sample rate/ bit depth

[Guest iep]

16bit/44khz

 

my recording soundcard (aardvark aark20/20) supports 20 bit depths... and my other recording card (echo mia) supports 24/96.. (dont use the mia that much, it has only 4 inputs and 4 output but it's directsound drivers are superior, compatibility-wise, so i kept it).

 

the thing is, i'm no mastering pro, not yet at least. i have some decent tools and i have a good ear, plus my techniques are pretty ok i guess. BUT: i think i should work on improving my mixing and mastering skills before i start tinkering with the real advanced shit. yeah sure, it wont hurt to use higher sampling/depth values (it even decreases your latencies) but it takes up 2x as much diskspace (!!!!!!!). and as long as my tracks aren't bottlenecked by my sampling/depths, i don't care. my ad/da convertors are A++ (aardvark is comparable with RME's converters, maybe even with low end Lynx or Apogee convertors).

 

192kbps

 

48kHz

 

[Guest aeser]

24 bit 44.1khz

 

for cd's anything more than 44.1 is stupid as you'll just need to do a sample rate conversion (which suck and lose bits) before it can end up on cd anyway, might as well hear what you get from the get go and do it all in 44.1

 

for vinyl sky is the limit as it will have to be converted to analog instead of to 44.1 digital, to make a master they can play the 192khz or 96khz audio out some decent 96/192 converters and into a mastering lathe.

if you're mixing digitally then it's way better to keep the song tracks in higher samplerate. if you're just recording stereo mixdown from the console then 44.1kHz is okay for cd. if you trust your converters. otherwise record in higher freq and do some mastering digitally.

 

that's what i'd say.

 

if you're doing everything natively, i.e. "mixing digitally" and then bouncing that mixed audio to a wav or aiff (or even mp3) it's not better to keep your tracks in a higher samplerate because to become a wav or aiff or mp3 that people can play in a normal player it has to be samplerate converted to 44.1, and sample rate conversions do bad things to audio, if you are mixing the higher sample rate audio to something external i.e. playing the higher sample rate audio out some decent converters to analog and then mixing down to an analog source or to another decent converter/digital medium it's good to have the original sound source machine at a higher sample rate and the one it's mixing down to at 44.1

 

basically it's going to be 44.1 so unless you have some elaborate setup with very nice very expensive converters (or are mixing primarily for dvd audio or something) just keep it at 44.1 from the get go and avoid mucking your shit up with sample rate conversions.

 

i disagree! you'll have to explain why downsampling a mix from say 192kHz produces worse 44.1kHz mix than 44.1kHz mixed to 44.1kHz.

you know what i mean? it's better to do the mixing with better quality material and then downsample it. we're talking digital mixing ofcourse.

 

and yeah, i've never mixed anything digitally so it's just what i think theoretically.

 

 

sample rate conversions work by cramming and dropping bits until it becomes the lower bitrate, the reason digital sounds inferior to analog despite digital have a much higher frequency range and being able to handle things like sub bass in stereo that vinyl cannot handle, is because digital audio works by sampling sound 44,100 times a second, and even though this is fast enough to sound like cohesive non-stuttering music to our dumb brains, there is still a shitload of "missed audio" as in gaps inbetween the samples, audio information you are not hearing, this manifests as lack of "warmth" that everyone praises analog for.

 

the problem doing a sample rate conversions is you lose bits of audio data in order to get it down to 44.1, which you would otherwise not have lost if you had just done it all in 44.1 from the begining, then it's not losing anything, it is what it is the entire time, whereas say you did it at 96khz or 192khz, it's going to sound pretty fucking awesome at that sample rate, then you convert it and of course will immediately notice the difference going to 44.1 as it is a much lower sample rate but what you won't notice unless you had also done the entire track in 44.1 to A/B test it with is it will not sound as good as the natively 44.1 track as you cannot control which bits get dropped so important audio information is lost. it will still be acceptable, don't get me wrong, but what the fuck is the point of doing audio at 96khz or 192khz when it's only going to end up on cd or mp3 at 44.1? that's the only way anyones ever going to hear it, why take up the extra disk space and kill your processor even more, and making your final 44.1 master sound worse than a native 44.1 master? making it to not reap ANY of the benefits of the higher sample rate?

 

and yes, better applications do better sample rate conversions but they ALL lose data, it's the only way to get it down to 44.1, and the way to make 44.1 sound better is to just do it all in 44.1 and make it sound as good as you possibly can.

