44.1kHz, 48kHz, and 96kHz?
- Thread starter Track Rat
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dabluesman
New member
So, there isn't too much difference in sound quality between 48 and 96kHz? Would 48kHz be considered demo/near studio quality? Thanks!
dabluesman
New member
Whats the difference with these? I'm new to pc recording, I would assume that 96kHz is better, but why? I'm wanting to record/multitrack my drummachine, bass guitar and then the guitar track on to my PC and mix it with Cool Edit Pro and finally burn it to a cd. So, I'm thinking of going with the Lexicon Core-2, it is 24bit but only 48kHz. Would I need 96kHz for what I want to do or is 48kHz ok? Does anyone know of a card with at least 4 ins, 4-8 outs, (RCA) SPDIF (all in break-out box), 24bit (like the Core-2) but with 96kHz? Thanks!
the Delta 66 is 4in/4out 24bit/96khz for about $299 at www.bayviewproaudio.com and has more driver compatiblities than the Lexicon card. If your set on the Lexicon card, I imagine you'll be happy with the 48khz quality (96khz is DVD quality).
dabluesman
New member
I done some more checking and If I read this correctly then all I really need is 44.1kHz since i'm going to burn it to a cd anyway, right? I've done a small bit of recording to tape and I ended up with pretty bad quality. What kind of improvment should I expect with recording at 24bit at 44.1kHz compared to my old record to tape player input?
Track Rat
Just Your Average Sized Member
Convetional wisdom says you track at the higher resolution, say, 20 to 24 bits and 48 kHz and when you master down to two track you do the conversion to 44.1 kHz/ 16 bits. Now a lot of folks just track at 44.1 kHz/ 16 bits and say screw it and by pass all the conversion problems. I guess it's a matter of taste.
sonusman
Banned
Okay, for technical issues, go to www.digido.com . Read the article about dithering, and also the one entitled "More bits please".
More bits = finer detail in the sound, and usually an increased dynamic range. It also means more detailed processing when using digital processors as there are more volume steps to process (something like 1.3million for 24 bit, compared to 64,000 for 16 bit).
sampling rate = higher frequecy can be accurately recorded. You can only effectively record a frequency half the sampling rate. 96KHz equals a potential of 48Khz actually being restored. If you try to use the arguement about not hearing above 20KHz, you are not up on how sound actually works, and how upper frequencies effect what we CAN hear. Also, just because most equipent says that it is only up to 20KHz, that usually just means that the phase distortion does not start until 20KHz. Most audio equipment can pickup, record, reproduce frequencies higher then 20KHz.
Higher sampling rate too also equals more detailed processing. Obviously, there are more 16, or 24 bit depth samples per second at 48, or 96 then at 44.1. So again, your processing will be more detailed at the higher sampling rates.
Quantanization errors start moving to decibles much lower then peak on 24 bit files then on 16 bit files. This is important because these errors are what usually make digital processing sound so stale and harsh.
Proper techniques for preserving the most pristine audio possible is to record and process the audio at the highest sampling rate, and bit depth possible. Then, to use a good resampling algarythm and a good noise shaped dithering scheme to make the high bit dept/sampling rate audio into the current CD standard of 16 bit 44.1KHz sampling rate. While dithering and resampling definately make you loose some of the finer details in the sound, you are still dithering and resampling a much better audio source then if you where to do the same with lower bit depth/sampling rate audio. So in the end, you have better audio after dithering and resampling.
If hard drive space allows, and your software supports it, you can avoid many of the shortfalls of digital processing by using the highest bit depth and sampling rate possible.
If you have software that is capable of double or triple bit processing, you get even better results.
Hope this clears a few things up. Please don't believe that better results will not be achieved with higher quality digital samples available. This kind of talk contradicts expert and scientific opinions and research that says otherwise.
