richard Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 Hi there I am trying to get hold of some cheap MD players with auto pause, for around £100 each - I need 3. sadly auto pause seems to be a difficult thing to get these days - so it all very annoying. Any thoughts? Thanks Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryson Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 Moderation: Moved To Sound & AV From Safety 10/07/03 (Hope that's ok Mr admin! <_< ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 You might find a second hand Sony MDS-JE330 (I've got one, and its great - doesnt have all the fancy features of a professional machine, but its got auto pause) If you're looking brand new, in the Sony range you'll need around £200 each - I think the MDS-JE680 is the lowest model in the range, and (according to my contact who knows) there are only two "non professional" minidisc decks with auto pause, the 680 being the cheaper of the two, which are currently in production. It also has a PS2 computer keyboard port on it, so that you can hit F1 and F3 to Play and "Skip" - a slight modification of a keyboard and you can get yourself a lovely remote control for your domestic MD player. HTH PEter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Russell Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 The lack of auto pause on domestic minidisc players is soon going to cause big problems for small theatres, even the Sony MDS-680 is now out of production (Althought there are some people who still have stocks of them).As far as I am aware the only units that list for under £700 to have a-pause are the Tascam MD-301 which list for £245(ex vat.). It may be a little more pricey than you are looking for but they share a transport with the MD-801 which are nearly £1000 each so that can't be a bad start, they come with rack mount ears, also have a PS2 that will allow a standard keyboard to take the place of the remote as well as entering titles and they have balanced XLR in and outs as well as RCA Phono. The only annoying thing that I find with my one is that the a-pause (or auto ready as they call it) feature has to be activated from the remote/Keyboard, you can't do it from the front panel.Maybe I should speak to Tascam about a job in their sales department... <_<I think Studiospares currently have them in stockHTH Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robloxley Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 For the money, the Tascam is pretty darn good - but obviously this doesn't help the original poster. What about recording silent tracks in between your existing tracks, giving you time to hit pause? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 Can I add another voice recomending the Tascam MD301 or the newer MD350, (If you phone arround you should get a few pounds knocked off the 301, Try Digital Village, Canford HHB, or anyone else, and get each to beat the quote you got previously (incedentaly I got a sound desk from £1200 down to £850 by using that method with a good half a dosen shops.....) As I said I would recomend the 301 over the sony, HOWEVER there are a couple of other faults with it As is mentioned a-pause is triggered by remote or keyboard - however on my model it remembers after it's been unpluged so set it once then forget about it. Seriously there is a mains problem, The mains lead to the front pannel switch runs scarily close to the self tapping screws that hold the rack ears on. We have had one fail - mains to body - whilst installed in a fixed bay - (and this is more serious when you consider it's a class two device - good job we had the bay well and truly earthed - better still mod it to class one. (Oh and rectifying this is realy easy, whip the top off and re-route the mains under the PCB, two seconds with a soldering iron and you are there. I WOULD RECOMEND ANYONE ELSE WITH ONE OF THESE UNITS TO CHECK THERES FOR THIS FAULT..... (sory for shouting) Just wanted to emphasise and my browser doesn't like the buttons on this page........ Secondly the outputs are strictly domestic on the XLRs ie +10dBu - stick this into any desk with a CD sent straight to MD and you are going to clip the input stage badly. Basically if you want the outputs into a propper desk - buy a couple of -10dB pads from canford and stick them in line with the outputs. Another niggle is recording onto the machine - I like a good 12dB headroom at least - but the meters don't realy go that far down with any clarity! Anyway I would still recomend it over the sony one - despite all the problems raised What I would not recomend is any of the little portable ones that you can get for < £100 now, I realy don't like 3.5mm plugs and the sockets are worse - they have loads of funny beeps when they want to and I have never had any luck reliably trying to hit the tiny little play button on time. Your budget is £300? I wouldn't recomend getting something too cheep and regretting it later, Then you have lost the £300 - If you can stretch to £400 and get vat back or whatever you might be able to get two MD301's now everyone seems to want to get rid of them in favour of selling MD350's I think they would serve you better than anything you could get for a lower price. James (sorry about the length of the post) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard Posted July 11, 2003 Author Share Posted July 11, 2003 They only get used once a year, and are likely to get trashed by the users, hence the cheap idea, all of our other 10 are the Sonys, but we are adding three new theatres this year, and as has been pointed out, Song don't make them any more. I bought one of the Technics ones mentioned above, and they are lovely, they are just a little beyond our range... I'll just have to keep persevereing!! Richard Oh - And sorry Bryson - I obviously cannot read! Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Richard - If they only get used once a year - hire them, You don't say how long for but a quick check of my local hire shop has them for only £25 for a week - how long do you need them for? Just a thought... James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Hi, Just on a vaguely related note, I have to get a personal MD recorder (one of the tiny things that James moaned about). It will be used for recording and really needs to have automatic record level. Can anyone suggest a good model to buy? Thanks, Dave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 (one of the tiny things that James moaned about). Hey dave - I didn't mean to go particularly overboard, I just remember one gig with an amateur company where three of the da*n things turned up - each one different and each one with a different way of operating and switching off their beeps and stopping them going into power off standby and cuing up tracks and advancing tracks etc. etc. etc. However I always remember richer sounds offering verry good prices on portable MD's and last time I bought one it was a sony (not available anymore) but it had nice vu meters on the LCD If you have a richer sounds store near you, you could do a lot worse than to go down and see the latest features. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 James, I wasn't getting at you - for "proper" work they're obviously well short of the mark, and I pity anyone who has to run a show using one, let alone three! I might pop to Richer Sounds or a local Sony centre. However the Sony website is woefully short of meaningful details and I doubt the shop assistants will know what a VU meter is! Thanks, Dave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Dave, you are right, I doubt any shop assistant at this level will know what you are talkinfg about but it's probably worth going to have a good look and fiddle.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 I don't know if this is a common problem with the Tascam 301 (hasn't been mentioned in this thread), but last time I used one, there was a slight pause between hitting the play button and the track actually playing. This was despite having trimmed any silence off the beginning. Although AFAIR the machines 'auto-cue'? option would automatically cue up the track to the beginning of the sound. The 801 certainly does this.Alternatively the unit I was using may have been faulty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 Hmm, I would check one of mine or works but I 'm not in til sunday - I can check then to see if your occurances are isolated events or not Though I can't remember a problem but I always use mine in auto cue mode. Oh well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun Foster Posted August 3, 2003 Share Posted August 3, 2003 You might find a second hand Sony MDS-JE330 (I've got one, and its great - doesnt have all the fancy features of a professional machine, but its got auto pause) Does auto-pause pause after every track and cue the next one? I have an MDS-JE440 (one model up from the 330) and I cant get it to do this. Is this only on the 330? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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