What sampling rate do you use?

[Elton Bear]

16/44.1

Maybe if I was releasing pro quality albums at a commercial level I might bother bringing it up, but I don't see much point at the demo level I'm working at atm

 

[pinebilly]

24/44.1

Cheers,

PBilly


DJ Equipment

 

[Terry Wetzel]

Sorry I'm Late !

I've been groping around the site blindly and all of a sudden I'm starting to find my way around! That said, I've read a lot of articles and such on higher sample rates and frequencies giving better quality. my problem here is, I just can't hear the difference and, since consumer cd's wind up at 16/44, why bother. I'm sure lots of audiofile bigwigs put their 2 cents in before the industry standard was established. To make it even more a puzzle, I now have some folks telling me to post my tunes on Soundclick and other sites devoted to independent uploads in lieu of myspace which they say sucks, results being better sounding playback quality. Doesn't that depend on your playback system and speakers? As I understand, the difference in CD and MP3 is that certain frequencies are eliminated that,(again) the human ear can't hear, for the sake of compacting to a slightly lower audio standard. I put some of my store bought cds in my computer library and then to an Ipod. They sound ok to me so I must assume that (a), either lots of people have better hearing than me which is possible,(B), These folks have a very high opinion of their ability to hear or,(c),they suffer from consumer gullibility, alias "kings new clothes" syndrome'.

 

[Terry Wetzel]

Yeah!

... my ears are probably shot from drumming for 30+ years, but i think that 16/44.1 sounds fine to me, and it ends up there anyway on a cd (please don't shoot me yet). i know there is probably benefit to recording at higher rates before dithering down, but am i crazy to think that this is negligible. i can hear a slight difference on reverbs and certain effects, but i mix my stuff pretty dry.
16/44.1 sure saves me a lot of room on my hard drive. anyway, i know this has probably been discussed to death elsewhere, but feel free to give me your two cents if you really think i'm missing out... and i guess i could always get another hard drive.
thanks- jv

..and the hard drive manufacturers certainly would love that. HELL! BUY A DOZEN AT A TIME!

 

[dintymoore]

Suppose you had a beautiful photograph. And you made a copy on a mediocre copy machine and then a copy of that copy, and so on until you ended up with a 20th generation copy.

Nor compare that to: you made every copy on the best copy machine there is, right up to the last copy, at which time you switched to the mediocre copy machine.

I think the second method would look better, and that music recording works much the same. And that's why I keep everything as high reso as I can (24/48 at the moment) right up to the very end before I'll change it to 44.1/16.

The second reason is that in a few years everything will be in much, much higher resolutions and you'll be glad if you have versions of your old projects in higher than 44.1/16bit format.

I think people would be surprised if they went into the future and saw how high the sample rate would have to be before everyone would say that there was no need to go higher. It won't stop until it replicates real life, and the sample rate of nature is the speed of light.

Beem me up Scotty!

 

[billisa]

Suppose you had a beautiful photograph. And you made a copy on a mediocre copy machine and then a copy of that copy, and so on until you ended up with a 20th generation copy.

Digital copying doesn't work like this at all.

The 100th or 1,000,000th 16bit/44khz digital copy of a 16bit/44khz original recording will sound identical to the first.

 

[dintymoore]

Suppose you had a beautiful photograph. And you made a copy on a mediocre copy machine and then a copy of that copy, and so on until you ended up with a 20th generation copy.

Digital copying doesn't work like this at all.

The 100th or 1,000,000th 16bit/44khz digital copy of a 16bit/44khz original recording will sound identical to the first.

Yes, they are identical, or should be.

My point was that I think it does sound better to record all your tracks at highest resolution and do all your mastering at the highest resolution, and then at the end make a 44.1/16 bit version.

The similarity to the photocopy machine (and I meant like a 7-11 crapper) was that anywhere along the line that detail is lost, you'll never get it back. So keep as much as you can until the last chance you have to "cheapen" it.

Hope that makes sense.

 

[billisa]

Yes, they are identical, or should be.

