Topic: Anyone doing DSD Mastering with Korg MR-1, SonicStage and Vaio laptop?

[kingtut38]

Just wondering if anyone was doing dsd mixdown and mastering with the SonicStage mastering software on sony vaio laptops. It looks like it has several plugins from waves and sony and it also does super bit mapping to 16bit.

Just curious. I've got a new mr-1000 coming sometime this week and I wanted to see if the sonicstage did a better job of dsd to 16bit pcm than the audiogate software does (although I've heard it is fine)


Jon

[boojum]

All I use SonicStage for is uploading from my MD to my PC.  I have found it to be slow and a core hog.  I must all be written in some really primitive, un-optimized BASIC.  Try Audacity.  It is free, easy to use, and has a ton of plugins.   

[Gizby]

Are either of those capable of mixing down from DSD, and if so, where might I find the plugins?

[boojum]

If you mean Direct Stream Digital as in the SONY/Philips format, no.  But as this is a controversial format about which folks who really know disagree on, why not just stick with WAV??  I just checked SonicStage and do not see it handling DSD.  Could you possibly mean SoundForge??   

[kingtut38]

AFAIK SonicStage will capture audio as wav  and it will convert pcm to dsd.  You can then export to 16bit wav using super bit mapping.  To work with the MR-1 or MR-1000 I think you have to record with the 1-bit dsd file format specifically for the vaio- DSF.  I think the coolest things about it are the fact that you can play a dsd disc (not sacd mind you) through windows media player.  I just found out that the latest software update for the Playstation 3 console supports the playing of dsd discs.  I'm sure it converts it to pcm before it sends it through hdmi but it's still a step in the right direction.  I also like the idea of using super bit mapping to bring the dsd file down to 16bit.

more info


http://club.vaio.sony.co.uk/clubvaio/GB/en/exploration/software/sonicstagems.jsp

[H₂O]

I interepreted the Sony site as having two products:

SonicStage   - A simple playback application similar to iTunes
SonicStage Mastering Studio - A audio mastering application

Did I read this wrong?

[kingtut38]

You're right.  Sonicstage is sony's music library software.  Sonicstage Mastering is the dsd and pcm capture and mastering software.