Woody said:
"RJH" wrote in message
news
I'd like to digitise a couple of LPs, and have the facility to do a
few more as and when. I'm looking to get a standalone unit as
lashing up the computer is inconvenient, plus I like the idea of
having the tracks on the device or portable media like an SD card.

Any recommendations please? I was thinking of maybe up to £200 new
or secondhand. This looks to be OK, but does more than I need:

http://www.solidstatesound.co.uk/tascam_sd-20m.htm

Have a dig on eBay for a hi-fi type Sony minidisc recorder. Record you
disk, then take the recorder to your PC and record it using something
like Audacity.

Minidisc ? It'd still need digitising, no ?

If we're talking 2ndhand from ebay, I'd say a Zoom pocket recorder's a
better idea. I've had a Zoom H2 for a few years now, and it works well
(it's the nicest pocket recorder I've ever had) - choice of formats, from
lowgrade pm3 to better-then-CD wav, plus it records onto SD as the OP said.
And should be well within that price range.

Not a great interface for playing them back, mind, if that's the idea. And
if you wanted separate tracks you'd need to either punch the buttons in real
time or do the inconvenient lashing-up-the-computer thing to split them out.
But I'm not sure there's a way round that. [ being Wrong On Usenet is a very
good way of finding things out ]. It'd be a convenient way of getting vinyl
onto an SD card if you didn't want to fire up a computer. There might be
better devices for playing it back.


--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem

My email address is at http://qualmograph.org.uk/contact.html

In article ,
Richard Robinson wrote:
Have a dig on eBay for a hi-fi type Sony minidisc recorder. Record you
disk, then take the recorder to your PC and record it using something
like Audacity.

Minidisc ? It'd still need digitising, no ?

MiniDisc is digital. Some have digital out so could transfer to the
computer in the digital domain if you have a soundcard which accepts this.
But the data compression system MiniDisc uses is rather old and may not be
the best.

--
*DOES THE LITTLE MERMAID WEAR AN ALGEBRA?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes:

In article ,
Richard Robinson wrote:
Have a dig on eBay for a hi-fi type Sony minidisc recorder. Record you
disk, then take the recorder to your PC and record it using something
like Audacity.

Minidisc ? It'd still need digitising, no ?

MiniDisc is digital. Some have digital out so could transfer to the
computer in the digital domain if you have a soundcard which accepts this.
But the data compression system MiniDisc uses is rather old and may not be
the best.

Weren't all the UK Minidisc recorders (and possibly EU ones too)
restricted to not having digital out? I looked for one to transfer
some live recordings of my band from and couldn't find one.

--
Mike Fleming

In article ,
Mike Fleming wrote:
In article , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes:

In article ,
Richard Robinson wrote:
Have a dig on eBay for a hi-fi type Sony minidisc recorder. Record
you disk, then take the recorder to your PC and record it using
something like Audacity.

Minidisc ? It'd still need digitising, no ?

MiniDisc is digital. Some have digital out so could transfer to the
computer in the digital domain if you have a soundcard which accepts
this. But the data compression system MiniDisc uses is rather old and
may not be the best.

Weren't all the UK Minidisc recorders (and possibly EU ones too)
restricted to not having digital out? I looked for one to transfer some
live recordings of my band from and couldn't find one.

Dunno them all. I've certainly seen toslink out on them. But MiniDisc was
only ever designed as a domestic format - never as a mastering one.
Although it did find uses in broadcast, as rather better than things like
NAB carts.

--
*Procrastinate now

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...

But MiniDisc was
only ever designed as a domestic format - never as a mastering one.


Why on earth would anyone want to master to Minidisc:-)))


Although it did find uses in broadcast, as rather better than things like
NAB carts.

They were ubiquitous in radio. I still have a Denon DN M991R
"professional" minidisc recorder, (a very impressivge and well built
machine with balanced analogue in and out on XLRs and AES/EBU
in and out also. It has a hard wired remote and a conector
for keyboard) It was consigned long ago to the glass
cabinet together with the 2" editing block and Chinagraph pencil.

http://erecycleronline.com/audio-vid...-is-57592.html

Comparison with even a 38cm/s tape master showed the
mindisc format to be rather dull and lifeless. lacking in lustre,
- high woodwinds, cymbals, and strings in particular.

Iain

On 02/06/2017 20:51, Richard Robinson wrote:
Woody said:
"RJH" wrote in message
news
I'd like to digitise a couple of LPs, and have the facility to do a
few more as and when. I'm looking to get a standalone unit as
lashing up the computer is inconvenient, plus I like the idea of
having the tracks on the device or portable media like an SD card.

Any recommendations please? I was thinking of maybe up to £200 new
or secondhand. This looks to be OK, but does more than I need:

http://www.solidstatesound.co.uk/tascam_sd-20m.htm

Have a dig on eBay for a hi-fi type Sony minidisc recorder. Record you
disk, then take the recorder to your PC and record it using something
like Audacity.

