Remember
back when you hardly ever heard the word “analog”? Well that’s because you didn’t need to — soundwise,
everything was analog. More and more, though, it’s looking like
the poor word will soon be returning to obscurity, only this time it’s because
the entirety of recording media will be digital. The latest and probably most
eagerly-awaited arrival on the home audio scene is the recordable compact disc,
which you may have already heard about thanks to a late-summer media blitz by
electronics giant Sony, who chose sleepy little Austin as one of two test
markets for their new wonder, the Mini Disc. And, in a move that could’ve ended
up costing them another $600, they loaned me a portable MZ-R3 recorder for a
month to examine and use as I pleased.
The Mini Disc is something different, alright. This 21/2-inch
wonder, encased in a floppy-disc-like, square, plastic protective jacket, looks
like a tiny version of the short-lived “video-discs” of the Eighties, but seems
to share little of their instant-obsolescence qualities. When slipped into a
home or portable MD recording unit, it enables the user to do what you’ve
wanted to do since you first bought a CD player — record the songs you want to
hear digitally and play them in the order you want to listen to them.
Ironically, the technology for recordable CDs has existed since 1980, but the
MD didn’t become commercially available until 1992, and is only starting to
become affordable now. Well, at least it’s affordable to those who can shell
out about $200 for a playback unit, $600 for a recorder, or snap up the
company’s special “bundle” deal of an MDS-302 home deck, MZ-E3 portable player,
five blank discs, and two prerecorded MD albums for $599.
The MD offers evidence towards its claimed title as “the future of digital
recording” beyond just being portable and recordable. Boasting a new
compression technology called Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coating (ATRAC), MD
fits more sound into less space by ignoring sounds that can’t be heard by the
human ear (I can hear the Analogers’ call to arms). It also features a
shock-resistant memory system which builds up memory so that if it’s jarred it
won’t skip. Basically, when it gets bumped, it’s already a second ahead and
uses that time to catch up and restore the “lost” information. Confused? Well,
don’t worry, that’s for the engineers to discuss.
As for simplicity of use, it took me a total of 20 seconds on the “Recording
an MD Right Away!” page of the instruction book to prepare me for my first
project. Mere moments after opening the box, I hopped down to Waterloo Records
for a convenient in-store performance by the Wannabes and with my stereo
microphone (not included) clipped to my collar, handily bootlegged their
performance. After all, in the initial sales pitch to the Chronicle, the
Sony P.R. guns had levelled none-too-subtle hints about how good the portable
MD would be for taping live shows (not including those of Sony artists, right,
guys?), and apart from the recording level of my new bootlegged concert album
being a little too “hot,” the sound of the recording was quite phenomenal. The
vocals were actually clearer than they had sounded at the venue, and the lack
of bass I think can safely be attributed to my cheap mike.
But hang on, you’re saying, back up a minute! Why was Austin picked as a test
market for this Next Big Thing of the home entertainment world? Why not Los
Angeles or New York City? Well, the answer to that question reveals more than a
few interesting facts about our fine city. Mark Viken, possessor of the lofty
title of Senior Vice President of Audio-Video, Marketing Division, Consumer
Products Division for Sony, says “We looked at four different factors. One was
the index of 18-34 year olds, another was the tendency to own a CD player, and
we came up with an index of tendencies to purchase electronics in general and
we were looking for 18-34 year olds with a $50,000-plus income level.” Sony
added up those four statistics for every decent-sized city in the United States
and Austin led the pack. “Particularly in the 18-34 population, which is about
60 percent higher than the national level,” explains Viken. “Austin came out
number one in what we’re calling the `Mini-Disc Index'”.
So, with the test over, did we pass? Well, along with Rochester, New York
(rated Number 16 on the MD index), the other test market during the July
8-August 18 campaign, Austin made Sony quite happy, thank you. Viken shies away
from giving actual sales figures, but says that the sales in the two cities
were “pretty well balanced — Austin did a little bit better, but both markets
did extremely well. We’re very very pleased with what happened.” As a result,
he adds, “Were launching [new campaigns in October] in San Francisco, Chicago,
Atlanta and we recently added New York.” (At this point, publicist Howard
Solomon interrupted our conference call by making an incredulous noise, to
which Viken quipped, “I said it was recent.”)
If Sony is somewhat vague about the extent of the MD’s success, one needs go
no further than the local stereo shop to confirm its attraction. The Edge In
Electronics, a local “high end” (industry term for “rich people shop here”)
stereo and gadget shop, was Sony’s store of choice during the testing; being
small, staffed with knowledgeable employees, and located in a high-traffic area
(Highland Mall), they were an ideal retailer to monitor. Edge manager Dale
Efflandt says that the MD is selling very well there, but figures their store
has an advantage since they attract the type of people who want to be first
with a new technology, and Sony has held demonstrations of the MD in the mall.
“As soon as people know they’re out there, they’ll sell a lot more,” he
figures. “We sell a lot at the Edge because it’s a new item.” As far as the
larger chain stores are concerned, Efflandt opined that he would be surprised
if the MD was as quick to catch the eye of the more omnivorous consumer.
