My first audio experiments when I was 15 involved two cheap tape recorders.
I’d record guitar onto one tape, and then play that tape while playing more guitar and have the second recorder going for overdub…
Next I’d do crazy stuff like take the tape apart and put the reels in backwards for reverse guitar, and then do more overdub…
Wish I knew where those tapes went…
Oh yeah, back to minidiscs
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I was jocking of course but now I’m too lazy to turn or rewind the tapes, and I can’t play them randomly. Same for vinyls, except rewind, for scratch ! 
I did an experience too with tapes, when I was around 15, unmounting the head, in order to mimic scratch with tapes glued on linear pieces of wood. Not very convincing results. 
Now I mimic it with OT. 
To go back to the new topic MDs “were” very intesting for audio editing too !
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I remember now I did it too, don’t remember if it was with a double dec with another input or what…
Edit : ah and pressing the play button in order to slow down the recording, fast speed after. Analog glitch, I didn’t think I did it before. Thanks for REM…hem !
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I think I got to double deck eventually for some stuff… But at first it was those old tape recorders like in elementary school, and I’d use the built in mics…
So for overdub it would be a tape recorded with a crappy mic, being played out of a crappy speaker, along with me at the same time playing guitar through a cheap amp at low volume, and recorded through the air into another crappy mic… 
This type:
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Seeing that style of tape deck instantly makes me want to load up some C64 games.
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It makes me think : has the OT aged well ?
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It was my first step towards getting an OT 20 years later…
I want to try it again now for lofi!
While we’re completely off topic, I gotta mention that my browser just got wonky, and your icons were appearing as miniatures in the emoji chooser, replacing emojis…
My smilecat was a miniature @sezare56! 
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I’m probably wrong but I thought minidisc was just MP3 on a disc.
Btw I loved my minidisc and editing those cue points. 
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I’m feeling like we should consider an ATRAC themed compilation release…
I was thinking about trying that in my early 20s but with a second head so I could record onto the tape, too, back then I had zero understanding of electronics or soldering and thought it would be way more complicated than it actually would have been, and never tried.
I’m pretty sure I saw something just a few weeks ago about a kid who’s getting a bunch of internet hype right now for doing exactly what we’re talking about. I mean, more power to him of course but it’s funny to see bloggers acting like it’s some incredible experiment that’s never been done before.
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Actually I’m a cat, considering chinese horoscope. I’m a fish too.
Well I wish, I wish I was a catfish…in Sueden ?
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Nope, it’s a proprietary Sony codec (ATRAC3) that is older than MP3 and has different artifacts. MP3 artifacts are kind of warbly, phasey cricket noises in the highs and generalkind of blurriness (not very noticable at reasonable bitrates but really obvious at lower bitrates). ATRAC artifacts are different, less phaseyness and more sounding awesome. MP3 has a higher compression ratio though, can get a much higher compression ratio and still sound pretty good, though, but ATRAC has a really nice sound to my ear (and low bitrare Realaudio files have more 90s Internet street cred, or at least they should)
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Used to travel the london underground with my sharp mini disc player and bag full of discs!
Those flat squares in their plastic sleeves are an appealing little object. All stored in a draw in my studio (i think)
Update: here’s the little fella (pretty ugly but did the job extremely well at the time, still works fine)
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The boys and girls at lines had a similar idea a while back, maybe we can join forces and revive it
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MD’s are always available in and around thrift stores near me. Took this photo for you guys! There’s always multi-track MD recorders too. Saw an AKAI ATRAK too in the junk section. Wish I’d have taken a photo of that now.
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I have that orange one above 
So is this going to be like using a tape deck for fx, record to md for compression fx ?
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I have the same model, a friend/bandmate gave it to me (without the tube-shaped remote/control). We used to record our practices with it, and I used it a ton for field recording/practice/shows etc. Early on (around 2000) we tried to record a Thrones show in somebody’s basement, the bass frequencies rattled it off of the shelf and it shut off somehow. we recovered about a half-minute of terrific noise. The only way to transfer audio to the computer was to sit with it as it played back the audio (line-in). Later on (late 00s) I was still using it for recording wildlife sounds (with a crap little condenser mic) in North Carolina, as well as subsequent band practices/shows. I set it on a shelf, next to the mixing desk at one of our shows and it picked up the dialogue from the sound guys talking trash on our band as we began our set – it’s gold. but we used that same recording for the closing track of an album we put up on Bandcamp.
tracks 1, 3, and 5 were recorded with the Sony MD… got a lot of mileage out of it.
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Yeah that’s the one I had too. Great unit, I’d say grab it at that price
I was thinking of going back to grab that Sony one on the right. Is that the one you guys are talking about?
I’m tracking to cassette at the moment… a Marantz PMD740. I found it in the same shop for a great price and in mint condition. It even smelled new! I’ve also found some different type tapes to record too.
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What do you mean exactly? I don’t think that an MD will have the same compression artifacts that a cassette can have. I’m interested to learn if I a mistaken though