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About I got fed up with waiting for the prices of Macintosh-compatible MP3 portable players like the Diamond Rio500 to drop and the hideous amount of money one has to pay for its compact flash storage cards. After hearing for myself the fantastic quality of MP3s recorded from my Mac into my brother's MD deck, I hunted for a portable MD recorder for the sole purpose of bringing my MP3s on the road with me.
As usual, all the tutorials available on the Web were PC-centric thus this tutorial
was born. ^_^ The result of this analogue recording session would be a 74-minute
MD filled with music from your MP3 collection.
The concept here is simple. What
you are actually going to do is just recording the audio that is coming
out of your Mac into your MiniDisc. Just imagine holding a microphone connected to
a tape recorder in front of your Mac's speaker(s) and you get the idea. This is not the same as transfering files (such as MP3s) from your Mac to some storage device like the Rio MP3 player or the iPod.
With this in mind, you can also use the following method to record WAV, AIFF, WMA, RealPlayer or even OGG-Vorbis files so long as you can find a player for your respective sound file. Setup a playlist
and insert a file that plays 3 sec of silence whenever you
want to signal to your MiniDisc recorder that you want a new track inserted. This
tutorial can be applied with Apple's iTunes MP3 player as well.
I won't bore you with the silly and
technical details about recording your MP3s onto your MiniDiscs (MDs) so let's get
straight to the action!
Essential Ingredients
-------------------------
- MiniDisc recorder with MiniDisc
inserted
- a 3.5mm to 3.5mm (1/8") stereo audio cable, both ends look the same
(pictured below)
- MP3 software player like SoundJam™ MP Free, Apple iTunes,
SoundApp
or Audion
- 74 minutes worth of MP3 audio files
- A 3 sec MP3 file of silence (to separate tracks) <download>
- Your Mac :)
- Reading your MiniDisc recorder manual beforehand
The equipment
used for this tutorial are an Apple G3/233 desktop,Sharp MT-831 with SoundJam™.
Setting Up Playlist
Launch your favourite MP3 software player and create a new playlist for the sole
purpose of recording. Add your desired MP3s onto this list and arrange them in the
order that you desire. Do ensure that the playlist does not exceed 74 minutes in
play time(or whichever MD capacity you are using e.g. 80mins MD or MDLP mode).
The playlist must NOT be set
to loop, repeat or SHUFFLE in the play order.
Next insert the 3 sec MP3 file of silence between each
track/song. Doing so will tell your MD recorder that it should create a new track
on the MD during 'Synchro Recording' mode*.
Pictured below is a SoundJam™ MP Free playlist window setup for MD recording. (See also: iTunes playlist
setup)
You are able to do the above step automatically with an AppleScript for SoundJam called 'Insert Blanks' created and improved by Doug Adams. Drop by his wonderful site for cool AppleScripts for Tex-Edit, SoundJam and iTunes. (This script can only be used with SoundJam™ MP and iTunes.)
OS 9 Users: Place the script in the 'Scripts' folder found in the same fold as your SoundJam application.
On your next relaunch of SoundJam/iTunes, you can now activate Insert Blanks from the Scripts menu, easy-peasy!
OS X Users: I would recommend using 'Tracker Inserter' script by Paul Withey for Apple iTunes found on Doug Adam's AppleScript for iTunes site. Follow instructions in the ReadMe file on how to install and use script.
-
SoundJam
playlist - iTunes playlist
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