James McFadyen said:I must admit, more and more Brass Banders are using Mini Disc Recorders.
And although my recording training and experience has been quite extensive, I would recommend Mini Disc recorders for the average musician. The quality is subjective, but to be completely honest, it isn't good enough for commercial release on CD.
If your ears are trained you'll probably be able to tell the difference between MD and CD.
mp3 compression is different from that of MD; the high frequencies go haywire and the noisefloor tends to get risen up (because it uses compression and alot of it!). But will be good enough for any amateur recording.
You may prefer the sound of MD, but James is right CD quality is better. Basically the quality ranges from CD as the highest thru MD then down to MP3 as the lowest. If you're not hearing the full range on CD then I'd be looking to get better equipment. Without wanting to get into too technical a discussion it's basically down to two factors - sample rate and frequency clipping. CD is sampled at a high rate with minimal frequency clipping, hence the reason you can only fit maybe 12 to 15 tracks on a CD. ATRAC (MD) and MP3 are sampled at a much lower rate and employs clipping of the very high frequencies which humans cannot hear meaning that it cuts out a lot of the bandwidth, resulting in a much smaller size for the track. The high frequencies clipped off do however add to the overall tonal quality of the recording meaning that the resultant track sometimes sounds less "bright". Sony, the developers of MD, have some nifty algorithms in the software for recalculating some of the lost noise at playback time which is why it sounds much better than MP3. Some styles of music get away with it better than others.bagpuss said:And yet I prefer the sound of MD to the sound of CD, I find the clarity better and the dynamic range better too. It is much easier to hear the full range of sounds on a MD than a CD
Because they're cheap and easy. If you've ever visited an online store selling MP3 and wondered why they're so cheap, part of it is to do with the quality of the product. No professional or serious amatuer I know regards MP3 as a quality medium. It is useful in it's own right and I do use it a lot myself mainly due to the fact that I can squeeze tons of tracks on a memory card and not have to carry a CD wallet about with me.bagpuss said:So can you tell me why so many MP3's are going about at the moment, if they are only good enough for the amateur???
bagpuss said:So can you tell me why so many MP3's are going about at the moment, if they are only good enough for the amateur???