Yamaha MD4 4

Recording & Mixing Techniques 19

MD4—Owner’s Manual

4 Recording & Mixing Techniques

This chapter explains MD4 recording and mixing techniques.

The NEW REC function is used to record new songs on a disc. Songs are recorded sequentially,

as shown below. With a blank disc, simply pressing the [REC] button engages New Record

mode. For a disc that already contains some songs, however, you must ﬁrst locate the Blank Top

area of the disc, as explained below.

“Blank Top” is the top part of the largest unrecorded area on a disc. To locate the Blank Top,

press the [ ] button repeatedly until BLANK TOP appears on the display. When the BLANK

TOP is located, MD4 is ready to record a new song.

Since nothing is recorded at the BLANK TOP, you cannot use the Play, Review, and FF CUE

functions. Press the [ ] SONG SEARCH button if you want to return to the previous song.

So long as a blank area exists on a disc, recording beyond the end of a song is possible. This means

that songs can be made longer. At the point where recording continues into the blank area, NEW

REC appears on the display. For punch in/out recording, you can select the REMAIN Time

Counter mode to check how much recording time, including the blank area, is available. For

rehearsal, MD4 always stops at the end of a song.

If you have erased a song that was in between other songs, there will be a new blank area on the disc.

Searching for the Blank Top will locate the Blank Top, that is the top position of the largest blank

area, which will be used to record the new song. The REMAIN time will be shown automatically.

If you record over an existing song, the total recording time will be the same as the total time of

the song being overwritten. If the next existing song is erased, however, the total time for the

new recording will be the sum of both songs. For example, Song 1 is three minutes and Song 2

is two minutes. Erasing Song 2 provides a total time of 5 minutes for the new recording.

The following table shows the three MD4 Recording modes. Songs on the same disc can be

recorded in different modes, but you cannot change the mode while recording. These modes

allow you to use disc space efﬁciently. Audio quality is the same for all three modes.

Normal MiniDisc decks cannot play MD4 MD DATA discs. They can, however, play MiniDiscs

containing 2TR and MONO mode songs. When a recordable MiniDisc is loaded into MD4, the

2TR Recording mode is selected automatically. For subsequent 4-track recording onto an MD

DATA disc, set the Recording mode to 4TR. The Recording mode setting is not stored when MD4

is turned off, and it always defaults to 4TR when it’s is turned on.

Rec Mode Tracks Used Recording Time

(minutes) MD DATA Disc MiniDisc

4TR 1, 2, 3, 4 37 O X

2TR 1, 2 74 O O

MONO 1 148 O O

Blank Top

Song 1 Song 2 Song 3 Blank Area