Sony MD Walkman's and Sonic Stage

[Scorpion8]

So I have a bunch of MD Walkman's, and they all play great. Not all of them can be used with a USB cable to transfer tunes. But Sonic Stage periodically likes to give me the blue screen of death. No other software does, as my PC is very stable and does not contain a lot of new-fangled gizmos. And it has plenty of memory/RAM.

So, can any other software see the NetMD Walkman's? I tried Media Player since Sony abandoned it's Connect online music store for Microsoft's music library, I thought the Media Player might have NetMD capability. Nope. iTunes? RealPlayer? Cakewalk Pyro?

[R.Daneel]

Hi Scorp!

Unfortunately no. Real player, Media player and all the other players in the world don't support OpenMG which is Sony's proprietary protection technology. I have seen some Winamp plug-ins for Atrac however.

There is a software called Sony MD Simple burner. It is a tiny application that can transfer whatever it is on the music CD you loaded into the drive's tray and then convert it to Atrac and automatically transfer it to the NetMD device. I haven't used it for several years to be honest. Sonicstage is usually very stable. I should probably do a little reasearch to see which is the latest version of it. It worked perfectly on Win XP but I am not sure about Win 7 which I now have. It might create some problems. Also, if you have Win 7 64bit version, that will probably cause serious problems.

It was a hope of MD fans that in the final version of the MD walkman that Sony will finally enable drag and drop functionality. they did to an extent because you could simply drag the files to the player and listen to them. However, this was only possible with mp3 files, not Atrac files. I think it was this particular fact that prevented MD from catching up. People just didn't want to wait and use any kind of a software. It's a different story with iTunes. The integrated music store and the general success of anything Apple these days backed up with effective marketing made it pssible to make billions with sub-average music players. The way I see it, MD is a fromat that is self-sufficient for recording enthusiasts. Besides, the recordings done on a n MD deck sound much better than the ones where the Atrac files were encoded on the computer.

[4tified]

Hi Scorp!

Unfortunately no. Real player, Media player and all the other players in the world don't support OpenMG which is Sony's proprietary protection technology. I have seen some Winamp plug-ins for Atrac however.

There is a software called Sony MD Simple burner. It is a tiny application that can transfer whatever it is on the music CD you loaded into the drive's tray and then convert it to Atrac and automatically transfer it to the NetMD device. I haven't used it for several years to be honest. Sonicstage is usually very stable. I should probably do a little reasearch to see which is the latest version of it. It worked perfectly on Win XP but I am not sure about Win 7 which I now have. It might create some problems. Also, if you have Win 7 64bit version, that will probably cause serious problems.

It was a hope of MD fans that in the final version of the MD walkman that Sony will finally enable drag and drop functionality. they did to an extent because you could simply drag the files to the player and listen to them. However, this was only possible with mp3 files, not Atrac files. I think it was this particular fact that prevented MD from catching up. People just didn't want to wait and use any kind of a software. It's a different story with iTunes. The integrated music store and the general success of anything Apple these days backed up with effective marketing made it pssible to make billions with sub-average music players. The way I see it, MD is a fromat that is self-sufficient for recording enthusiasts. Besides, the recordings done on a n MD deck sound much better than the ones where the Atrac files were encoded on the computer.

The latest version of SonicStage for the US is 4.3. Japan has a version 5.?, but it is rumored to not work with US MD units.

Also, SonicStage will work in XP, Vista and 7, but not their x64 equivalents. There is no x64-bit driver support. If you wanted to experiment however....http://www.mediafire.com/?xy48g0qwp05u59d

More info here: http://archivision-directory.blogspot.com/2010/10/driver-for-netmd-and-standaard-minidisc.html

I couldn't get my N707 or N510 detected with this driver, but the newer NetMD recorders are reported to work.

[jazzgene]

Sony MD Simple Burner does not work in Windows 7 at all. Sonicstage does.

I still have my MZ-N1 and MZ-M200. Both work great.

[Scorpion8]

Yea, I've used both Sonic Stage v2.3 and 4.3, and they both give me these faults periodically. Not all the time, but often. I'm currently using v2.3 ass I thought the CD that came with one player would be more stable than my previous download version of 4.3. Nope. MDSimpleBurner give the fault once in awhile too. And my system is a WinXP-Pro.... I never bothered to upgrade.

[R.Daneel]

If you are using 64bit Win XP, it might be causing the problems. Before the Win 7 I also had the XP Pro and it worked great. I always found Sonic stage to be rather mechanical but very easy to use and fast in operation.

One time I had Sony Sound Forge 8 installed on my system and if i remember correctly, it had the ability to transfer music to a NetMD device. It lacked HiMD support however but NetMD functionality was there.

You might want to try uninstalling and installing the application all over again. Sometimes drivers just go crazy for no reason. Last week my AutoCAD started using the mouse wheel as a pan rather than zoom and I had to install the mouse all over again. manufacturers are never willing to admit these problems and forums are often useless.

[Warped Bezel]

If you are using 64bit Win XP, it might be causing the problems. Before the Win 7 I also had the XP Pro and it worked great. I always found Sonic stage to be rather mechanical but very easy to use and fast in operation.

One time I had Sony Sound Forge 8 installed on my system and if i remember correctly, it had the ability to transfer music to a NetMD device. It lacked HiMD support however but NetMD functionality was there.

You might want to try uninstalling and installing the application all over again. Sometimes drivers just go crazy for no reason. Last week my AutoCAD started using the mouse wheel as a pan rather than zoom and I had to install the mouse all over again. manufacturers are never willing to admit these problems and forums are often useless.

I don't think mice NOR I/O routines have been worth much for a while, in my opinion.

[Scorpion8]

Did they delete the MD Simple Burner in later versions? The install of v4.3 deleted my version of this program from v2.3. Huh?

[R.Daneel]

It is possible they removed the application! I remember reading on the forums how people didn't used it very little and some had problems with it. I never had any problems with either Sonicstage or Simpleburner but I didn't use them much though.

[tcp100]

Sony MD Simple Burner does not work in Windows 7 at all. Sonicstage does.

I still have my MZ-N1 and MZ-M200. Both work great.

I use SimpleBurner under VMWare and "Windows XP Mode" in Win7. Windows 7 Windows XP mode is basically an entire Windows XP virtual machine - and is available for free with the higher versions of Win7.

The latest (last) version of SonicStage is much more stable than the earlier versions.

[jazzgene]

I use SimpleBurner under VMWare and "Windows XP Mode" in Win7. Windows 7 Windows XP mode is basically an entire Windows XP virtual machine - and is available for free with the higher versions of Win7.

The latest (last) version of SonicStage is much more stable than the earlier versions.

Which version is that? Win 7 Incredible? *devil*

I only have the Win 7 that came with the PC...

[Scorpion8]

I just re-installed the MD SimpleBurner off the disk. Seems to work fine (again).

[R.Daneel]

Hope it works this time.