There are several ways of entering track titles, none of them very convenient for the budget limited person, but now there's a better way...
To enter track names you normally have these options:
Use the buttons or jog dial on the deck/portable recorder. This can be excruciating.
Use the alphanumeric keypad on the remote – if (like me) your deck came without a remote, you are looking at £15-30 for one.
Fork out for a RM-D10P or RM-D11P remote control which has a full qwerty keyboard – but this will easily set you back upwards of £150.
Shell out for a higher end deck with a PS/2 keyboard input – this will cost you.
Use a NetMD player and Sonicstage software. The only snag is, Sonicstage won't work with Windows 10 or other modern operating systems. There are guides on how to install Sonicstage on Windows 10, but I don’t understand a word of them.
but I recently came across this:
This is a browser based application, written by a clever chap in April 2020, that allows you to link a NetMD recorder to a modern computer. It works very well and is easy to set up.
I stumbled across it here and followed the instructions on that website, which worked perfectly for me.
First, you will need a NetMD minidisc recorder. Some of the later (expensive) minidisc decks did have this capability but far more common are the portable players.
You can pick up a portable NetMD recorder for around £30 quite easily on eBay, and for less than that if you hunt around a bit. It doesn't have to be in particularly good condition, just working. The Sony MZ-N505 is a good budget option.
First, you will need to install a generic USB driver. I used a free tool called Zadig 2.5 to install a WinUSB driver. With the minidisc recorder plugged into the computer, Zadig should find the right driver.
On the Web MiniDisc Application webpage you'll be greeted with a Connect button. Press it, and choose your MD recorder from the drop down list.
Then you'll see a list of the tracks on the disc. Double click on the tracks to rename them. There's also a menu where you can rename the disc, or wipe it.
I don't know what 'Fork me on GitHub' means, but it doesn't sound like my kind of thing at all.
You can use the application to transfer music from your computer onto minidisc too. You can even transfer music from your phone. What a time to be alive!
It's a really quick and easy way of renaming tracks, and reviving the capabilities of your old NetMD recorder.
Bonus Feature!
My minidisc deck came with a disc inside which had been formatted to Hi-MD and wouldn’t play on the deck or anything else I have. The disc was protected as well (with some kind of track protection, not with the little plastic switch) and I couldn’t erase it. It was basically unusable. You get the same problem with discs made with Sonicstage - the disc is protected and you can't erase it without linking it up to Sonicstage again.
But I was able to use the Web Minidisc Application to view the contents of the disc and wipe it, just by choosing the Wipe Disc function from the drop down menu.
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