David Elias: Guest Artist Thread - Ask About SACD, DSD, Surround and Downloads

David Elias - Independent Acoustic Guitarist, Singer, Songwriter

Independent Acoustic Guitarist and Singer David Elias has agreed to join us on QQ today as one of his songs becomes available on the NativeDSD.Com downloads web store as the Free DSD Download of the Day this afternoon (3pm Pacific Time, Midnight in The Netherlands). The track will be available in Stereo and Multichannel DSD, watch https://justlisten.nativedsd.com/ for the download links.

David is a popular performer who has led the way in the Independent Music scene many times. This includes selling CDs and SACDs via independent sites like CD Baby and Audiophile web sites like Acoustic Sounds, Elusive Disc and Music Direct. More recently, he has led the charge again by bringing his music - including some albums now out of print on optical disc - to the downloads world. He also performs live in Hawaii where he is based these days.

David will check in on QQ from time to time to review to member questions about his music and thoughts about being an Independent Artist these days.

Please be respectful and refrain from non-topic related musings. This thread will be moderated and any posts not deemed respectful or on topic will be deleted.

And now, please give a warm welcome to David Elias. Thanks to David for taking the time from his schedule to stop by and share his insights with our QQ community.

Hi David. I'm not familiar with your music so I went to Amazon and listened to some clips from "Crossing." Nice stuff The price, $54.00 for the SACD, would seem to reflect a disc that is Out Of Print. Any chance of a re-release? Thanks.

PK said:

Hi David. I'm not familiar with your music so I went to Amazon and listened to some clips from "Crossing." Nice stuff The price, $54.00 for the SACD, would seem to reflect a disc that is Out Of Print. Any chance of a re-release? Thanks.

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Aloha PK - thanks for listening to the clips. I have extended previews of all SACD/DSD download albums on my website as well (www.davidelias.com). There are really no plans to reprint the 2 hybrid mch SACDs "The Window" and "Crossing". I put "The Window" online as a DSD Disc download in 2009 after it had been OOP for a number of years. There are in fact just a few copies of the "Crossing" SACD left.

DSD Disc was a way to experiment with the idea of DSD Downloads in general which didn't really exist elsewhere at the time. Since then and really just in 2014 it seems DSD Downloads have become quite easy for listeners to access. So I like the "green" approach and convenience. I also started offering the DSD tracks as USB stick purchases for those with not so fast Internet connections or too little time. These are also available as both 2.0 and 5.1 mixes. I provide the SACD artwork and inserts/lyrics as PDFs as well.

Best Regards,
- DE

Hi David

I have your Crossing album and it sounds wonderful in surround.

Do you have any plans for more surround albums?

Regards
LizardKing

Thanks for the reply David...any gigs scheduled for the mainland?

LizardKing said:

Hi David

I have your Crossing album and it sounds wonderful in surround.

Do you have any plans for more surround albums?

Regards
LizardKing

Click to expand...

I would love to do more surround productions. The original idea for "The Window" in 2002 was to capture a live acoustic band in a very good room (Immersive Sounds studio in Boulder) with only natural ambient delay and acoustics including the reverb which we caught through mics off the back wall. Arranging the band (3 to 6 musicians on different tracks) in a large semicircle with no isolation and minimal micing was the approach I took to see how accurate the recording and playback could be with DSD as the "magic sauce".

We recorded specifically for 5.1 playback. The same was done for Crossing a couple years later, this time the band was in a smaller room at Slipperworld.net in La Honda, Calif. and in a full circle not more than 20ft diameter.

So I love the idea and feel surround has still yet to be discovered by many listeners for strictly audio playback. This forum is of course an exception as far as that discovery J

Best Regards - DE

I just returned from Montana in the Big Sky/Yellowstone area. I got to play some very fun shows with Montana Exit there. One was outside right next to the Gallatin River. Awesome! But no definite schedule back on the Mainland at this time.

davidelias said:

I would love to do more surround productions. The original idea for "The Window" in 2002 was to capture a live acoustic band in a very good room (Immersive Sounds studio in Boulder) with only natural ambient delay and acoustics including the reverb which we caught through mics off the back wall. Arranging the band (3 to 6 musicians on different tracks) in a large semicircle with no isolation and minimal micing was the approach I took to see how accurate the recording and playback could be with DSD as the "magic sauce".

