Digital Equipment

[Alexandre Enkerli]

Doug Whalen writes, on MD technology:
>compression algorithm leaves you with unknowns in the signal,
Well, AFAIK, it simply leaves less data available for some of the
processing done in acoustic analysis. It may be more important for some
types of analysis than others. I did some prelimary tests with MD
recordings in Praat and was rather pleased with the results but I'll see
what Praat-users have to say about this...

>those signals.  Since compression algorithms are typically written by
>speakers of English
Well, MD being mostly a Japanese technology (both in conception and market)
I wouldn't say this applies here. And MD is probably used as often if not
more for music as for speech.
True, the compression is based on experiments in psycho-acoustics which can
be culturally biased. But, in this case, the compression is not so much
bound to the type of signal as with, say, MP3.

>the duplication of minidiscs to later generations only compounds this
>problem with every copy
With consumer solutions. Bit-per-bit copying is possible but only with pro
models.

Now, DAT has its own problems which are especially accute in field
recordings. Not only is the medium quite fragile but the machines are not
usually very rugged. And while compression or data transfers are not issues
with DATs, analog-to-digital conversion is often more important than these.

For those of us with very limited budgets, the price difference is also
rather important. You can get a rather rugged MD recording with decent
sound for about US$100 and blank MDs for about US$1.25 each. In my case,
this was a determining issue.

On the other hand, there are several other solutions for digital
recordings. My favorite (if I had the money) would be a FireWire-equipped
digital camcorder. Or, for situations where it's possible, direct-to-disk
recording on a portable computer with a pro soundcard is probably
preferable to anything else.

I hope it doesn't sound too much as if I were preaching for MD. I recently
made the decision to go MD based on advice from different people in fields
where high-quality recordings are important but I remain suspicious of
compression. Still, I feel MD is a very good compromise for me, even for
acoustic analysis (both phonetic and musical).

Alex Enkerli
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Indiana University