Ed
More bits = finer detail in the sound, and usually an increased dynamic range. It also means more detailed processing when using digital processors as there are more volume steps to process (something like 1.3million for 24 bit, compared to 64,000 for 16 bit).
sampling rate = higher frequecy can be accurately recorded. You can only effectively record a frequency half the sampling rate. 96KHz equals a potential of 48Khz actually being restored. If you try to use the arguement about not hearing above 20KHz, you are not up on how sound actually works, and how upper frequencies effect what we CAN hear. Also, just because most equipent says that it is only up to 20KHz, that usually just means that the phase distortion does not start until 20KHz. Most audio equipment can pickup, record, reproduce frequencies higher then 20KHz.
Higher sampling rate too also equals more detailed processing. Obviously, there are more 16, or 24 bit depth samples per second at 48, or 96 then at 44.1. So again, your processing will be more detailed at the higher sampling rates.
Quantanization errors start moving to decibles much lower then peak on 24 bit files then on 16 bit files. This is important because these errors are what usually make digital processing sound so stale and harsh.
Proper techniques for preserving the most pristine audio possible is to record and process the audio at the highest sampling rate, and bit depth possible. Then, to use a good resampling algarythm and a good noise shaped dithering scheme to make the high bit dept/sampling rate audio into the current CD standard of 16 bit 44.1KHz sampling rate. While dithering and resampling definately make you loose some of the finer details in the sound, you are still dithering and resampling a much better audio source then if you where to do the same with lower bit depth/sampling rate audio. So in the end, you have better audio after dithering and resampling.
If hard drive space allows, and your software supports it, you can avoid many of the shortfalls of digital processing by using the highest bit depth and sampling rate possible.
If you have software that is capable of double or triple bit processing, you get even better results.
Hope this clears a few things up. Please don't believe that better results will not be achieved with higher quality digital samples available. This kind of talk contradicts expert and scientific opinions and research that says otherwise.
Ed
dabluesman
New member
Thanks Ed for the great info! I'll check out the link. Would you happen to know if Cool Edit Pro is able to do the dithering and resampling? If not what software do you recommend? Thanks!
monty
Banned
Ed...I have no problem with this;
Proper techniques for preserving the most pristine audio possible is to record and process the audio at the highest sampling rate, and bit depth possible. Then, to use a good resampling algarythm and a good noise shaped dithering scheme to make the high bit dept/sampling rate audio into the current CD standard of 16 bit 44.1KHz sampling rate. While dithering and resampling definately make you loose some of the finer details in the sound, you are still dithering and resampling a much better audio source then if you where to do the same with lower bit depth/sampling rate audio. So in the end, you have better audio after dithering and resampling.
What's hard to understand is that if you're resampling a higher resolution digital recording, why not just sample the real sounds first? Wouldn't the real sounds be closer to reality than a digital recording no matter what the resolution?
Proper techniques for preserving the most pristine audio possible is to record and process the audio at the highest sampling rate, and bit depth possible. Then, to use a good resampling algarythm and a good noise shaped dithering scheme to make the high bit dept/sampling rate audio into the current CD standard of 16 bit 44.1KHz sampling rate. While dithering and resampling definately make you loose some of the finer details in the sound, you are still dithering and resampling a much better audio source then if you where to do the same with lower bit depth/sampling rate audio. So in the end, you have better audio after dithering and resampling.
What's hard to understand is that if you're resampling a higher resolution digital recording, why not just sample the real sounds first? Wouldn't the real sounds be closer to reality than a digital recording no matter what the resolution?
sonusman
Banned
dabluesman. I am not too up on Cool Edit. The extent that I use any digital editors is using Wavelab to mastering the mixes I do to the hard drive. I don't do ANY software mixing except at the mastering stage.
Treeline. Believe it or not, I struggled with all this digital crap for a long time until recently, it all started to make a little sense. Happy to break it down into simpler terms that make it easier to understand for people, because it sucks trying to get a grasp on it. The articles at www.digido.com went a long way towards helping me understand this stuff better. They also validated what my ears were telling me, that high end digital processing is still not as good as high end analog processing.