[kokoon]

the problem doing a sample rate conversions is you lose bits of audio data in order to get it down to 44.1, which you would otherwise not have lost if you had just done it all in 44.1 from the begining

well what about the bits of data you loose when you sample the original analogue signal to 44.1? you loose much more than if you sample to 192! you may not hear the dramatic drop of quality when you downmix 44.1 tracks to 44.1 final, but you do hear that drop immediately after the sampling of the individual tracks.

i'm perfectly aware that the final product will be 44.1, but:

all i'm saying is - if you're mixing digitally ITB (cubase for instance), you'll have a better mix with higher samplerate tracks - more correct, more "analogue-like", the higher harmonics that don't exist in 44.1 will be mixed and WILL be reflected in the 44.1 and more of the shit that exists when mixing in analogue will be present if you choose a sampling frequency closer to /analogue/ (infinite).

 

then you downsample it to 44.1. it will sound different, closer to what it'd sound like if it were mixed on an anlogue mixer.

 

... i think.

[cruising for burgers]

and yes, better applications do better sample rate conversions but they ALL lose data, it's the only way to get it down to 44.1, and the way to make 44.1 sound better is to just do it all in 44.1 and make it sound as good as you possibly can.

200% with u!!!

 

but this last kokoon post had a point!!! about when recording the instruments...

[Guest Duke Remington]

damn, im a bit tired of all the tape hype. im taking electroacoustic courses at uni and one of the classes was dedicated to analog vs digital recording. my teacher is a 55 years old masterting ingeeneer, so he probably went through all the recording shit since the 70's and he's also a mathematician etc.

 

now, tape might SOUND better because you are used to it and it has natural compression and stuff like that, noise in the background that seals the mix together, blablabla

 

but thats a matter of taste. if were talking about PRECISION and QUALITY and CLARITY, an average-nice converter beats the crap out of any tape anytime. and also, the signal that's on the tape is not as continual and pure as you think. it' also grainy and contains way more errors (what you heard when you recorded vs whats on tape) than digital. it's all about the converters. get yourself a nice 700$ clock and youl see. but even then, recording at 2496 with a GOOD soundcard and then mixing down to 44100 will be way more precise and TRUE than tape.

 

personaly im not interested in tape at all because as i said it's really hard to get a quality recording unless you have a 10k reel to reel or something. ive owned a 4000$ 16 track and sold it becasue i realised tape is just a sound, not a better quality. and i think it's time we move beyond that sound and nostalgic feelings.

 

also, if you think digital sounds bad, either youre listening to DDD records that were released 20 years ago (yes these are bad) or you simply don't like how a new recording is recorded and processed. but were not talking taste here, right? were talking about objective quality of recording.

 

again: quality = difference between original signal and recording.

 

buy bob katz's book or/and search google for AUDIO MYTHS

 

sorry to burst your bubble guys, analog deserves respect for alot of things, but if you think youre not totally messing up your signal when you record to your cheap portastudio or semi-pro quality reel your opinion does not concord with the opinion of experts who actually studied that shit for years and say 2496 kicks ass.

[Guest iep]

now, tape might SOUND better because you are used to it and it has natural compression and stuff like that, noise in the background that seals the mix together, blablabla

 

again: quality = subjective

 

it aint all about high fidelity. i don't need ultra high SNRs. or superpristine AD/DA conversion. i sometimes like grungy, old, crappy, non-Studer tape-sounds. sometimes not. depends on the track.

[Guest Duke Remington]

quality = objective

 

i dont know why youre changing my words, i was defining what i meant by quality exactly so to not make people more confused than they already are.

 

what youre talking about is the aesthetic and artisitic choices you're going for. But every painting needs a canvas. and that canvas must be the best you can have so that your artistic choices can be as clear as possible and STABLE. understand what i mean? the medium should be as transparent as possible so that even if you record to tape, when you bounce that shit to your pc the recording is going to retain the character of the tape and of your artictic choices.

[kcinsu]

heres a good read on sample rates.

 

http://www.digitalprosound.com/Htm/SoapBox/soap2_Apogee.htm

[Guest iep]

quality = objective

 

i dont know why youre changing my words, i was defining what i meant by quality exactly so to not make people more confused than they already are.

