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SCMS elimination using your Soundcard
C.U.If you own an computer and an MD recoder (what is obvious, since you wouldn't be here) there is an easy way to eliminate the copy protection and generation bit in digital recordings. Everything you need is a soundcard with digital input and output.
July 2000
Connect the CD/MD-Player to the Optical/Coaxial digi-IN.
Connect your MD/Dat-Recorder to the digi-OUT.
Take a look at the mixer settings of your Soundcard. Digi-IN and OUT must be enabled. Adjust your Volume.
Since the digital data stream is passing through your computer, the SCMS copy protection bit is ignored. Copy away!
Digital Recording from Computer to MD without Digital Output
Todd LynchMy workaround is simple, and has a small advantage. What I do is get all of the audio that I want on MD into *.wav format (44.1k, 16 bit, stereo) and record an audio CD with my CD burner. It helps to have a program that was made to do this, like Sound Forge with the CD Architect plug-in. However, most CD burning applications will have some sort of rudimentary way of recording an audio CD in relatively the same manner. I then take the Audio CD that I just created and record it to MD via the optical digital outs on my audio system's CD player. The advantage I mention is that I now have a CD of the content, in the event that the MD is damaged, recorded over, or lost. In addition, I can use the CD for semi-critical listening at home where the small anomalies in MD would be more obvious.
October 2000
Jeremy WilkerHere's a tip when recording a playlist of MP3 songs onto your MD recorder. The trick is to make a silent 2-3 second MP3 song and insert it between every MP3 file, that will let your MD recognize a new track automatically. Just watch your playlist time (keep it just under your MD capacity - 60, 74, or 80 minutes) and then let it go! Custom MP3 mixes to go!
Martin Schiff
Here's an amendment to your MP3 Track Mark trick. Get the (free) program Unreal Player Max from www.303tek.com. It will automatically insert a delay of any number of seconds you choose between songs. I've found that 2 seconds works fine for my Sharp MD-R2 in sync mode to get it to insert a track mark. I just connect it via Toslink to my pc and create a playlist in the Unreal player, and play them.
Enno Luebbers
You can as well use WinAmp (AFAIK the most widely used MP3 player on Windows, http://www.winamp.com) to record MP3s to Minidisc. In my humble opinion, WinAmp offers more (and better) possibilities for creating playlists than the Unreal Player, and since I usually use it to listen to MP3s at home, why shouldn't I also utilise it to make custom music mixes for my portable Minidisc player?
To enable your player to automatically place track marks between the songs, you can use the WinAmp plugin "Pause Between Songs 2.3", which can insert a pause of user-defineable length between the MP3s in your playlist, so that your player's music-sync function recognizes the gaps.
Another neat feature is the Nullsoft Crossfade plugin (http://ftp.winamp.com/components/P/out_xf.exe). It automatically crossfades between the songs in your playlist, thus creating one continuous track with no disturbing gaps. You'll just have to set the track marks manually.
So, that would be all you need to create custom MP3 mixes for your Minidiscs. All you need now is a soundcard with TOSlink output... ;)