Monty. If you were to do absolutely no digital processing at all to the audio after recording it, you could probably get the best results by not dithering. Dithering is just adding a low level noise at a certain frequency that helps "mask" quantanization errors. But, if the dithering algarythm is coded well, you can still hear audio that is lower volume then the dithering noise. Thus, you can actually have the equivalent of more bits on a 16 bit CD if you start with higher bit depth and use good dithering.
The problem is that usually, people are going to do some digital processing to the audio once it has been convertered to digital. If you are going to do any digital processing, it will benefit from a longer bit depth and higher sampling rate.
A lot of big time recordings are actually mixed to analog tape. At mastering, they run the tape through high end analog compressors and eq's and converter to digital through very high end A/D converters (Lucent, Apogees, etc....) Once in digital, it doesn't need processing. Maybe some fade out's, but in this case, a good dithering scheme is adequate for the quatanization errors "that are only created during the fade out's". In this case, the dithering is only applied to the edited portion of the audio, not the whole song. So, you don't have dithering on the whole file, just the fade out. Dithering seems to add a sort of "mask" to the sound, so if you don't need it, you shouldn't use it. But remember, if you turn the volume down on a track in digital, using a digital volume fader, it has to be recalculated, so you have a longer bit depth that has to be dithered. This is why I don't care for digital mixers at all, they are always recalculating and dithering the audio if you even change the track volume.
It is where people are doing the compression and eq in the digital realm that you need the higher sampling rates and longer bit depth. Analog processing doesn't suffer from quantanization errors where digital does. The idea is to get these errors to happen on bits of information that are not going to be there when the audio is converted to 16 bit for CD. If you were processing 16 bit files, the quantanization errors are happening at a volume that is audible to the ear. At 24 bit, you can still hear them, but when the audio is converted to 16 bit, these errors are not as present anymore because they are generally the least significant bits of audio (low level stuff). The least significant bits are removed during the conversion from 24 to 16 bit, so, you wind up with a more detailed 16 bits this way, with a very low level shaped noise at the very bottom of the dynamic range which usually covers up the missing original bits. Thus, the 16 bits you do have are the bulk of the original audio, with the fine detail that the original 24 bits had. Get it? I am oversimplifying this a bit, but that is more or less the way it all comes down.
About sampling rate. I have found that the audio seems to sound better if it was recorded at 48KHz, then resampled to 44.1, then if it was originally sampled at 44.1. It is subtle, but noticable. But if I am to do any processing, of course like I stated earlier, the higher sampling rate means more detailed processing. You really can't think of digital processing as being the same as analog processing, it is not. Having more 1's and 0's available makes a big difference in digital processing, even when it will eventually be sampled down. Try it yourself. Also, ask any decent mastering house if they would rather have 48,88.2, or 96KHz files to work with as opposed to 44.1. If they say that they don't want anything higher then 44.1, that means they probably don't have the equipment to deal with higher sampling rates, or are not up on modern day digital processing, and I would suspect the quality of their work. Same goes with bit depth. If you are submitting to them in digital, they will prefer the highest bit depth possible.
Eddie N.....
Yes, I am a dick. But I take that as a compliment because a dick is a private investigator. I am the investigator of digital sound.... 
So the title works I guess.... (I know you said "dick head", but I am putting a good spin on this.... I love you too.... )
Ed
[This message has been edited by sonusman (edited 06-12-2000).]
Treeline. Believe it or not, I struggled with all this digital crap for a long time until recently, it all started to make a little sense. Happy to break it down into simpler terms that make it easier to understand for people, because it sucks trying to get a grasp on it. The articles at www.digido.com went a long way towards helping me understand this stuff better. They also validated what my ears were telling me, that high end digital processing is still not as good as high end analog processing.
Monty. If you were to do absolutely no digital processing at all to the audio after recording it, you could probably get the best results by not dithering. Dithering is just adding a low level noise at a certain frequency that helps "mask" quantanization errors. But, if the dithering algarythm is coded well, you can still hear audio that is lower volume then the dithering noise. Thus, you can actually have the equivalent of more bits on a 16 bit CD if you start with higher bit depth and use good dithering.
