WSD Format (Korg Wideband Single-bit Data)
WSD is the DSD container format used by Korg recorders and the AudioGate ecosystem. DpdoEngine supports direct
.wsdoutput since 6.68.1.
What Is WSD?
WSD (Wideband Single-bit Data) is the 1-bit DSD file format used by Korg in its MR-series recorders and AudioGate playback/editing software. Compared with DSF (Sony) and DFF (Philips), WSD circulates mainly within the Korg ecosystem, making it a good fit for users of AudioGate or other WSD-capable players/editors.
| DSF | DFF | WSD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Developer | Sony | Philips | Korg |
| Primary ecosystem | General-purpose players | Broadcast / mastering | AudioGate / Korg recorders |
| Bit order | LSB-first | MSB-first | MSB-first |
| Metadata | ID3v2 | COMT chunk | Fixed Text area |
| DSD rate support | DSD64–DSD2048 | DSD64–DSD2048 | DSD64–DSD2048 |
File Structure
WSD uses a fixed-length header + DSD data layout:
┌─────────────────────────────┐ offset 0
│ General Information (32B) │ "1bit" ID / version / file size / section offsets
├─────────────────────────────┤ offset 32
│ Data Spec Information (48B) │ play time / sample rate / channels / speaker config
├─────────────────────────────┤ offset 80
│ Text Data (720B) │ Title/Artist/Album/Genre metadata
├─────────────────────────────┤ offset 800
│ Stream Data │ channel-interleaved DSD data (MSB-first)
└─────────────────────────────┘
Key fields:
| Field | Offset | Description |
|---|---|---|
| File ID | 0 | ASCII "1bit" |
| Version_N | 8 | 0x11 (v1.1) |
| File_SZ | 12 | Total file size (big-endian 64-bit) |
| Text_SP / Data_SP | 20 / 24 | Text / data section offsets (80 / 800, big-endian) |
| PB_TM | 32 | Playback time (milliseconds, big-endian) |
| fs | 36 | DSD sample rate, e.g. DSD64 = 2822400 (big-endian) |
| Ch_N | 44 | Number of channels |
| Ch_Asn | 48 | Speaker configuration (stereo = 0x22) |
⚠️ Fields are big-endian. Some references mark them as little-endian, but actual Korg files and ffmpeg/Audacity parsers all read them as big-endian.
Usage
# PCM → WSD (DSD64)
DpdoEngine -i input.wav output.wsd --oversampling 64
# PCM → WSD (DSD128)
DpdoEngine -i input.wav output.wsd --oversampling 128
# With metadata
DpdoEngine -i input.flac output.wsd --oversampling 64 --artist "Korg User" --album "Live Recording"
The .wsd output extension is auto-detected — no extra parameters needed.
Compatibility
- AudioGate — Korg's official software, directly supported
- Audacity / ffmpeg — supported via the built-in WSD demuxer (identified as
dsd_msbf; the sample rate is displayed as fs/8, e.g. DSD64 shows 352800 Hz — this is ffmpeg's general convention for DSD, and DSF behaves the same way) - Other players — depends on the implementation; most DSD players focus on DSF/DFF, so DSF is still recommended for cross-ecosystem use
Notes
- WSD data is channel-interleaved (L/R bytes alternate), same as DFF
- Bit order is MSB-first (same as DFF/DSDIFF, unlike DSF's LSB-first)
- The Text area in the fixed header is 720 bytes (offsets 80–800); metadata longer than that is truncated
- DST compression does not apply to WSD (WSD carries uncompressed DSD only)