 

what youre talking about is the aesthetic and artisitic choices you're going for. But every painting needs a canvas. and that canvas must be the best you can have so that your artistic choices can be as clear as possible and STABLE. understand what i mean? the medium should be as transparent as possible so that even if you record to tape, when you bounce that shit to your pc the recording is going to retain the character of the tape and of your artictic choices.

 

hmm... ya ok, i agree. the blank canvas should indeed be as clear and transparant as possible.

 

every (intentional) degradation in the signal (that includes bouncing to a Studer tape-reel) is an artistic choice.

 

so quality would be defined as 'the transparancy of the canvas'. in that case, it is indeed measurable and objective.

[Bubba69]

Anybody who thinks that more information is kept when working in 44100 16 bit the whole time rather than working in something higher and then dithering/reencoding down is a fucking dumbass (even with VSTs etc.). No offense, just show me an article that says this otherwise I think you are just talking out of your asses. I usually dont work in anything very high myself for HD space reasons. (24 bit, 44 or 48).

 

EDIT: It depends on how you set things up as well, so dont jump on my words. But when doing destructive processes in 16 bit over and over is worse than doing them in 24 bit over and over and then resampling, because rounding built upon rounding built upon rounding is not good. Rounding once is best, thats what they taught me in chemestry class. VSTs usually work in 32 bit float (something likie that?) so If you have a setup with all live effects and then down to 16 bit I guess its okee dokee.

[foresense]

16bit vs 24bit = huge difference when mixing.

44khz vs 192khz = small difference when mixing.

 

this is because the bitrate is about space/dynamics (mixing), the samplerate is about time/timbre. the higher the sample rate the more accurate your sounds are, and the higher the frequency you can produce. sounds start to sound less digital and more round and smooth at higher sample rates.

 

so yeah aeser has a point, but it doesn't make a whole lot of difference i think. the downsampling is as negligible as working at a certain sample rate is (as long as you have a decent resampler).

 

if you don't have the hardware to play it back, or have to mix it to a cd later on it doesn't really matter anymore. but i would argue that it's better to mix at a higher sample rate, purely so you can make better mixing decisions.

 

i mix at 16bit and 44khz. first i want to get better at mixing to warrant the extra fidelity.

[pylonbitch]

said it before and i'll say it again.

 

24/96.

 

then bounce.

 

this is especially handy if you are doing a master for cd and a master for vinyl from the same source. you just convert down for the cd master.

 

still not much mention of aliasing in this thread.

[Guest Mr. Magoo]

said it before and i'll say it again.

 

24/96.

 

then bounce.

 

this is especially handy if you are doing a master for cd and a master for vinyl from the same source. you just convert down for the cd master.

 

still not much mention of aliasing in this thread.

 

lol

[pylonbitch]

mind if i ask what you're lol'ing at magoo?

[Guest bowen]

mind if i ask what you're lol'ing at magoo?

 

i really do get the impression he's 12 and dosn't exactly know what going on

[Guest Duke Remington]

[Guest bowen]

 

 

GET READY FOR MY FUNK

[pylonbitch]

bring the funk.

 

8 bit.

 

11kHz.

 

funk me.

 

funk the pain away.

[foresense]

you mean this?

[Bubba69]

you mean this?

 

HOLY SHIT! this is the coolest thing ever. I just clicked this while listening to "a giant alien force" and it matched up perfectly and made the raddest song ever. Im listening to it right now. WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TRY IT! Its got to be the same BPM.

[Guest aeser]

the problem doing a sample rate conversions is you lose bits of audio data in order to get it down to 44.1, which you would otherwise not have lost if you had just done it all in 44.1 from the begining

well what about the bits of data you loose when you sample the original analogue signal to 44.1? you loose much more than if you sample to 192!

 

wrong. ok say you sample at 192, yes you have more audio data than if you started at 44.1, but oops then you have to get the 192khz audio into 44.1khz audio so anyone can hear it, then you do a sample rate conversion and oh shit look at that, it randomly drops bits to get you down to 44.1, not nessesarily the bits you would like it to drop, and ends up sounding shittier than if you just recorded at 44.1 with decent converters and made it sound as good as possible at 44.1, then there's no bits lost when you mix down to a stereo aiff or wav, it is what you've been hearing all along.

[Guest aeser]

Anybody who thinks that more information is kept when working in 44100 16 bit the whole time rather than working in something higher and then dithering/reencoding down is a fucking dumbass (even with VSTs etc.). No offense, just show me an article that says this otherwise I think you are just talking out of your asses. I usually dont work in anything very high myself for HD space reasons. (24 bit, 44 or 48).