We recorded specifically for 5.1 playback. The same was done for Crossing a couple years later, this time the band was in a smaller room at Slipperworld.net in La Honda, Calif. and in a full circle not more than 20ft diameter.

So I love the idea and feel surround has still yet to be discovered by many listeners for strictly audio playback. This forum is of course an exception as far as that discovery J

Best Regards - DE

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David, Do you think that the availability of DSD music downloads as an option for distribution will make Multichannel albums in that format from you more likely in the future? Or are there other hurdles that make releasing in Multichannel more difficult than a Stereo release?

bmoura said:

David, Do you think that the availability of DSD music downloads as an option for distribution will make Multichannel albums in that format from you more likely in the future? Or are there other hurdles that make releasing in Multichannel more difficult than a Stereo release?

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Brian - first many thanks for the invitation here!

I do believe Mch and native DSD recordings in general are much more accessible for production as downloads than printing SACDs. As you might imagine, the cost and time requirements are both reduced. Printing of SACDs always seemed to me to be a moving target. There were a few places in the US where SACDs were printed over 10 years ago. My understanding is that those locations no longer exist. So anyone like me, not affiliated with any record label, etc. has a hard time just navigating how to get them printed. Then there's the upfront costs.

The downloads seem easier for both the artist as well as buyer since there are fewer borders involved all around. I wonder what others online here think about that. Has been a question for me since 2009.

bmoura said:

David, Do you think that the availability of DSD music downloads as an option for distribution will make Multichannel albums in that format from you more likely in the future? Or are there other hurdles that make releasing in Multichannel more difficult than a Stereo release?

Click to expand...

Brian - first many thanks for the invitation here!

I do believe Mch and native DSD recordings in general are much more accessible for production as downloads than printing SACDs. As you might imagine, the cost and time requirements are both reduced. Printing of SACDs always seemed to me to be a moving target. There were a few places in the US where SACDs were printed over 10 years ago. My understanding is that those locations no longer exist. So anyone like me, not affiliated with any record label, etc. has a hard time just navigating how to get them printed. Then there's the upfront costs.

The downloads seem easier for both the artist as well as buyer since there are fewer borders involved all around. I wonder what others online here think about that. Has been a question for me since 2009.

PS - I can also release native DSD singles this way which I like a lot. Otherwise unreleased material can be made available through downloads on my website or elsewhere.

FYI - My preference would still be for a physical disc, but if downloads is the only (feasible) option, then so be it.

I don't (yet) have a set-up to play a MCH DSD downloads & would have to author a DSD disc, or convert to PCM. Note that I'd still prefer to get the DSD source ...

Kudos - for being a pioneer in terms of offering DSD downloads!!!

davidelias said:

PS - I can also release native DSD singles this way which I like a lot. Otherwise unreleased material can be made available through downloads on my website or elsewhere.

Click to expand...

That's an interesting area. Some questions I have about that:

1. Do fans buy more music as singles (lower cost, you can pick the songs you want) - or do they favor just grabbing the entire album? (I'm in the full album group myself).
   
2. Are you talking with the download stores that carry your music (like NativeDSD and Super HiRez) about carrying DSD singles? At this point, NativeDSD offers individual songs for sale - but only as part of an album. Super HiRez doesn't have that feature at all from what I can see.

LizardKing said:

FYI - My preference would still be for a physical disc, but if downloads is the only (feasible) option, then so be it.

I don't (yet) have a set-up to play a MCH DSD downloads & would have to author a DSD disc, or convert to PCM. Note that I'd still prefer to get the DSD source ...

Kudos - for being a pioneer in terms of offering DSD downloads!!!

Click to expand...

