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Unfortunately this tutorial does not use usb to transfer minidisc to pc but rather uses digital transfer.

As a musician who threw his lot in with Mini disc when they first came out I have lots of old recordings that I would like to be able to transfer to mp3.

Archiving my old recordings is for me something I’ve wanted to do for some time.

Recently I acquired a used Sony MDS-JB930 * and decided that I would finally bite the bullet.

*for the princely sum of £50

Tools you’ll need:

Mini Disc player with Digital output.

The above images show the two different types of connector.

The one I’ve chosen to use is the ‘Optical Digital’ output as this is the most common connector for standard pc audio interfaces.

Although I do have the option of using the ‘Coaxial’ connector due to having an M-Audio 2496 audio card.

Luckily I also have onboard sound which has the choice of ‘Optical Digital’.

You will also need some software:

Audacity or Wavosaur will both do you.

For this I used Wavosaur – > Tutorial on Export Wav to Mp3

Thats if you don’t already have them.

Before you hit that stage we need to record them to pc as wav files which you can then split.

The software to split them is called CDwav – Link

This is a free software program that auto finds the splits in your wav to save time.

It is uncrippled but for the sake of $15 it’s worth purchasing to keep these cool bits of software running.

So let’s start:

First you’ll need your connecting lead.

This is the toslink cable required.

As already stated you will need a sound card or audio interface that can take this kind of input.

With everthing ready you can start

1. Connect the output of your Minidisk to the input of your Audio card.

2. If you have more than one audio interface change to the one you intend to use via control panel-sound

3. Fire up your audio software and press record and press play on MiniDisk – make sure your signal is coming through – if it is go to step 4. if not then check connections and sound card settings.

4. Start a new file if needed and press record – now press play on mini disk.

5. Grab a brew, book, dvd etc and let mini disk finish.

6. Once file has finished recording save as a memorable name in a folder of it’s own. This is important for keeping your files organised.

7. Now start up CDwave.

8. Locate file and open.

9. Goto menu – SPLIT choose auto split and then SAVE FILE for the sake of keeping things organised you can then save these in the same folder – they will automatically be named as you’ll see once completed.

There may be lots of empty wav files – these you can delete.

10. You can then open each file and save with new names as mp3s or you can do a batch convert and rename aftewards adding tags as you please.

For batch convert using wavosaur please read this tutorial link

Hope that works for you.

Cheers for reading.