A/V Recording to MiniDisc from an optical connection

[BLC]

Hello all

I'm not really sure whether this is a hardware or software thing, so I'm not really sure where to stick this thread...

I'm trying to figure out how to get an optical output on my PC to send track marks to a MiniDisc recorder (yes, I still use one). If I hook up my MD recorder to my amplifier's optical DAT output, then track marks are automatically sent out by the CD deck - tracks recorded to the MD end at precisely the same time they do on the CD. However if I use the optical output on my Behringer UCA202 USB audio interface, then track marks are not sent - I end up with a single 2-hour track, with no breaks, even though I've actually played 20/30 different songs.

Everything I've found on the web on the subject talks about analogue recording. Most solutions involve automatically putting a 4-second gap between tracks to force the MD recorder to start recording to a new track. This works for optical recording, but I don't want that: that 4-second gap is recorded and you end up with silence between tracks. For songs that "flow" into one another, such as Parabol/Parabola by Tool, that totally spoils the experience. If you haven't listened to Parabol/Parabola by the way, do it; the transition between the two songs is utterly awesome. Even for songs without that sort of transition, it's pretty annoying.

I do have a NetMD player, which means I can send music to it over a USB cable like an iPod, but I don't really trust the SonicStage software. It's horribly out of date, utterly awful to try and use, requires many work arounds to get it working in even 32-bit Win7, and there are reports that it always uses the lowest quality conversion rates - even when you tell it not to. I have not been able to find alternatives to SonicStage - they just don't seem to exist. I've found an optimised version that works under Win7 64-bit, but it's still an awkward and cumbersome pile of crap - and potentially still doesn't use the proper conversion rates.

So. Is this a hardware or software limitation? Is there a media/audio application available which automatically sends out track marks over an optical output? If it's a feature specific to ASIO applications then I shouldn't have an issue - the UCA202 supports ASIO. Or, is this a limitation in the hardware? If it's a hardware limitation, do I need a specific application to do this or will any old media player work with compatible hardware? From what I understand of the way sound drivers work under Windows, you have two choices: standard built-in drivers (WDM, I believe) or ASIO. Therefore I would assume that - if this is possible - then it would be something specific to ASIO and I should be able to do it with the right application.

I'm lost!

[Deders]

I use Sonicstage with my NW A3000 and although it's not the best piece of software, it does work fine on on any system I've seen it on. do you have version 4.3?

[BLC]

Originally Posted by Deders

I use Sonicstage with my NW A3000 and although it's not the best piece of software, it does work fine on on any system I've seen it on. do you have version 4.3?

I do indeed; I actually use the tweaked version I mentioned, SonicStage 4.3 "Ultimate" edition. However...

It often messes up the track order when importing
The CDDB/metadata scraping often gets it badly wrong, making it a nightmare to fix
It doesn't support FLAC import
There are suggestions that always converts to LP4 (lowest quality), regardless of what setting you actually select (can't find the link for that, but I'm positive I've read it...)

It does work, but I find it very awkward to use. Especially when you have to import all your music to it's own library, which it badly screws up, before you can transfer music to whatever portable device. All I really use it for is to name tracks/groups/discs that I've recorded from CD.

I don't mind recording in real-time; I'd much rather be able to record from FLAC to MD via optical out on the PC - with automatic track marks. The alternative is to convert the FLAC to WAV, then burn to CD, then record with my stereo; or, convert from FLAC to WAV, import the WAV into SonicStage, spend ages fixing the metadata/track order, convert to ATRAC (with the risk of it using the lowest quality), *then* transfer to MD.

[Deders]

I would have thought the latter was quicker as you don't have to wait for the album to play through.

Doesn't Gracenote help sort all the Metadata out automatically? The only thing I ever need to change manually after using that is the genre and that is only so it accurately matches the rest of my MP3 database. Track listings are usually fine.

You could always experiment with an album to see if it takes up the same amount of space or sounds any different when automatically converted or manually.

[BLC]

Originally Posted by Deders

I would have thought the latter was quicker as you don't have to wait for the album to play through.

Doesn't Gracenote help sort all the Metadata out automatically? The only thing I ever need to change manually after using that is the genre and that is only so it accurately matches the rest of my MP3 database. Track listings are usually fine.

You could always experiment with an album to see if it takes up the same amount of space or sounds any different when automatically converted or manually.

I'm not worried about how long it takes, to be honest. I'm only using my MD for those really great albums, so I don't mind listening to it while it records. For everything else, I've got Spotify on my phone.

Metadata is looked up automatically, but it usually gets it wrong. I've ripped pretty much most of my CD library to FLAC, and subsequently stored the CDs away - plus there's lots of music I've bought online which is in lossless format. Because SonicStage doesn't like lossless codecs, I have to convert them to WAV. Therefore, the metadata lookup only has the track name to go on; because some tracks appear on more than one album, it frequently gets the wrong album...and messing everything up .

And I managed to find the link I mentioned - http://www.audiotstation.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=35589. Got it slightly wrong, actually - it's SP mode (highest quality) that Sonic Stage does not use (even though it says it does). LP2 seems to be fine. Which is still an issue however, as I do use SP mode for some recordings.

[Deders]

Hmm, I use DB Poweramp if I ever want to convert to wav from Flac (or even to MP3 as it has Lame VBR which imho the best MP3 codec).

If I convert a Flac to Wav it keeps all the metadata in. I'll usually only do this if the album has a secret track at the end or something that doesn't have it's own track number.

I'll use Soundforge to manually split the track and cut out any lengthy silence. After saving both the tracks, the original, now shorter file still retains all the meta information, on the other hand I need to enter it manually for the new final track.

Perhaps there is another program you can get for free that preserves this data when it converts to Wav.

[BLC]

Originally Posted by Deders

Perhaps there is another program you can get for free that preserves this data when it converts to Wav.

It'd be easier if I could find a way of spitting out track numbers over TOSLink!

[BLC]

I appreciate the assistance so far...

I was thinking about this on the way in to work this morning, and it's probably more of a "pro audio" question, if we're talking about audio interfaces and ASIO drivers...

From what I can gather, this used to be a common feature in the early days of digital recording - when people were still using DAT tapes or digital cassettes, before everything had moved on to hard-drive based recording... In fact, many people wanted to figure out how to turn it off, as many studios had screwed up the track marks (or "Program Numbers", in DAT parlance).

Anyone else got any idea?

[BLC]

Digging up an old thread, I know, but just hoping that one more bump might attract the attention of someone that knows the answer to this!

I can't seem to figure out whether there's a specific piece of software I need or whether it's a hardware feature. I may end up losing some hair over this; I just want automatic track marks on my optical output! Is that too much to ask for?!