Circuit City sales representative David Minnick says he was surprised,
but isn’t any more. He finds that the MD has been selling “very well, oddly
enough” at his store. (He adds that in Waco, from whence he relocated, such was
not the case.) Consumers are behaving, it would appear, in just the way Sony
had anticipated: Minnick says that when a customer is looking at the
top-of-the-line (that “high end” again) tape decks Circuit City carries, they
usually ask where to go from there, technology-wise. He steers them over to the
MD and “Once they realize it’s available in a portable model, a car model, they
see the flexibility” and it’s good-bye to that nasty old magnetic tape.
Therein lies the focus of Sony’s marketing campaign, which keys on the MD
being “the only disc that lets you record any track you want and play it back
in digital quality sound.” Minnick puts it succinctly: “The Mini Disc is made
to complement the CD, not to replace the CD.” Its goal in the home
entertainment foodchain is, rather, to replace the cassette, be it digital (the
struggling DCC and DAT formats) or analog. “Our target group has over 100 CDs
in their collection.” says Viken. “They love their CDs, but what they would
like to have is the ability to make their own mixes and take that music on the
go with them.”
Asked about the bootlegging capability which his cohorts who came to our
offices had tacitly endorsed previously, Viken is quick to distance himself
from the idea. “Recording a live show is in most cases not legal,” he declares,
adding that “although you had the Grateful Dead there for awhile encouraging
people and allowing them to do that. The Mini Disc is not really designed for
the live recording format, for that kind of purpose tape is really a better
format. But,” he finishes, not one to sell his product short, “certainly it
could do a good job in live recording.”
Efflandt cheers a less controversial use for the MD in live recording, one
that echoes Sony’s decision in choosing the River City as their test market:
“Because Austin’s such a music-oriented town, people can plug the Mini Disc
into their keyboard or their electric guitar, and get digital sound. You have
to have an optical in [not included], but even if you don’t you can still
record. There’s some distortion but you can’t hear it with the human ear.”
Live music aside, the MD seems to stack up pretty well to all of Sony’s
claims, and my own experience with it in recording “mix” albums on it was near
perfect. (Sony’s ad campaign centered around making “mix” CDs). Sporting
features that allow you to digitally label your disc, change the order of
tracks after they’ve been recorded, and take your finished party disc with you
anywhere, safe from scratches in its sturdy shell, my only complaint is that
the MZ-R3 doesn’t allow you to fade up or out during recording. For a party
tape perfectionist like myself who likes to bring up snippets of movies, sound
effects and such between songs, that’s a crippling defect in a product designed
to be the ultimate facilitator of compilation album assembly. Efflandt assures
me, however, that the home deck (MDS-302, if you’re writing all this down) does
not share that oversight.
Okay, then, if the MD is such hot stuff, why did it take so long to make its
appearance? Well, one big pothole in the road to getting the product onto the
market was objections from publishing companies and the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA). Never having been fans of inventions that allow
people to reproduce copyrighted material without paying for it, RIAA
really didn’t warm up to the notion of technology that allows the making
of perfect copies of any CD in the catalog. The December 1992 appearance
of the first MD decks closely followed a date that Viken remembers quite
precisely.
“In 1992 — actually October 28, 1992 — the Audio Home Recording Act was
passed into law, and that was after many years of negotiation. That act says
that on all digital recording hardware, there’s a 2 percent royalty that’s paid
on those products and a 3 percent royalty on the blank media and those funds
generated from the sale of digital recording hardware and digital blank media
go into a pool which I believe is administered by the RIAA. [Actually, they are
allocated through the Register of Copyrights and the Librarian of Congress].
Those funds are allocated out to publishers, songwriters, performers and music
labels.”
There’s a second part to that deal as well. All digital recording devices are
also required to include a system known as the Serial Copy Management System
(SCMS), which allows the user to digitally record onto a MD, but not make further digital copies off of that disc onto another MD machine. This,
notes Viken, “allows average consumers to make their own compilations and to
have fun with recording without creating any kind of piracy — if that’s the
right word.” Yes, I’d wager that the RIAA would agree with that being the right
word. Efflandt points out that Europe, where CDs run around the equivalent of
$30 and people get and tape them at rental shops, is one market where the MD is
already huge.
Efflandt expects a sharp upswing in stateside sales of the MD in the coming
months, positing that most people wait on purchasing this type of high-ticket
item in October and November, as the shadow of Santa’s sleigh looms ever larger
on the horizon. And though he sees a final death-knell for the cassette deck
ahead, that won’t come until the prices on the MDs drop a bit more. The final
bell he imagines will toll “I think as soon as the regular player gets a tad
bit cheaper. Once you crack the $100 mark, it’s gonna start selling like crazy.
I give it five to six years [before tape decks are] gone. I mean, it’s a better
media.”
This article appears in September 27 • 1996 and September 27 • 1996 (Cover).