The DSD Disc is easy to create - perhaps you know the approach. It only requires specific files in specific folders as a data DVD. The DSD tracks (as DSF files) are in one folder. There is also a control file but can be created as a text file using Notepad or whatever. Feel free to email me if you would like more info on this [email protected]

The DSF tracks on all my downloads are identical to the SACD tracks on the physical disc. They all came from the same source masters. These were recorded originally to Sonoma as 8-tracks, mixed as 5.0 and 2.0 (separately) also on the Sonoma using the Sony DSD Mixer card (Wide DSD). So the result on both SACD and DSD Download is the studio DSD master.

The source DSD64 tracks were not converted to analog and back to DSD for the mixes but remained as DSD throughout without overdubs or edits, with a very few exceptions. That is true of "The Window", "Crossing" and "Acoustic Trio - DSD Sessions" (stereo only).

bmoura said:

That's an interesting area. Some questions I have about that:

1. Do fans buy more music as singles (lower cost, you can pick the songs you want) - or do they favor just grabbing the entire album? (I'm in the full album group myself).
   
2. Are you talking with the download stores that carry your music (like NativeDSD and Super HiRez) about carrying DSD singles? At this point, NativeDSD offers individual songs for sale - but only as part of an album. Super HiRez doesn't have that feature at all from what I can see.

Click to expand...

iTunes created the singles idea on downloads long ago as we all know. So offering single downloads for DSD and HRA in general makes perfect sense to me. I think there are logistics that get in the way. One of them may be record label licensing issues. Of course I don't have that problem J

I should be offering album singles on my web site but just haven't done the work to get a cart and all the SKUs setup for each track. I like albums myself but for unreleased material that doesn't quite fit on an album or work I've done that gets categorized as outtakes can be released this way. I've also offered free demos and the like that way through places like OPPOdigital.com, exaSound.com and others.

So far there haven't been a lot of requests to me for singles within the albums. Not sure what SuperHirez, NativeDSD, highresaudio.jp, highdeftapetransfers.com and the rest hear from their customers.

davidelias said:

iTunes created the singles idea on downloads long ago as we all know. So offering single downloads for DSD and HRA in general makes perfect sense to me. I think there are logistics that get in the way. One of them may be record label licensing issues. Of course I don't have that problem J

I should be offering album singles on my web site but just haven't done the work to get a cart and all the SKUs setup for each track. I like albums myself but for unreleased material that doesn't quite fit on an album or work I've done that gets categorized as outtakes can be released this way. I've also offered free demos and the like that way through places like OPPOdigital.com, exaSound.com and others.

So far there haven't been a lot of requests to me for singles within the albums. Not sure what SuperHirez, NativeDSD, highresaudio.jp and the rest hear from their customers.

Click to expand...

I noticed that your 4th album in DSD, Coffeehouse Playlist DSD #1, is a compilation of songs in Stereo from your first three albums plus two of the DSD Singles (Poor Polly and Aspen Rose).
This looks like a way around getting the "singles" to the web stores since NativeDSD lets you buy the tracks for the Coffeehouse Playlist album separately.
https://skettisandwich.nativedsd.com/albums/coffeehouse-playlist-dsd-1

bmoura said:

I noticed that your 4th album in DSD, Coffeehouse Playlist DSD #1, is a compilation of songs in Stereo from your first three albums plus two of the DSD Singles (Poor Polly and Aspen Rose).
This looks like a way around getting the "singles" to the web stores since NativeDSD lets you buy the tracks for the Coffeehouse Playlist album separately.
https://skettisandwich.nativedsd.com/albums/coffeehouse-playlist-dsd-1

Click to expand...

I hadn't thought of it exactly that way (getting around singles) but yes so it is J

I liked the idea of putting together a sampler of my different DSD albums so that the different styles and backing musicians could all get on a single album. The singles were also unique representations of some of my arrangements. In fact those two "Poor Polly" and "Aspen Rose" are radically different in presentation, the latter being pure homemade DSD64 solo acoustic and the former more aligned with Folk-psychedelic as someone else put it. All are recorded live studio.

The Coffeehouse Playlist sampler is also part of the offering by Rev9 for mobile DSD and HRA listening solutions -- these are all stereo mixes.

