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Old 12-08-2018, 11:58 AM
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Default What's your experience with DSD recording

I've just been reading up on DSD recording. Never tried it and it seems that it has some pretty major drawbacks, at least for multitrack recording, since you can't really do it with any modern DAW. Although I guess Pyramix with the Masscore hardware can do it?

But it's supposed to sound a bit different from traditional PCM recording.
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Old 12-08-2018, 01:37 PM
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Default Re: What's your experience with DSD recording

My experience is that it's a thing from the past like minidisc.

The idea behind that 1-bit recording is thinking the Nyquist Theory might not be true. Sure, thinking out of the box, but it's like thinking that sampling more often must be more accurate, but as analog signal needs infinite amount of 1-bit sampling to be 100% accurate, I tend to think that we should believe in Nyquist.

He said that whatever frequencies we need to represent, we need double sampling rate -- as in representing frequencies up to 24kHz we only need 48k sampling rate, and the word length (bits) represents the dynamic range.

The only real reason why we have higher (so called HD) sampling rates is because of the AD/DA converters that are not ever perfect. Pushing the imperfectness outside human hearing makes it more HD, not the fact that we could represent frequencies up to 48kHz. Why we have 192k I don't know, maybe marketing for the folks that still believe bigger is better. The "perfect" solution would have been adopting one 64kHz sampling rate to begin with, without all this HD nonsense.
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Old 12-08-2018, 01:51 PM
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Default Re: What's your experience with DSD recording

Pyramix and Sonoma

DAD AX32 and the Avid MTRX (because they are the same) can also do DSD. There are recorders from Tascam, Korg, and Sony too.

Editing and mixing DSD is a real pain/impossible. Often there's a temporary conversion to PCM to do the edit/mix/plugin and then a re-conversion back to DSD. Multitrack recording, however, is no issue at all for DSD. It's just processing the signal after capture that can be a problem.

Other than classical with direct capture to DSD, one of the DSD workflows is capture multitrack to DSD, output to analogue, mix in analogue, recapture the mix to DSD. So the benefits of DSD exist as the recording/playback medium.

All but certain that DSD will never be supported by Avid/Pro Tools. There's a better chance that Pro Tools would get DXD as it is PCM but they haven't moved the bar past 192k. And to think the move for Digidesign/Pro Tools from 44.1/48 -> 88/96 -> 192 in hardware/software happened at a much quicker pace than how long we've been sitting at 192k. (maybe they were waiting for hardware which they now have in the MTRX which also supports DXD)
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Old 12-08-2018, 02:05 PM
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Default Re: What's your experience with DSD recording

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Originally Posted by JFreak View Post
The idea behind that 1-bit recording is thinking the Nyquist Theory might not be true. Sure, thinking out of the box, but it's like thinking that sampling more often must be more accurate, but as analog signal needs infinite amount of 1-bit sampling to be 100% accurate, I tend to think that we should believe in Nyquist.
DSD is not about not believing Nyquist.

Outside of what filters bring to conversion and how DSD and PCM differ, the data storage requirements are very beneficial for DSD where DSD's closest capture equivalent in PCM is 384kHz.

if only as an archival format, DSD is worth keeping.
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Old 12-08-2018, 02:18 PM
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Default Re: What's your experience with DSD recording

So I have a misconception then, my bad...
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Old 12-08-2018, 03:59 PM
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Default Re: What's your experience with DSD recording

So the Avid MTRX can capture to DSD, but Protools can't process the files. Brilliant!!
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Old 12-08-2018, 05:00 PM
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Default Re: What's your experience with DSD recording

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Originally Posted by JCBigler View Post
So the Avid MTRX can capture to DSD, but Protools can't process the files. Brilliant!!
Not Avid's fault. The MTRX is a DAD AX32 rebranded. And DAD had made DSD hardware for Pyramix before (branded under Pyramix before Pyramix started their Merging Horus/Hapi.) And Pyramix is a big supporter for DSD.

Not to mention, they (Digital Audio Denmark) are big in the classical/symphony circles where DSD recordings (and super fidelity) has more a market place.

But it would be a fundamental change for Pro Tools to support DSD. You can still use the MTRX to capture DSD (with other DAWs) and then convert to PCM and use with Pro Tools. There are proponents of that process (that DSD->PCM is a better capture than just doing PCM input.) I haven't tested it or have an opinion there.
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Old 12-06-2019, 03:47 PM
rourketown rourketown is offline
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Default Re: What's your experience with DSD recording

I am looking into recording both DSD and DXD (24bit/352kHz) with Merging Tech's Masscore and Hapi or Horus, and those converters are also Pro Tools compatible up to 192k with an available HDX card. As far as DSD is concerned from what I understand you don't want to convert back and forth from DSD because the noise is additive on each conversion (although this noise extremely high in the frequency range). That is why I suspect many people say DSD is good for archiving: Get a great copy but that should be it's last stop. I think people who poo poo the advantages of 192kHz and above forget about Sample Resolution and Filter steepness. Our ears/brain can process sound at 7 micro seconds (twig snap to your reaction) but at 48k audio is only captured/sampled every 22+ microseconds. At 192kHz that time is reduced to around 10 micro seconds which is a higher resolution, and much closer to our ability to process and react to sound waves. Furthermore, because of Nyquist theory you must add a steep low pass filter right at 22&24kHz respectively at the rates of 44.1k and 48k - and then you must reconstruct what was happening in those upper frequencies on playback-D/A with another filter. (think anti-aliasing and distortion) So when you are at 192k for example they can use a much gentler filter and up at a much higher frequency range (up at 50kHz) where there is really no useful musical information anyways. So ideally, you could record at 192k or even DXD PCM if possible and then master to DXD and/or DSD. This seems ideal for superior timing resolution and filter artifacts (given great converters and performances of course) but not at all 'pointless'. Remember, even when down converted all the way down to an MP3, the file if handled properly, can and should still reflect the quality of the original recorded media.

Last edited by rourketown; 12-06-2019 at 04:03 PM.
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