What sampling rate do you use?

What sampling rate do you record at?

  • 44.1

    Votes: 197 55.8%

  • 48

    Votes: 79 22.4%

  • 88.2

    Votes: 6 1.7%

  • 96

    Votes: 52 14.7%

  • 192

    Votes: 10 2.8%

  • 384

    Votes: 1 0.3%

  • I'm waiting for 768

    Votes: 8 2.3%
  • Total voters
    353
I am going to take a guess, and that Johnnyvee is not processing his tracks, but pretty much just combining them...and low track counts too.
With that in mind, I suppose the difference between 16 and 24 would be lessened and not as noticeable. I record a fair amount of stuff myself that is basically a stereo track, won't really have any processing and will go straight to a CD. In that instance, recording at 16 bit is just fine. ..(since some of the files may be over 20 minutes long too)
 
Agreed -- just because it's theoretically better is not necessarily a reason to use 24-bit... it's far more important to undertstand your signal chain and the different options and using it to your best advantage - if 16-bit makes more sense and provides the sound you want, then so be it!
 
I do home 'mixing & mastering' and have been working at 32bit float/96KHz lately. I just upsample the tracks from 16bit/44.1KHz to work at the higher resolution and save the files that way.

Currently I have to use Adobe Audition to work at that rate since it eats my cpu alive. Audition lets me easily hit a button to freeze a track & its' effects so they don't bog the cpu down with real-time calculations. I suppose its similiar to pre-rendering a track and archiving except it's a 'one-button' operation.

I think there's a difference in sound quality using the higher resolutions especially when I begin adding effects and reverbs. Then I can downsample & dither to whatever medium I want to distribute using - CD, DVD, mp3.

I picked 96KHz because I thought I might be using DVD a lot and downsample to 48KHz for that and it would seem to be an even mathmatical calculation but I'm not done thinking about or researching that yet.

I picked the highest bit depth (32bit float) because I do a few DSP operations to balance stuff (home recordings & mixes) and sometimes it takes a few hammers & nails, hehe. Somebody mentioned 48bit but I've only seen that in external hardware and maybe a few internal busses, possibly Pro Tools - but not in the ability to record or save a file at that depth. Voxengo & Ozone plugs use 64bit internal calculations but I'm not sure how that works in a signal chain - I'm thinking those get 'dithered' (I hope) to the internal buss depth (both Sonar3 & Audition use 32bit float) then passed on to the next effect in the chain.

I don't know what I'm going to record at when I track - I've just updated some equipment and don't know what I can handle yet, maybe 24bit/48KHz - that makes sense to me.
 
From what I've read the biggest problem with downsampling to 44.1 comes from clock jitter errors, no matter your starting sample rate.
 
Everything so far has been 16/44.1.

But... last week I upgraded my sound card, so the next project is going to track at 24/44.1 or 24/48. We'll see on Friday.. :cool:
 
First, if you track and mix at 16/44, then you are not LOSING resolution. Technically, if you track at something like 24/96 and then finally dither down to 16/44, then yes you are losing some resolution. However, the resolution that you do lose is stuff that was never actually captured at 16/44. In the end, even after a dither (assuming good converters and algorithms of course) you will still end up with more juicy tidbits than if the process started and ended at 16/44. Even when dumping from (and I dare say especially when dumping from) analog tape, which may only have 96db of headroom, I still say do it at the highest sample rate you can.

My analogy would involve digital camera's. Say you snap a picture at 2 megapixels. It may look great. However, if you were to take the EXACT SAME picture at 4 megapixels, it may look even better. Almost like mastering. Your mix may sound great to you. And then it gets mastered and all of a sudden it sounds better. Maybe even to the point that once you hear the better version you no longer can bear to hear the one you used to love. Its really hard to compare the sound of higher resolution to that of lower resolution unless all of the variables are the same so you can hear what the real differences actually are. Also, just transfering a 2 channel signal at 16/44 and then transfering the same 2 channel signal at 24/96 may not sound all too different. However, having a 24 track song recorded at 16/44 and then the exact same tracks at 24/96, then the final difference is much more pronounced. Higher sample and bit rates affect much more than just headroom. They also effect stereo imaging and frequency extension. Another thing...... if recording at higher rates helps with clarity and all those other things, then its quite possible that your own mixes may come out better due to the extra detail you now have available. Kind of like upgrading monitors does.

Having said all that, I track at 24/44. The only reason I don't go to 48 khz is because I have this belief (completely unproven as far as I know) that the dither from 48 to 44 is more destructive than the benefit of the ever so slightly higher sample rate. :D
 
24/96

mainly because i can. the 24 bit is nice because i don't need to worry about clipping quite as much. 96 just because i can. i'm thinking about 88 just so i don't have to alias in order to get down to 44.1 but i'm not completely sure what the differences would be.
 
I've always used 24/44.1 when I could.

The main reason for using 24 bit when it is going to end up on a CD makes perfect sense to me. Since you can't record everything at 0 dB non-stop at 16 bits, the extra headroom just makes things easier, even if you lose some of it when you are all done.