Minidisc ? It'd still need digitising, no ?

If we're talking 2ndhand from ebay, I'd say a Zoom pocket recorder's a
better idea. I've had a Zoom H2 for a few years now, and it works well
(it's the nicest pocket recorder I've ever had) - choice of formats, from
lowgrade pm3 to better-then-CD wav, plus it records onto SD as the OP said.
And should be well within that price range.


I had thought of a portable. I would be looking to get as good a
recording as possible - so would need to be sure that the A-D conversion
was as good as can be.

Not a great interface for playing them back, mind, if that's the idea. And
if you wanted separate tracks you'd need to either punch the buttons in real
time or do the inconvenient lashing-up-the-computer thing to split them out.
But I'm not sure there's a way round that. [ being Wrong On Usenet is a very
good way of finding things out ]. It'd be a convenient way of getting vinyl
onto an SD card if you didn't want to fire up a computer. There might be
better devices for playing it back.


Playing back would not be the main use, and I'd edit the files on a
desktop computer.


--
Cheers, Rob

RJH said:
On 02/06/2017 20:51, Richard Robinson wrote:
Woody said:
"RJH" wrote in message
news I'd like to digitise a couple of LPs, and have the facility to do a
few more as and when. I'm looking to get a standalone unit as
lashing up the computer is inconvenient, plus I like the idea of
having the tracks on the device or portable media like an SD card.

Any recommendations please? I was thinking of maybe up to £200 new
or secondhand. This looks to be OK, but does more than I need:

http://www.solidstatesound.co.uk/tascam_sd-20m.htm

Have a dig on eBay for a hi-fi type Sony minidisc recorder. Record you
disk, then take the recorder to your PC and record it using something
like Audacity.

Minidisc ? It'd still need digitising, no ?

If we're talking 2ndhand from ebay, I'd say a Zoom pocket recorder's a
better idea. I've had a Zoom H2 for a few years now, and it works well
(it's the nicest pocket recorder I've ever had) - choice of formats, from
lowgrade pm3 to better-then-CD wav, plus it records onto SD as the OP said.
And should be well within that price range.


I had thought of a portable. I would be looking to get as good a
recording as possible - so would need to be sure that the A-D conversion
was as good as can be.

Not a great interface for playing them back, mind, if that's the idea. And
if you wanted separate tracks you'd need to either punch the buttons in real
time or do the inconvenient lashing-up-the-computer thing to split them out.
But I'm not sure there's a way round that. [ being Wrong On Usenet is a very
good way of finding things out ]. It'd be a convenient way of getting vinyl
onto an SD card if you didn't want to fire up a computer. There might be
better devices for playing it back.


Playing back would not be the main use, and I'd edit the files on a
desktop computer.

That was how I digitised my vinyl - play into the zoom h2, then USB the
resulting file into the computer to tidy up; because I had one already for
other purposes and I reckoned a dedicated sound gadget would probably have a
better ADC than a generic computer. But it may not have absolutely the best
ADC that's available, I don't really know how to read the specs or rate
them. (These 64yo ears are content with the result, that's all I can say)


--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem

My email address is at http://qualmograph.org.uk/contact.html

In article ,
says...
Minidisc ? It'd still need digitising, no ?

Only if you're using one of the early analogue MD recorders:-)

On the Sony MD recorders I've used, ejecting the disc and pressing
record puts the machine into what Sony refers to as "Monitor mode";
The analogue input is digitised and a straight copy of this stream
(which has not undergone any data reduction processing) is available
from the digital outputs and a decoded version of this is available at
the analogue outputs.
Plus, of course the MD recorder will decode signals input via the
Digital connections and output them via analogue.

£30 or thereabouts will buy one with a faulty disc mechanism and or
lost remote ETC on eBay.
Not bad for a pretty fair combined ADC and DAC.

In article ,
UnsteadyKen wrote:
On the Sony MD recorders I've used, ejecting the disc and pressing
record puts the machine into what Sony refers to as "Monitor mode";
The analogue input is digitised and a straight copy of this stream
(which has not undergone any data reduction processing) is available
from the digital outputs and a decoded version of this is available at
the analogue outputs.
Plus, of course the MD recorder will decode signals input via the
Digital connections and output them via analogue.

£30 or thereabouts will buy one with a faulty disc mechanism and or
lost remote ETC on eBay.
Not bad for a pretty fair combined ADC and DAC.

Yup - I used one for some time to convert the toslink feed from my TV to
analogue for the external sound system. Mainly because the usual toslink
to analogue convertors didn't produce a high enough audio level signal.

--
*If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest have to drown too?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

UnsteadyKen said:
In article ,
says...
Minidisc ? It'd still need digitising, no ?

Only if you're using one of the early analogue MD recorders:-)

Ah, okay. I was :-) Then that + lossy compression led me to jump ship in
favour of something lossless that spoke USB, so I lost touch & hadn't been
aware of their later development.


--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem

My email address is at http://qualmograph.org.uk/contact.html