will 16bit guitar tracks mix with 24bit vocals?

[jwgeetar]

hey yall, i am in the middle of trading tracks via email (also using uncompressed ones) with a buddy thats recording on a Tascam 8 channel 16 bit machine. he mixed his 16bit guitar tracks with my 24bit recorded vocals. the mix is fine if not kinda quiet, after a couple of re-mix's.

now,--- i have imported it back onto my Tascam 2488II 24bit machine to add a couple of overdubs. will this spell trouble when it comes time to mix? as i like to push the envelope and push levels to get what i can out of it.--- thx

 

[slowmotion]

Did you re-record them into your machine (should be cool)? Or did you transfer the files across? Worst case, just re-record the guitars into 24bit, if you can.

I think.

 

[jwgeetar]

i sent him my original 24bit song in stereo with my vocals on one side. he took my vocals and put it with his guitars and bass he recorded on his 16bit machine. also--(it gets complicated here) he sent the song back via email as an mpeg4. ok, so i converted that to a wav and imported it into my 24bit Tascam. the musicianship is great but after a coupla re-mix's and bringing up levels, overall it's kind've a shy mix. it's an accoustic laidback song but i want levels upfront and not buried under "musicianship". the rest of the songs on the album are definitely louder.

anyway, just rattling on but one thing that bothers me is he didn't uncompress my file before working on it.

i pretty much understand everything is better (and professional) if all parties work on the same playing field. as in 24bit,uncompressed files. what do ya think?

 

[RAMI]

i pretty much understand everything is better (and professional) if all parties work on the same playing field. as in 24bit,uncompressed files. what do ya think?

Yes. And, unfortunately, converting his MPG4 to WAV doesn't really make it a WAV quality file.

 

[slowmotion]

i pretty much understand everything is better (and professional) if all parties work on the same playing field. as in 24bit,uncompressed files. what do ya think?

Yes, and always 24bit (uncompressed) for me from now on; it really sucks when you've got a great idea and a great sound and a great performance but you recorded at poor quality to "save space"...or because it was just "a demo". Hard drives are huge these days for next to nothing and big files can be shared (no need to email compressed songs).