The problem is that usually, people are going to do some digital processing to the audio once it has been convertered to digital. If you are going to do any digital processing, it will benefit from a longer bit depth and higher sampling rate.
A lot of big time recordings are actually mixed to analog tape. At mastering, they run the tape through high end analog compressors and eq's and converter to digital through very high end A/D converters (Lucent, Apogees, etc....) Once in digital, it doesn't need processing. Maybe some fade out's, but in this case, a good dithering scheme is adequate for the quatanization errors "that are only created during the fade out's". In this case, the dithering is only applied to the edited portion of the audio, not the whole song. So, you don't have dithering on the whole file, just the fade out. Dithering seems to add a sort of "mask" to the sound, so if you don't need it, you shouldn't use it. But remember, if you turn the volume down on a track in digital, using a digital volume fader, it has to be recalculated, so you have a longer bit depth that has to be dithered. This is why I don't care for digital mixers at all, they are always recalculating and dithering the audio if you even change the track volume.
It is where people are doing the compression and eq in the digital realm that you need the higher sampling rates and longer bit depth. Analog processing doesn't suffer from quantanization errors where digital does. The idea is to get these errors to happen on bits of information that are not going to be there when the audio is converted to 16 bit for CD. If you were processing 16 bit files, the quantanization errors are happening at a volume that is audible to the ear. At 24 bit, you can still hear them, but when the audio is converted to 16 bit, these errors are not as present anymore because they are generally the least significant bits of audio (low level stuff). The least significant bits are removed during the conversion from 24 to 16 bit, so, you wind up with a more detailed 16 bits this way, with a very low level shaped noise at the very bottom of the dynamic range which usually covers up the missing original bits. Thus, the 16 bits you do have are the bulk of the original audio, with the fine detail that the original 24 bits had. Get it? I am oversimplifying this a bit, but that is more or less the way it all comes down.
About sampling rate. I have found that the audio seems to sound better if it was recorded at 48KHz, then resampled to 44.1, then if it was originally sampled at 44.1. It is subtle, but noticable. But if I am to do any processing, of course like I stated earlier, the higher sampling rate means more detailed processing. You really can't think of digital processing as being the same as analog processing, it is not. Having more 1's and 0's available makes a big difference in digital processing, even when it will eventually be sampled down. Try it yourself. Also, ask any decent mastering house if they would rather have 48,88.2, or 96KHz files to work with as opposed to 44.1. If they say that they don't want anything higher then 44.1, that means they probably don't have the equipment to deal with higher sampling rates, or are not up on modern day digital processing, and I would suspect the quality of their work. Same goes with bit depth. If you are submitting to them in digital, they will prefer the highest bit depth possible.
Eddie N.....
Yes, I am a dick. But I take that as a compliment because a dick is a private investigator. I am the investigator of digital sound.... So the title works I guess.... (I know you said "dick head", but I am putting a good spin on this.... I love you too.... )Ed
[This message has been edited by sonusman (edited 06-12-2000).]
signal2112
New member
I heard that when you use higher frequency and bitage in your sound recording it just glorifies the background noise along with the recording being made??
sonusman
Banned
Higher sampling rate and bit depth does nothing to the audio except increase the accuracy of it. It doesn't "add noise", or "glorify" anything, except that the audio that is there is more defined.
Sound to noise ratio of the actual audio is not improved of decreased in any way. If your sources are noisy, they will be as noisy on a 16/44 converters and they are a 24/96.
If anything, the converters actual s/n ratio is greatly improved with 24 bit. They ouput audio about 6 db higher then 16 bit at a +4 operating level......Nice....
Ed
Sound to noise ratio of the actual audio is not improved of decreased in any way. If your sources are noisy, they will be as noisy on a 16/44 converters and they are a 24/96.
If anything, the converters actual s/n ratio is greatly improved with 24 bit. They ouput audio about 6 db higher then 16 bit at a +4 operating level......Nice....
Ed
