Any mini disc users?

Tommy Mark · Post by **Tommy Mark** » 12 Jan 2001 7:20 pm

I am considering purchasing a new recorder- specificaly a Yamaha MD8. I was wondering if any of you folks have worked with one of these units.What are the pros and cons?Any input would be appreciated. Thanks. Tom

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Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 12 Jan 2001 7:58 pm

Great unit... I've had one for about a year and a half. The mixer is familiar and easy to use. The sound quality is excellent. The Data discs are fairly expensive, about $12 to $15 each, and you can get about 18 minutes of 8 track material or 36 minutes of 4 track material on each disc.

I did have a problem with it just after I bought it, however. It was flashing "error" messages and would not record properly, so I had to box it up and have the dealer send it back to Yamaha for repairs. The dealer gave me a loaner, and my recorder came back about 4 weeks later, and it has worked excellent since then. I have hundreds of hours on it. Mine is one of the early ones, so maybe they've had time to work the bugs out!

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www.dougbsteel.com

Dan Dowd · Post by **Dan Dowd** » 13 Jan 2001 7:23 am

Tommy, I have been using my MD8 for aprox 2 yrs. Six months ago I had to send it back to the factory because of an error message and not being able to open the mini disk door to remove the disk. It cost me $170 to get it repaired as the tech said the drive was bad. The normal cost for the drive he told me was aroung $500. They might have been having problems with the earlier units which is why the lower repair cost on mine. It was out of warranty by a few months. Other than that it works great and sync's in with my MIDI equipment(Cakewalk etc). I think it has great features and the mixer section is easy to use and I can not hear any noise or hum when mixing down to CD's. You might want to check out some hard drive or CD recorders as the mini disks for this unit get expensive. Musicians Friend has some new units in their catalog. <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Dan Dowd on 13 January 2001 at 07:24 AM.]</p></FONT>

John Lacey · Post by **John Lacey** » 13 Jan 2001 9:37 am

I rented the MD8 for a month or two, but decided to take the plunge and buy a Roland VS-1680 hard disk recorder. It's almost apples and oranges comparing them but what a difference in flexibility and editing. If I were going for an 8 tracker, I'd consider the VS880 with a zip drive to archive tunes.

Tommy Mark · Post by **Tommy Mark** » 14 Jan 2001 12:30 pm

Thanks for the input. John -What is the learning curve like on the Roland units? The manual for them is almost in a differnt language to me.Doug- I talked with a couple of other guys who had the same problem.I wonder if this is a common thing with these recorders.The reason I like this unit was the ease of use,and the fact that it had real knobs and such. And the price is right.Dan-The cost of the discs does concern me.Are the disc readily available at Radio Shack type of stores?

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