Recorded in audio at 32 bit/96k but only able to playback at 44.1 sample rate??

[Polytrix]

Hey, bit of a weird one and this is probably down to a lack of knowledge.

 

Anyway, I have a Scarlett 6i6 focusrite box and recorded vinyl into Ableton at 96k/32bit just because I thought I'd try it for super high quality and I can successfully change the sample rate via the Focusrite MixControl Software/adjust bit rate in Ableton... I usually just record in/play back at 44.1/24 bit.

 

Anyway, I was able to do it in Ableton and obviously  was able to play back from Ableton.

 

But, when I extract the audio to an external drive and play that audio back from source via VLC with the focusrite Mixcontrol set on 96k without using Ableton it auto defaults back to 44.1k  which I think means it's being down-sampled when I play it back...which kind of defeats the whole objective.

 

What am I not understanding?!

 

Is VLC player not up to it?

 

Apologies in advance for my lack of knowledge!

[user]

I have no idea, have you tried changing back the sample depth with vlc open to see what happens?

[Polytrix]

Yeah it either defaults and there's an audible pop sound thing as it reverts back to 44.1 or I get no audio output at all.

 

Weird.

[user]

Maybe dig in the vlc preferences, if the sampledepth/rate is set differently there it will force/default to that setting.

[oscillik]

Can VLC even playback 32bit files?

[TubularCorporation]

I don't have any solutions to your problem, but for what it's worth there's a lot of debate over whether 32 bit is actually higher quality. You don't get truncation distortion and have, for all intents an purposes, unlimited headroom but it has its own form of distortion (I honestly forget the specifics, but it occurs at zero crossings and there's no counterpart to dither for getting rid of it). This is all audiophile corksniffer/mastering engineer level stuff though, but personally I don't bother going above 24 bit for anything, because I don't notice any improvement in 32 bit float (unlike 16 bit vs 24 bit, which makes a big difference to my ear even when everything is correctly dithered and gainstaged to get the best quality 16 bit I can manage - there are plenty of knowledgable people who clam 16 bit can sound as good as 24 bit but my ears have consistently told me otherwise), and it takes up more space.

 

 

More importantly, is the ADC in your focusrite actually digitizing your audio in 32 bit float? I have a feeling it's not, and is actually recording 24 bit audio and then converting it to 32 bit float, so even if there was a noticeable advantage to 32 you wouldn't get that on the recording end in that case, only when you were rendering a mix that had been done with a 32 bit signal path. That's a safe thing to assume on modern software but wasn't safe to assume until the last few years - Pro Tools was still using a 24 bit signal path up until version 11, for example, so any 32 bit plugins you used were having their output dithered back down to 24 bits - which is why until recently there was a tradeoff in sound quality for every plugin you added in a Pro Tools mix, not to mention the fact that it was possible to digitally clip audio if you didn't gainstage every plugin correctly. Pro Tools was an extreme case, though, since they were locked into a 20 year old audio engine for backward compatibility reasons and were generally 5-10 years (or more) behind their competition in terms of its underlying technology.

 

Anyway, my point is there's most likely not much to be gained from working with 32 bit audio in Ableton, although rendering your final mix in 32 bit (or even 64 bit) floating point might be a good idea (but the jury's still out even then).

 

This is a pretty decent discussion of it by people who know more than I do:

 

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/24-bit-vs-32-bit-float-for-recording.347189/

 

 

EDIT: on the other hand, that thread also has people claiming that dither doesn't make an audible difference at 24 bit and that's another thing my ears absolutely disagree with.

 

I feel like I understand the mathematical proof behind the case that 16 bit and 24 bit audio sound identical, and yet any time I dither a well mastered 24 bit file down to 16, no matter what dither algorithm I use, I notice a difference in the depth of the soundstage. It still sounds good but it sounds different. There have been enough times when I've had experiences like playing back a 16 bit version of something when I meant to play back the 24 bit version and realizing it because it sounded not quite right, that I don't think it's just placebo effect. At some point I'll set up a blind a/b comparison just for my own peace of mind.

[Polytrix]

Ah fair enough! Yes, I think you're right. I think my interface only records in at 24 bit (I've learnt that now anyway) via USB2. 

 

If I can record in at 96k should I not be able to play back at 96k though. I still think it's VLC being a bit rubbish maybe.

 

Cheers for the interesting discussion though. It was more an experiment really.

[mcbpete]

Try foobar, I've also got a focusrite USB audio interface and it happily plays back Colundi #10 at the utterly insane 24bit/192khz sample rate.

[oscillik]

Pretty much anything (including on-board sound) should be capable of 24bit 192KHz audio playback. It's likely an issue with it being in 32bit float.

[sweepstakes]

The answer lies in the mango gerbil's butthole.

[Polytrix]

So i figured it out by asking Focusrite support.

 

VLC/Foobar etc aren't using the ASIO driver that Ableton uses (I was able to play back 96k from within Ableton but not from Windows applications). They are using an MME driver apparently which you need to manually set at 96k from within windows preferences.

 

So you right click the speaker icon in the taskbar thing in windows ---> playback devices ----> right click interface ---->properties then advanced tab -----> change default format and bump it up to 96k from there depending on your system. 

 

I was also told to deselect the check box that says ''Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device''. I did this process for playback and recording devices.

 

Following this I was able to play 96k/24bit/32bit audio from VLC.

 

You just need to make sure to set it back to 44.1 when not working in 96k as you can otherwise get conflicts due to different sample rates.

 

Perhaps important to note I'm running a 2009 Dell laptop so maybe this behavior is different on more powerful/modern systems with better audio drivers.

 

Cheers