Hi David,

Thanks for visiting here. What is your opinion about ultra hi-res DSD formats like DSD 128/256 and Blu-ray Audio (BDA) discs in the PCM realm?

grill said:

Hi David,

Thanks for visiting here. What is your opinion about ultra hi-res DSD formats like DSD 128/256 and Blu-ray Audio (BDA) discs in the PCM realm?

Click to expand...

Hi Grill - thank you for the welcome. There are a few things about DSD128 and 256 that sound very useful to me for making even better recordings. I don't particularly like to tread on technical issues because as Roger Powell quipped to me 20 years ago already, "if it sounds good, it is good" and I've mostly followed that philosophy more than anything since with my DIY approach to recording started in 1994.

Still if one is recording in multitrack with DSD there are noise issues that get pushed upwards and away with the higher bit rates. Everything I've done has been between 2 and 8 track on DSD64 so I don't think my recordings have gotten the aggregated noise influence the way other multitracks might (16, 24, 48).

Would LOVE to record in multitrack DSD128 or higher... why not. The limited trials I've done sound great. Upsampling DSD64 to higher rates makes little maybe no sense at all. I can't hear the differences in my tests. But upsampling PCM to DSD... could be very good especially with other treatments/filters applied. The HAP-Z1ES apparently does this upsampling to DSD128 for all non-DSD source tracks and I've been told repeatedly how great that sounds. Would like to demo this myself someday.

On the downside perhaps is the size of these files for downloads. Mch especially. I talk to people in most if not all continents and have had some difficulties with downloads just with DSD64 files somewhere in all worldwide locations. This is usually due to Internet speed problems. PCM 24/192 are even larger.

Best Regards,
- DE

grill said:

Hi David,

Thanks for visiting here. What is your opinion about ultra hi-res DSD formats like DSD 128/256 and Blu-ray Audio (BDA) discs in the PCM realm?

Click to expand...

Hi Grill - thank you for the welcome. There are a few things about DSD128 and 256 that sound very useful to me for making even better recordings. I don't particularly like to tread on technical issues because as Roger Powell quipped to me 20 years ago already, "if it sounds good, it is good" and I've mostly followed that philosophy more than anything since with my DIY approach to recording started in 1994.

Still if one is recording in multitrack with DSD there are noise issues that get pushed upwards and away with the higher bit rates. Everything I've done has been between 2 and 8 track on DSD64 so I don't think my recordings have gotten the aggregated noise influence the way other multitracks might (16, 24, 48).

Would LOVE to record in multitrack DSD128 or higher... why not. The limited trials I've done sound great. Upsampling DSD64 to higher rates makes little maybe no sense at all. I can't hear the differences in my tests. But upsampling PCM to DSD... could be very good especially with other treatments/filters applied. The HAP-Z1ES apparently does this upsampling to DSD128 for all non-DSD source tracks and I've been told repeatedly how great that sounds. Would like to demo this myself someday.

On the downside perhaps is the size of these files for downloads. Mch especially. I talk to people in most if not all continents and have had some difficulties with downloads just with DSD64 files somewhere in all worldwide locations. This is usually due to Internet speed problems. PCM 24/192 are even larger.

Best Regards,
- DE

BTW - I really think the front end of the recording is the most important aspect. Basically the room, engineer, mics, preamps and performance. If that is done well then I think the recording can sound very good no matter what the media and format. DSD is the favorite of mine due to its natural sound reproduction which I believe my ears are still getting used to even after almost 15 years of hearing it.

FYI, NativeDSD.Com has just posted today's Free DSD Track of the Day. It is "Mend My Mind" from the album Crossing by our QQ Guest Artist, David Elias.

The free DSD track is available in Stereo DSD or 5 Channel Multichannel DSD. Your choice - or you can get both free! Just create a free account on NativeDSD.Com and you get the free downloads.
Happy listening...



Free DSD Download of the Day in Stereo and 5 Channel Multichannel DSD: Mend My Mind by David Elias
https://justlisten.nativedsd.com/
https://skettisandwich.nativedsd.com/albums/crossing