It has become a common question around the Blue Ring announcer's booth at Nationals: What is that thing? It's a MINIDISC, a new type of "tape" that has taken us out of the dark ages of cassettes.
The Minidisc (MD) is a recording media invented by Sony around 1990 (?). It is kind of a cross between cassettes and Compact Discs (CDs). CDs are obviously more popular, but in the old days, you could never record your own music onto a CD. Now you can, but it can be difficult and complicated, and usually requires a computer. Plus you never know which CD players will work, depending on the exact format of your recorded CD.
With technology moving forward, every year it gets easier to record music onto CD. But in the mean time, the Minidisc has offered a simple, reliable alternative. MD's also offer editing features when recording, such as erasing a section of a song, or changing the order of songs after they have been recorded.
Like a CD, an MD never needs to be rewound. It has multiple songs or "tracks" which are numbered, always starting at 1. For vaulting, you can probably store your entire club's music on one MD. The MD case should be labeled with a Table of Contents showing which vaulter/go is on each track.
To play an MD, insert it into the MD deck just like a floppy diskette (except the metal tab goes to the right, instead of in front). An MD deck plays Minidiscs just like a tape deck plays cassettes. Sony MD decks have a little knob which takes the place of many buttons. Turn the knob back and forth to find the track you want, then press PAUSE. When the vaulter raises his hand, press PAUSE again, or PLAY. The music will begin playing immediately - there is no delay like those dusty old cassettes. For this reason, you might wait just a second before pressing PLAY, so the vaulter has time to get ready. (They may or may not have practiced to the MD recording.)
Also, while the song is PAUSED before you pressed PLAY, you will notice a title displayed on the MD deck, such as "15A - JASON GOLD KUR". When you first insert the MD into the deck, you should see the vaulting club's name, like "HIGH RIDGE VAULTERS" or "HIGH RIDGE - RED ARENA". Try that with a CD player! When MDs are recorded, it is easy to add this information to every song (track) on the disc. Use this to make sure you are about to play the right thing.
The MD deck should already be configured to automatically repeat each track. This is usually good, because it keeps people from ever running out of music. But if kur music ends a few seconds early, the vaulter probably does not want it to start over. Just press STOP when the music is obviously over. Playing MDs without the auto repeat can be dangerous. Then if a song ends too soon, it would start playing the next song - probably a different vaulter's music!
A vaulting club should have their general run-in music on track 1. Any shared or fallback compulsory music should be on track 2. The rest of the tracks should be grouped by class and labeled clearly, both on the case and electronically on the MD so it shows up on the display. Both of these labels are critical so you can find the right track quickly. Once you get used to it, Minidiscs should be more convenient and easier to manage than stacks of tapes. Remember, one MD can replace an entire box of cassettes - it is perfect for vaulting.
What is the downside? If you lose one MD, you've lost ALL your music! MDs can become damaged, just like cassettes. They do have a protective case, unlike CDs, but if you drop an MD in a mud puddle, forget it. And making a backup copy of an MD can be difficult. We should have facilities at Nationals to help with that.
Unfortunately the future for MD is grim. Minidiscs have been very popular in Europe and Asia for years, but they never really took off in the USA. They will never be able to compete with the popularity of Compact Discs. We may reach a point soon where recorded CDs are accepted at Nationals, but we're not there yet. There have been cases where a recorded CD did not play properly, and so far (knock on wood) there have not been any problems with MDs, which were used in both the 1999 and 2000 Nationals. Accepting both MD and CD and legacy tapes becomes cumbersome for our music players to manage.
That's the lowdown on MDs. As always, I'm open for comments and questions. Thanks,
Paul Caskey