Joel’s Improved Personal Website

I Use Minidiscs

When I was little and we lived in the woods, one of my toys was a Panasonic tape recording deck, a heavy black box about six by twelve inches square. Mom would record herself reading stories to us, complete with “turn the page now” chimes done on a toy phone; but also, we would record ourselves. We’d spend hours saying anything into the recorder and playing it back to see how it sounded, laughing at ourselves.

Minidisc is the tape deck of the 21^st century. It fits in your shirt pocket. You can plug in a microphone and record CD-quality sound that will not deteriorate over time. Or record from a radio, tape deck, computer, CD player – anything with an audio output. The discs themselves are encased in plastic and will not scratch, nor are they affected by magnetic fields. Using track marks, you can edit, move delete and name recordings or parts of a recording.

One of the first things I did with the minidisc was to recover my tapes of Prarie Home Companion shows. I archived songs off cassette and vinyl that you can hardly find anymore. I help musician friends create audition recordings and record choir practices for later listening.

A couple of years ago the whole family took a ride on a giant carousel at Como Park. And I have a dog that loves to chase the train twice a day. I’ve recorded both experiences on minidisc, and when I play it back through my Monsoon speakers, you can feel the train approaching, or the deep-throated prancing organ, and people talking on your right and left.

“The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.”
Henry Kissinger (1923-)