• Recorded Live Studio in 2000 in Boulder, CO on Original Sony DSD Recording 2-Track Workstation Prototype

• Mastered and First Released in 2025!

These recordings were made in Boulder Colorado in 2000. Gus Skinas used one of the early Sony 2-track prototypes of what would become the legendary multitrack Sonoma DSD Workstation used by Sony to record Hybrid 5.1 Multichannel SACDs shortly after.

Gus invited me to Boulder to try a 3-mic setup directly to the 2 tracks -- no mixer was used, just very good mics with very good preamps into the ADC DSD Converters that were being hand built by Ed Meitner, and then straight into the DSD recorder. The prototype was just "a small box" with a small screen and keyboard, designed for permanently archiving Sony Vault tape masters to an analog-like (PDM) hi-res digital format they invented with Philips called DSD (Direct Stream Digital).

We recorded using just that gear and my guitars and voice and some harmonica. I was playing songs that were mostly new at the time and would appear on several albums to come, including my first and only 2 SACDs on disc ("The Window", "Crossing") and a 2001 live stage album I recorded as a trio in an otherwise empty well acoustic-ed playhouse in Half Moon Bay, CA off Hwy 1, just below San Francisco.

"Half An Hour Away" was a 2001 CD I self-produced and performed by the David Elias & The Great Unknown trio: Myself, Gary McArthur (flute/tenor sax), and Lisa Kelly (mandolin). I wanted to try recording a stage performance with some mics in the empty playhouse theater audience space. So I put mics in the front 4th row or so, and in the very back near the wall in the balcony. I used these mic tracks in the mix for natural delay and natural reverb. Spot mics were used on my voice and guitar, flute/sax, and mandolin. No digital effects, no edits. Nothing except our trio on the stage, and the nice sounding room to fill with ambient acoustics. I also had spot mics on guitar, voice, flute/sax and mandolin.

This is the approach I then took recording "The Window" SACD in 2002 as well as "Crossing" in 2005 as pure DSD recordings made with and mixed/mastered on the Sonoma DSD Workstation.

These songs are personal honest bare naked recordings. As much so as anything I could do then or now. I have had a name for my approach to stark, barebones, honestly accurate recordings: Audio Vérité.

This was recorded 25 years ago. I guess I had to wait until my ears grew up to hear it just right. No mixer, effects, compression or anything else was used to influence the sound. Just straight Audio Vérité.

• DE, December 16, 2025