ATRAC = Bad Recording Quality?

[titser_marco]

I was reading up on recording formats and I stumbled upon the ATRAC compression codec that is used by MTRs such as the Yamaha MD8 (an 8 track recorder that uses MDs) and it seems that some people think that this is a far inferior mode of recording audio data.

Anyone who has experience with this format? Is it THAT bad? Is it good enough for commercial releases?

[KitC]

Sony's ATRAC is a lossy compression scheme, similar in principle to mp3 compression; Roland's RDAC in their VS recorders works similarly to ATRAC. The reason some people do not like ATRAC is that when performing a bounce on MD multitracks, it ALWAYS passes through the ATRAC algorithm so every bounce and mixdown degrades the recorded audio. It is said the degradation becomes audible after 3 passes.

[3650guy]

hhmmm i have always wondered if this topic would come up.

my guitarist friend who is a die hard minidisc fanatic swears that recording via optical cable from an audio cd results in a better sound than the original! any attempts to sway him otherwise have been in vain.

Sony lang naman ang nagpipilit nito because it is a big player in the multimedia business.

kayo ayun minidisc prices are going down here in the philippines and he keeps on buying the latest minidisc recorder.

on the other hand play a 128kbps mp3 file to the average listener and they may say it has no difference to the original cd...

[jplacson]

The current generation of ATRAC is "better" than CD.  I say "better" simply because it's a bit subjective... for final material, it's better than CD due to it's 48kHz FR, and far better algorithm in the current version... BUT... it is a lossy system, and like any lossy format, shouldn't be used DURING the production/mixing process unless ABSOLUTELY necessary.  I'd say MD is approx equal to a 320kbps++ mp3... but due to differences in algorithms, one may sound better with certain types of music over the other.

I've also heard that toslink into an MD sounds better than the original CD... I highly doubt it, unless the MD player is inherently better than the CD player to begin with... then that's a playback issue... not a format issue.  The Toslink would just copy the audio... there may be some slight "air" added with the upsampling to 48kHz, but I'd say that would actually degrade the audio unless the sampler is really good.  But I have noticed that most consumer MD recorder/players are built to higher standards than consumer CD/MP3 players.  So maybe this is what your friend notices.

I wouldn't use MDs for mixing... only as a recorder back-up, or for informal recordings... but with the advent of straight-to-wav/mp3 recorders... it's just not practical to use MDs anymore.  Anything that you'd want to record on an MD, is probably better off in a 44.1/16bit WAV/MP3 recorder now... a lot of digital recorders have line-in, and can record direct to mp3 anyway.  That's good enough for emailing demos.  Anything else... record in wav.

I have to admit though, I still love my portable MD recorder... it still catches more attention than any mp3 player, and the discs just look cool! Hehehehe.

[dariusbabylon]

my 2 cents
ATRAC was "good enough" for demos in the mid- to-late 90s, certainly quieter than tape. As Kit said, it's a compression scheme similar in concept to the roland VS-series. Yamaha, Sony and Tascam came out with 4; 8 tracks to compete with Roland. Now all these are dinosaurs after 15 years - heck, good luck finding zip discs for the original VS-880.

The practical question is - why use ATRAC now that the price of digital memory is low? It was a technology meant to save memory when the price  per MB was high.

[KitC]

True that. I've even found the technology intriguing in that MD uses magneto-optical media, something I've been trying to get to terms with since the disks look so much like cdr's (except they're housed in cartridges). Hard disk recording and now, flash based media, has rendered MD technology obsolete as well as rather bulky.

Still, you can't deny the fact that MD walkmans look rather cool as jplacson mentions.