Bit Rate/Sample rate question

M

metalj

New member
I am recording a new album with other musicians out of my area. My Pro Tools rig is the main hub that everything is put into once its tracked.

I am recording all the bass and electric guitars on my own at 24bit and 88.2. The vocalist can only record at 16 bit and 44.1 as well as the drummer.

I know for a CD it all get dumped down to 16/44.1 anyways but …. .

Will this cause any issues for final mastering and having a quality sounding end product? Online streaming quality etc…. Will the files mix well together in relation to the bit and sample rate differneces ?

Thanks.
 
Just make a decision at what bit rate and sample rate you want to bring all the tracks together in one project for the mixing..
If you do that at the lower 16/44.1 values, there's no point in tracking your stuff at 88.2...but if you do it at the higher 24/88.2 values, then your stuff will hold it's depth/rez and their's will just be up-sampled.
 
The drums and vocals would probably benefit more from the higher resolution, though in actual practice it's not that big of a difference. No electric guitar (no matter the number or size of strings) needs 24/88. I'd probably still record them at 24bits if you can, but just run the session at 44.1K. As I understand it, ProTools can be weird about combining different sample rates, and there's no point in forcing the vox and drums through two resampling algorithms.
 
I'm curious why you would differentiate between drums and vocals VS guitar AFA which sampe rate would be of most benefit....?

There's lots of electric guitar stuff where tonal subtleties, sustained notes, plus wide range of octaves and harmonics far exceed what a voice and/or drums can do.

Do you mean electric guitars as in, crunchy/distorted, rhythm kind of stuff...?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing in favor of or against higher sample rates (I used to track at 88.2, now I just go with 48)....rather I'm just wondering why you see it that way.
 
Guitar speakers roll off somewhere between 5-8K, and are way down by the time you get up to Nyquist of 44.1K. Some of the brighter bass sounds sometimes go a bit higher, but not enough to matter. Cymbal transients, some vocal sounds, and especially that "air" thing live up above 10K, and can get way higher. I personally don't think anything needs more than 44.1K, but I don't want to argue that here, so I'm saying that the drums and vocals might benefit a bit more from a higher rate.

More importantly, passive guitars especially have nowhere near the dynamic range of a 16 bit recording, but drums (especially cymbal tails) can. Vocals can also be pretty wildly dynamic. Not always, but they can be, and since they are usually compressed and are almost always the focal point of the mix, we'd prefer to start with as little noise as possible. I really don't want to make a big deal out of it though. As long as the mix engine is floating point, and you use proper analog gain staging, the difference between 16 and 24bit tracking is pretty subtle, almost negligible.
 
miroslav said:
I'm curious why you would differentiate between drums and vocals VS guitar AFA which sampe rate would be of most benefit....?

There's lots of electric guitar stuff where tonal subtleties, sustained notes, plus wide range of octaves and harmonics far exceed what a voice and/or drums can do.

Do you mean electric guitars as in, crunchy/distorted, rhythm kind of stuff...?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing in favor of or against higher sample rates (I used to track at 88.2, now I just go with 48)....rather I'm just wondering why you see it that way.
Click to expand...

It is a long distance recording project where I am writing music with Superior Drummer for the initial idea and feel of the song as well as I record all guitars and bass in my rig (metal distortion) using plugins for guitar tones, the singer will write lyrics and record his voice at his location, the drummer will then record his parts at his location. They both will send me the .Wav files to me and I dump them back into my Pro Tools set up. I have the capabilities to record at the higher bit and sample rate, they do not. Their equipment is a bit dated than mine, but still sounds good, they just do not have the ability due to their equipment. Once I have it all and the songs are final I will have the guitars re-amped with a killer tube amp as well as the bass and hand it over to a professional studio to mix and master.

I am trying to head off any potential problems before getting to far into it and the the studio goes, "hey man this wont work".

Thanks for all the comments guys.

I attached a sample of what we are doing as this is what this forum/site is about right ?? Guitar tones at this point are straight from the Sans Amp plug in that comes with Pro Tools and a PRS SE Soapbar II guitar, Bass tone is a Fender American Jazz 5 string using an EZmix2 "Cali Bass" pre-set, drums are Superior Drummer 2.0 with me step writing each hit, Vocal are just this guy singing real good using an older Tascam desktop unit and I applied a bit of Delay,verb and compression on his track. Then the entire track has a Mastering Plug-In from EZMIX2 on the Master fader. Actually not to bad sounding for some basic plug-ins.

Cheers.

---------- Update ----------

Sorry, this sites file managing is not real slick, I've tried to upload a file 3 times and it does nothing. No message or anything, nothing happens.
 
Just work at whatever rates you like. Your PT will convert their files on import so there won't be a problem either way. :)

metalj said:
Sorry, this sites file managing is not real slick, I've tried to upload a file 3 times and it does nothing. No message or anything, nothing happens.
Click to expand...

Don't hesitate to report it. I'm sure they'll fix it ASAP. :p
 
ashcat_lt said:
I personally don't think anything needs more than 44.1K, but I don't want to argue that here, so I'm saying that the drums and vocals might benefit a bit more from a higher rate.
Click to expand...

:D

Yeah....that statement about 44.1 kHz alone will get you many pages of debate on many forums (home rec and pro audio alike).

Anyway....I guess I just look at the thing a bit more aesthetically. Like, I don't see one instrument any more or less valid for higher rates. I get the math you are using as your guide....but a human voice or drums "technically" (at least in some circles ;) ) don't have anything above Nyquist either....so for me it's all or nothing AFA choosing rates.

Even though I'm now doing tracking at 48 kHz and it's sounding OK to me, I would still rather use 88.2, but with my greater use of ITB plugs/processing these days as opposed to saving it all for my OTB mixdowns....88.2 can be somewhat taxing on my older system, so 48kHz was the next best thing under the circumstances.
 
Just record everything at 44.1, the 24 or 16 bit rate can be used together in most software, I would not mix up 44.1 and 88.2.

Alan.
 
24 bit and 16 bit can live in the same session together. If one of the people can only go to 44.1k, then do the whole thing at that sample rate. There really isn't any need to go higher, and it's a big hassle trying to resolve files coming in at different sample rates all the time.

Just pick 44.1k and have everyone use that.
 
miroslav said:
...but a human voice or drums "technically" (at least in some circles ;) ) don't have anything above Nyquist either....
Click to expand...
We can't hear it under normal circumstances (why I don't think we need to bother recording it), but some sounds do have significant content way up high there. Cymbal transients are a pretty good example. If you record a cymbal at 44.1K and then slow it down to half speed, it will be immediately obvious that you're now missing the top octave. If you do exactly the same thing at 88.2K, I think you'd be surprised at exactly how natural it actually sounds. It'll sound like a bigger cymbal, maybe, with a lower fundamental, but sharp leading edge of the hit, and the air around it, will sound pretty normal. Of course, it kinda depends on your mic and the rest of your chain being able to pass those frequencies. I've never tried it with cymbals, but I have done it with things like silver ware, stainless steel stock pots, and water splashes/drips. It's actually kind a freaky. Like I said though, I don't need it, since we can't hear it, and I'm not making music for dogs (maybe I should...). Unless you actually plan to slow down the recording, it's kind of a moot point, but I guess I'm bordering on that old argument again, so let me just say that from what I understand the sample rate conversion can be worse in terms of artifacts and distortion than whatever little bit you might lose from using the lower rate to begin.
 
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