Death of a MiniDisc Player
MiniDisc players. Remember those? My first ‘field’ recording kit consisted of a Sony MZ-R909 and a Sony ECM-MS907 microphone. Happy days! I’ve got a few old discs lying around full of random sound recordings I made back then. Shame I don’t have anything to play them on any more! One or two might have actually been worth keeping..
The Player sadly decided that it was bored of a life playing MiniDisc media, and opted for an existence of making unhealthy metallic chirping and whirring sounds instead.
Could be quite useful as a sweetener or two for designing ‘computery’ type sounds.
Anyway, feel free to download and use if you think they’d be useful. Recorded at 44.1/16.
Hi there. As the UK’s leading expert on MD units (at least that’s what I have been told), I am pretty sure the magnetic ring has come adrift from the spindle motor. It cannot ‘grab’ the disc inside the mindisc casing, which slips and makes this awful sound. You just need the spindle motor replacing. At the same time, the unit probably needs a small modification that prevents the sled motor transmission gear rubbing on the main circuit board, another source of noise and vibration.
Regards
Jim
Hi Jim,
Thanks for leaving the comment! Not sure I’ll ever get around to repairing the unit (might cost more to repair than its worth!), but it was useful to know what was wrong with it in the first place. For the time being at least it’ll just have to live it’s life as a big whirry mess
Many thanks,
Andy