My point was that I think it does sound better to record all your tracks at highest resolution and do all your mastering at the highest resolution, and then at the end make a 44.1/16 bit version.

The similarity to the photocopy machine (and I meant like a 7-11 crapper) was that anywhere along the line that detail is lost, you'll never get it back. So keep as much as you can until the last chance you have to "cheapen" it.

Hope that makes sense.

It does, and I agree.

 

[IceDon]

44.1 is what am use to,in my opinion i dont think its needed to go higher...just my 2cents.

 

[witzendoz]

44.1 / 24 bit most of the time. Working in 24 bit does add to the sound of the final product over 16 bit, I can't explain why you can hear it, especially when it come to reverbs.

Record mix and master in 24 bit, then render via good software to 16 bit for a CD master is a good way to work.

Cheers

Alan.

 

[Robo 5-0]

I go at 24/44.1kHz mostly because the sound quality is there and the higher sample rates grind my computer down pretty noticeably. Maybe that's why I like it so much... one less fight in my life.

Now if only I could get my girl dialed back to 24/44.1 as well...

 

[snaimpally]

44.1khz but 24 bits!!

I have recently switched to recording at 24 bits instead of 16 bits but still using 44.1khz. The difference is quite dramatic. Perhaps we should have another poll as to how many bits rather than the sampling rate.

 

[snaimpally]

I've been groping around the site blindly and all of a sudden I'm starting to find my way around! That said, I've read a lot of articles and such on higher sample rates and frequencies giving better quality. my problem here is, I just can't hear the difference and, since consumer cd's wind up at 16/44, why bother. I'm sure lots of audiofile bigwigs put their 2 cents in before the industry standard was established. To make it even more a puzzle, I now have some folks telling me to post my tunes on Soundclick and other sites devoted to independent uploads in lieu of myspace which they say sucks, results being better sounding playback quality. Doesn't that depend on your playback system and speakers? As I understand, the difference in CD and MP3 is that certain frequencies are eliminated that,(again) the human ear can't hear, for the sake of compacting to a slightly lower audio standard. I put some of my store bought cds in my computer library and then to an Ipod. They sound ok to me so I must assume that (a), either lots of people have better hearing than me which is possible,(B), These folks have a very high opinion of their ability to hear or,(c),they suffer from consumer gullibility, alias "kings new clothes" syndrome'.

I switched from 16 to 24 bits and it makes a difference, particularly when processing. With 16 bits, after I did some EQ and used a look ahead limited (UltraMaximizer), I could heard some "grit" in the sound. I find that with 24 bits, I no longer get the "grit" and the audio sounds more natural. By using 44.1/24 bit, its very easy after processing to save it as 44.1/16, i.e. there is no extra time needed to convert from 24 to 16 bit.

Try it and see for yourself. I have tinnitus at 9khz from all the rock concerts I went to as a teen and even my ears can hear the difference.

 

[timtimtim]

Me 24/44.1

If the signal you are sampling is near to half the sample frequency you get a slight loss in level due to the samples which fall on the null points of the sinewave, but the low-pass filter (if it's good) smooths out the waveform so you get a perfect sinewave, not a triangle wave or any other shape.

The difference between CD and MP3 can be dramatic on complex sounds, depending on the resolution used in the MP3 conversion. High resolution MP3 is quite good, but give me CD every time.

 

[guitar zero]

I switched from 16 to 24 bits and it makes a difference, particularly when processing. With 16 bits, after I did some EQ and used a look ahead limited (UltraMaximizer), I could heard some "grit" in the sound. I find that with 24 bits, I no longer get the "grit" and the audio sounds more natural. By using 44.1/24 bit, its very easy after processing to save it as 44.1/16, i.e. there is no extra time needed to convert from 24 to 16 bit.

Try it and see for yourself. I have tinnitus at 9khz from all the rock concerts I went to as a teen and even my ears can hear the difference.

Changing from 16 bit to 24 bit or visa versa does not alter the audio signal in any way. It only alters the noise floor. Nothing else. The 'grit' you are hearing with 16 bit is likely more noise.