However, the concept of going past 44.1 for a CD has always confused me. Some people say to go as high as you can, and others say that it can introduce artificats, so it is never worth it when the end product will be a CD.

Anyone care to elaborate on that?
 
OK..........first of all.....who here can actually tell me whether something is recorded in16 bit or 24 bits just by listening to them bythemselves not by side by side comparison? Doubt anyone really can.......................sorry to say.....it all ends up 16bits on cd so dont know why people make such a big deal out of using 24 bits when they probabaly couldnt even tell the difference...
 
Actually, there are a few people on here who certainly could tell you that difference. Your eyes 'refresh' about twenty times a second but no-one sits at a monitor set to 20Hz!
 
ok, so you're telling me that when someone hears a CD, they can tell me if it was originally recorded in 24 or 16 bits??...hmmm....kinda doubtful since it'll all be in 16 bits
 
madeulook10 said:
OK..........first of all.....who here can actually tell me whether something is recorded in16 bit or 24 bits just by listening to them bythemselves not by side by side comparison? Doubt anyone really can.......................sorry to say.....it all ends up 16bits on cd so dont know why people make such a big deal out of using 24 bits when they probabaly couldnt even tell the difference...
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You're kind of missing the point......... staying at 24 bits throughout the production phase is to maintain resolution and not lose audio quality (due to round-off error) as you apply frequent digital processing.

When production is over and you're rendering the final CD, that's when you dither down to the lower res of 16/44.1.......
 
madeulook10 said:
ok, so you're telling me that when someone hears a CD, they can tell me if it was originally recorded in 24 or 16 bits??...hmmm....kinda doubtful since it'll all be in 16 bits
Click to expand...
Then you don't understand the process. It's like saying you can't tell the difference between a small tree and a large one that someone hacked down to the same height.
 
The point isn't whether or not you can tell the difference on its own. The real point is that when I record, mix, master, play or whatever, I like my material to be of the highest quality that I can make it. For me, that means recording at 24 bits rather than at 16 bits. If you are happy "just getting by" than thats OK. Me, I strive to constantly improve. Moving to 24 bits, upgrading consoles, preamps, EQ's etc.... those things aren't necessary to get better, but they certainly don't hurt.

To me the really silly thing is actually recording at 16 bit if you have the capabilities to record at 24 bit when it makes it sound better.

It really sounds like you only have 16 bit capabilities and are trying to make yourself feel better by convincing yourself that there is no reason to record at 24 bit.
 
I record 24@48k, I notice a slight difference in the sonics with 48k as opposed to 44.1k. Some will argue that anything over 44.1k is useless. I dont agree with this, I myself have noticed a difference between 44 and 48k. I wouldnt recommend anything over 48k unless its going to SACD or DVD.
 
I record at 44.1/24bit to keep the word length high to avoid truncation and rounding errors in the main audio portion but mix down to 96/24 (I find a subtle and improved "spaciousness" or headroom as opposed to 44.1/24). I would record and do everything @ 96/24 but the disk space and CPU use on effects is killer on my rig so I don't. I have noticed a difference though in songs where I did it all 96/24 vs 44.1/24 - better dynamics, better overall sound quality - definitely something you can hear.
 
xstatic said:
The point isn't whether or not you can tell the difference on its own. The real point is that when I record, mix, master, play or whatever, I like my material to be of the highest quality that I can make it. For me, that means recording at 24 bits rather than at 16 bits. If you are happy "just getting by" than thats OK. Me, I strive to constantly improve. Moving to 24 bits, upgrading consoles, preamps, EQ's etc.... those things aren't necessary to get better, but they certainly don't hurt.

To me the really silly thing is actually recording at 16 bit if you have the capabilities to record at 24 bit when it makes it sound better.

It really sounds like you only have 16 bit capabilities and are trying to make yourself feel better by convincing yourself that there is no reason to record at 24 bit.
Click to expand...

ACtually, I do have the capabilities to record 24/96 through cubase SX but i bring this up because I really dont see the difference between 16 and 24 when it all is recorded onto cd.......and i'm .....just participating in the discussion that;s all and all this really doesnt matter to me..i was just playing the devils advocate.........sorry to bust your chops
 
When I went from 16 to 24bit there was definitely an improvement in the fidelity of raw tracks. I haven't dithered any finished mixes yet so cannot offer anything to that argument. However, the points about better resolution make logical sense.
It seems that you may be able to use an analog tape analogy...like the difference between tape speeds? There has never been any argument about the difference between 7.5ips and 30ips...even if it's being mixed down to a cassette tape anyway.
I would also think that if you have the convertors and monitoring that can handle it, differences would be more apparent. A buddy of mine that is now going 24/96 claims that he really notices the increased resolution in the cymbals.
So, if you plan on hardware upgrades in the future it may make sense to go with higher resolution now when recording raw tracks. The future improvements may reveal all those "extras" in your "old" tracks.

Terry

Terry
 
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