Archiving Logic X bounces to DSD

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Level 1

9 points

Archiving Logic X bounces to DSD

I am exploring the use of DSD (.dff)files to archive my Logic X bounces. I am only using software instruments and sampled sound in my compositions (no MIDI or live input on bounce). I am running and recording audio at 96kHz 24-bit. So, to create a MASTER I am exporting an AIFF (or maybe WAV) at 96kHz 24-bit. However, I have started to be very impressed with DSD audio files. I'm guessing that if I export a PCM AIFF, no matter what the sample rate and bit-depth even 192kHz 32-bit, and then convert it to DSD, then I'm simply encoding the PCM colourisation in a DSD format. (Like using a Polaroid instant camera and then scanning it at a million pixels per cm. Not wrong, just coloured.)

I know the sampled audio tracks will be PCM-encoded, but the Audio Unit synths and effects are not until they are outputted.

So, is there. way to bounce to DSD without PCM getting in the way?

Posted on Oct 9, 2019 11:25 AM

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Answer 1

fuzzfilth

Level 3

710 points

Oct 9, 2019 1:20 PM in response to RKYOH

No.

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Answer 2

fuzzfilth

Level 3

710 points

Oct 9, 2019 2:19 PM in response to RKYOH

That's a philosophical question. First, I have no idea what worth means for you. Then, let's suppose DSD does actually nothing to change the sound, but you feel it does after you have put in all the effort to research this, set it up and get it done. So while it objectively didn't improve the material, to you it did and that alone may have made it worth it.

Or the other way round, maybe it does improve the sound but your monitoring setup in your untreated room cannot reproduce the fine changes it makes. You don't hear a difference and you're disappointed and it wasn't worth the effort when in reality it did improve, just without you knowing.

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Answer 3

RKYOH Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 10, 2019 1:18 AM in response to fuzzfilth

You got a point. The psychoacoustical benefit of doing all this seems to be very prone to the placebo effect; "I have done something to make my sound better, so it sounds better." I suppose the big question is sustainability. Which format will be accessible in the future? Thirty years ago I was in a band and recorded an eight-track magnetic tape demo which was then mastered onto a Betamax-DAT; not the "DAT" we all know, but a hardware format that didn't last long. I still have the tape, but cannot access it as no one has a machine any more. So will DSD be able to be read in 30 year's time - not that anyone will want to hear my stuff then and I'll be dead. I guess I am being dragged into the blinky LEDs and audiophile-led rhetoric of a format that "only the elite are aware of". I'll stick with 96kHz 24-bit pulse code modulation. Thanks.

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