Anybody here with same issue? Ive tried with two different player and different discs, always the same. Thanks

Excellent, informative video shame about Firefox as it’s my go to browser

Do you know if a USB DAC audio converter used on a PC would produce the same high quality sound that I used to get from a HI-FI/PlayStation optical out to my Sony Minidisc player or is the quality going to be reduced because it's USB? I don't have any optical outs anymore so I am trying to get optical from either a PC or a mobile phone but again I don't know if doing it this way, if possible would ruin the sound. I randomly came across a USB C to SPDIF on Amazon which I didn't think existed so I'm hoping I can get sound from my Android Phone but I haven't seen anyone do this. Have you tried either of these methods to transfer music? I'm glad I came across your channel because I did not think my 2001 Sony Minidisc player could have Bluetooth so thank you, I will be ordering an adapter as soon as I figure out a good optical source from a PC or mobile phone. Any help you could give me would be much appreciated.

can you record on mini disk net player from Itunes ???? thanks in advance

Please answer, i have MZ-R410 and this device doesnt have any NetMD, so is it impossible to transfer music into minidisc? or is there any other ways

Before add track or recoding on MD you put in a disk or not??

I have the MZ-NE410. Am I able to install music to a disc on this device?

Nhi, transfer from cd player to mini disc player... Did you use a 3.5 to 3.5mm headphones jack cable to connect?

Is there a difference in sound quality using web md pro vs netmd wizzard?

Oof why did i get a player without netmd or even CD to MD... Helpful video though thank you

I prefer using a deck. But any device capable of recording is good.

Ble to tv hdmi. Tv to md optical.

i don't see the use of recording a cd to a minidisc. i just rip the cd and play the file on an mp3 player. i used to record from a portable cassette player to my computer through a cable using a program called audio cleaning lab on my computer. the only problem is that the cd sounds like a cassette. that also worked with a vinyl album through my stereo. i have vinyl, 8track and casette, but i never got into minidisc. now all that i listen to is mp3s.

How comes that most of sony cd players hasn’t got a line out connector?

Good video, thanks. Just a basic question. I realise that recording with Line In is analogue so wont include song info, but what if I record from a CD deck to a MD using an optical cable - will it include the song info?

For albums, always use Type-R and SP mode. For Mixtapes, LP2, but Don't use LP4 for anything other than Audible.

what about a mac computer ?????????????????

Hey cbits tech I'm Paul I live in Canada , in B.C. but I was watching this video of how to get recording on web minidisc. Could you help me install a driver on my laptop? I have an extra laptop I'm silling to take the leap down the rabbit hole and try to get this style resurrected in my life so I can enjoy the ND players again. Please let me know if you can help, 🎉🎉🎉🎉

Great video 👍👍 I WAS TRYING TO RECORD FROM A BLU RAY PLAYER TO MD VIA OPTICAL CABLE....AND WAS TRYING TO RECORD A BLU RAY PURE AUDIO....BUT AS I TRY TO RECORD THE MD WON'T ALLOW IT..... SAYING COPYRIGHT.... ANYWAY TO OVER COME THIS?? Thanks

gold plated optical cable 😭