 

EDIT: It depends on how you set things up as well, so dont jump on my words. But when doing destructive processes in 16 bit over and over is worse than doing them in 24 bit over and over and then resampling, because rounding built upon rounding built upon rounding is not good. Rounding once is best, thats what they taught me in chemestry class. VSTs usually work in 32 bit float (something likie that?) so If you have a setup with all live effects and then down to 16 bit I guess its okee dokee.

 

i didn't say to do it in 16 bit, i do everything in 24 bit 44.1khz, going from 24 bit to 16 bit is simple shit, unlike sample rate conversions.

[Guest aeser]

damn, im a bit tired of all the tape hype. im taking electroacoustic courses at uni and one of the classes was dedicated to analog vs digital recording. my teacher is a 55 years old masterting ingeeneer, so he probably went through all the recording shit since the 70's and he's also a mathematician etc.

 

now, tape might SOUND better because you are used to it and it has natural compression and stuff like that, noise in the background that seals the mix together, blablabla

 

but thats a matter of taste. if were talking about PRECISION and QUALITY and CLARITY, an average-nice converter beats the crap out of any tape anytime.

 

it depends on what you mean by precision, quality, and clarity, digital is an incomplete picture of audio just as analog is, neither are real life, simply faximilies of sound on one medium or another, now as digital does not retain the (for lack of better term) "warmth" of an original musical performance the way analog does this is also from a certain perspective less precise, lower quality, and less clarity, of course if you're talking in strictly cold scientific terms of "frequency response" and "signal to noise ratio" then yes of course digital would be the more "precise/quality/clear" choice, but i would seriously disagree with you that an average converter beats a 2" tape machine in any sort of acceptable shape. yes high quality converters do rival tape machines, i myself have an iz RADAR for this reason (love the sound of 2" tape, can't afford to keep buying $200 reels of 2" tape for every 20 minutes of recorded material nor afford to keep having maintenance done on the machine) and i love the hell out of it. the RADAR sounds as "warm" and "full" as digital is capable of sounding at this point, but still has the sick frequency response and low signal to noise ratio of digital (as well as editing capabilities).

 

and at this point i'd say the "you are just used to hearing it" excuse goes out the window as most of the recordings done in the last 15 years are digital, not analog. there's a reason no one has made an analog 24 track in over 10 years and why you can only buy tape from 1 or 2 places on earth anymore, and it's not because analog is still out there in full force. it is still out there but pretty much only used by people who persistantly and obsessively seek it out.

[kokoon]

the problem doing a sample rate conversions is you lose bits of audio data in order to get it down to 44.1, which you would otherwise not have lost if you had just done it all in 44.1 from the begining

well what about the bits of data you loose when you sample the original analogue signal to 44.1? you loose much more than if you sample to 192!

 

wrong. ok say you sample at 192, yes you have more audio data than if you started at 44.1, but oops then you have to get the 192khz audio into 44.1khz audio so anyone can hear it, then you do a sample rate conversion and oh shit look at that, it randomly drops bits to get you down to 44.1, not nessesarily the bits you would like it to drop, and ends up sounding shittier than if you just recorded at 44.1 with decent converters and made it sound as good as possible at 44.1, then there's no bits lost when you mix down to a stereo aiff or wav, it is what you've been hearing all along.

ok, i won't argue anymore cause it's obvious we're not getting anywhere.

 

or maybe - are you basically saying that (re)sampling the audio 2 times (original AD conversion and then donwsampling) is worse than one sampling?

[Guest Barbed Q]

do you know what is worst than being an ignoranus? having half-knowledge.

 

this is my last post in this tread and hopefully the last because obviously alot of people have their heads deep in their asses. when you record at 24 96 and then go down to 16 44 youre not loosing any audible information and there are algorithms which are designed exactly to not alter the sound in AUDIBLE WAYS when you downsample. your mix will not sound different, you wont hear it unless you have what is called golden ears and even then... just make an experiment if you dont believe that. the algorithm CHOOSES between the bits that are kept and eliminates redundant bits. unlike a 44 16 converter, which doesnt have the TIME TO MAKE A GOOD CHOICE BECAUSE ITS TOO BUSY RECORDING 44100 SAMPLES A SECOND AND DOESNT KNOW WHATS COMING NEXT.