Next Steps

Once you have a working recorder and are enjoying MD as a music format, there is much more to experience.

A late model MD player or a deck are common additions once you decide to use MD as (one of) your primary music formats. Additional devices reduce the wear-and-tear on your primary device and may be more convenient.

No MD collection would be complete with a variety of discs. Search for deals on batches of unique or interesting blanks. Collecting a variety of unique discs is one of the most fun aspects of MD collecting - there are hundreds of different colors and designs to appreciate, and most are very affordable.

AC adapters, new batteries, remotes, fanny packs, and docks are just a few of the accessories used with MD and that may make the experience more convenient.

There have been hundreds of albums released on MD, both on pressed discs during the format's commercial life as well as new releases on recordable media, often with UV printing and cases with J cards. These can be very fun (and/or expensive!) to find and collect, as many are rare.

This has been addressed earlier in the guide (see Specific use-cases) but even if that was not your goal for collecting MD, it can become a part of your collecting experience as you purchase discs with audio still on them.

Whether you have uncovered your old high school mixtapes or the lot you purchased includes hours of 90s J-pop, it may be worth saving before you erase the disc for your own uses. By buying a lot of used discs, you could be acquiring a time capsule worth archiving for yourself or for sharing with the wider internet.

We have a guide to cover recording from a MiniDisc to a PC over 3.5mm, RCA, or digital audio. Many NetMD portables supported by Web MiniDisc Pro can also export raw ATRAC files via reverse-engineered exploits. See the Web MiniDisc guide for more information on this.

The MD community is among the best on the entire internet. We're friendly and helpful, but would always appreciate more contributions.

We strongly encourage contributions to the site and expanding what we share with other MD fans. The gap between contributions on social media and to the wiki is something we really want to close, as this wiki is a community-led resource compared to the problematic nature of sites like Reddit or Twitter. Please share your experiences, reviews, "gotchas" or anything else to the wiki so that others can benefit as we hope you have from this resource.

A few ways anyone can contribute:

• Test your NetMD recording times and add them to our listings
• Take photos and add them to the equipment page for that device
• Make a user page to show off your collection
• Add an equipment page for a device we don't list or fill in gaps in our pages

We have a contribution guide and are working to improve it. Please read it before editing a page to have more insight over what makes the site work as it does.

The MiniDisc community hosts several disc swap events each year. See our disc swaps homepage to sign up and be matched with someone to send a mix disc, sometimes with a particular theme.

There are many modern MiniDisc projects:

There are numerous ways 3D printing can help with the MD hobby. Here are a few projects that may be of interest or inspiration:

• Gumstick battery adapter for AA battery chargers
• MiniDisc stands
• Internal battery adapters

Reverse-engineering the various protocols used by MiniDisc has become more popular. There are numerous software projects that may benefit from testing or new features added.

Our Discord's development channels are a good place to start discussing MD software development.

There are some projects to produce new, replacement parts for devices that have known failures, such as gears, USB connectors, and screens. The #ongoing-projects forum on Discord lists many of these to follow.

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