Sample Rate??

Jeremy Muller

New member
Possibly another stupid question...I am recording using Cubase LE4 and am trying to increase audio quality. I have now run across the question of Sample Rate. My interface (PreSonus AudioBox 22VSL) can use a sample rate as high as 96kHz. The default on Cubase has been 44.100kHz, but does have the 96kHz option. Should I choose the 96kHz? Will that make any difference? I have been using the default 44.100kHz all along. Is this a possible reason for a lower audio quality than I like? (I understand that room acoustics, mics, instruments and the like all play a part in quality too, but right now am focusing on this question of Sample Rate).

Follow-Up: When I burn the wav file to CD can I choose the 96kHz option or must I revert to 44.100kHz? I understand that with Bit Depth, while I am recording at 24 Bit I must revert to 16 Bit to record to a CD.

Thank you for your guidance here...feeling like a real dork.
 
44.1/24 here. IMHO -home setup, good gear, nice mics and pre's, RME converters, fairly well treadted room(s), great speakers... Sound quality limitations rank zero in my world. And that doesn't even address the maybe of if there's any real sample rate only differences to be had.
IDK, when I record something sweet'-- seems to me that's what comes out the other end :D

And yes 'CD are 44.1/16 bit
 
Thanks, but not sure I understood all of that. You use 44.1/24 and it's good audio. Okay. Gear here is decent interface, decent mic. Instruments are so-so, older Yamaha acoustic, nice 1989 Gibson Les Paul. What's an RME converter? My room is not treated well at all. Square, carpeted, using blankets, pillows and mattress to absorb sound. My monitoring speakers are not too good either, BUT they can show me the difference between something that sounds very good versus mine which sounds like a "home recording". Thought I might be losing a lot of musical info by recording at 44.1 instead of 96, but you're saying that's not the case, that I am hearing what I put in. And anyway, I'd lose any benefit of 96 by burning to a cd. Thank you. That helps.
 
If you can find them (I don't know where they are at this point, I'm sure the AES has them, NARAS, etc.), you'll find that around 75-80% of full-time industry professionals record at the target rate (44.1k for audio projects, 48k for video.

One thing I can tell you for sure -- If you aren't consistently putting out some of the most celebrated, award-winning, technically superior, audiophile-quality recordings ever produced, it isn't the sample rate that's holding you back.

And even if you are -- It isn't the sample rate that's making it happen.
 
My room is not treated well at all. Square, carpeted, using blankets, pillows and mattress to absorb sound.

Yes, addressing the acoustics of your room will improve the quality of your projects vastly more than any gear upgrade or sample rate increase. This short article explains the basics in plain English:

Acoustic Basics

--Ethan
 
Even though your interface can sample at 96K, it doesn't mean you need to, unless you want to use a lot of disk space up for no real benefit. Stick to 44.1K/24bit for recording for now and work on learning about all the other things that will affect your sound, staring with the room, the mics and their position relative to the sound sources and the room walls/corners. Good recording spaces are hard to achieve and usually where a lot of money can be spent.

- Geoff
 
Thank you all for your help. My recording space is a problem, no doubt. I don't understand why when I'm close to the mic, and to my thinking, taking out as much of the room variable as possible, the acoustic guitar doesn't sparkle or seem "there". I went to a very open room with hardwood floors and bare walls and glass doors and recorded the guitar and there is little difference in sound between that and my square carpeted room with pillows, blankets and mattresses. I listened on good Sennheiser headphones and on my PS-10s and tiny Harman-Kardons, and there is still very little difference. Because of this I question investing much in room treatment. Perhaps it's the acoustic itself, a low-end Yamaha FG-335 from the 1990s. I'm doing a bunch of research on room acoustics (thanks Ethan) and on mic/recording techniques, so hopefully that will help clue me in. Again, I appreciate all you have offered.
 
Thank you all for your help. My recording space is a problem, no doubt. I don't understand why when I'm close to the mic, and to my thinking, taking out as much of the room variable as possible, the acoustic guitar doesn't sparkle or seem "there". I went to a very open room with hardwood floors and bare walls and glass doors and recorded the guitar and there is little difference in sound between that and my square carpeted room with pillows, blankets and mattresses ...

It's all matters of degrees but a few general variables to toss in here-
Our smaller rooms (with some high/mid deadening) still resonate in the lower frequencies per the size of the box that they are. And whatever hard reflections from the walls etc are also close' (and rather louder' because they're closer' to the mic and source.
As you get into a bigger rooms (and/or well treated rooms) those things shift out, the tones changes etc.
And many things like acoustic guitars, drums, even vocals can benefit from a little distance from the mics both in the tone options- and giving more latitude in mic position both to open up their sound, and have less of the 'everything piling up in the 'close mic'd with proximity effect' on it because we're 'in a box and constantly trying to avoid the sound of the room. :)
 
I don't understand why when I'm close to the mic, and to my thinking, taking out as much of the room variable as possible, the acoustic guitar doesn't sparkle or seem "there". I went to a very open room with hardwood floors and bare walls and glass doors and recorded the guitar and there is little difference in sound between that and my square carpeted room with pillows, blankets and mattresses.

Ideally, microphones are not placed very close to acoustic instruments. If you can get at least a foot or two away, that will yield the most balanced sound. But in small untreated rooms, once you get that far away the sound takes on a hollow off-mic quality. So the benefit of a good sounding room is it lets you put the microphones at a better distance, but without adding that off-mic sound.

--Ethan
 
Okay. Thanks. Will look into variable mic positioning as well. Thank you.

Actually just to dig a little deeper here, it might be a bit surprising the two room's sounds wouldn't show up some on an ac guitar mic situation. Maybe real close (to the sound hole maybe?
I bet if you smacked it good and mutted it real quick you'd hear some of that room decay showing up.
 
Ok. In response to Ethan's post, I usually record from a distance of about 9-12 inches from the mic. This is the suggested distance in the mic's manual for acoustic guitar, along with pointing the mic at the guitar where the fretboard meets the body, roughly 12th fret...So in hearing what your saying, by backing off that 1 foot I encompass enough crappy room sound that it gets "hollow", or in my parlance, kind of dead sounding, no life. Maybe I'll try more in the hardwood floor room with greater mic distance (1-2 feet). I do notice that when very close to the mic (less than 6 inches) the sound is incredibly "boomy", so I've ditched that notion. This is all quite helpful, although on some level disheartening. But thanks.
 
Shoot 9-12" is a decent range- certainly not particularly close or anything. I've been messing with small mics clamped on my Taki but working around in the 4-8" range (in or around the 12th fret) I have to have quite a lot of low trim in there.
 
Yeah, 9 to 12 inches is good for a close-mic'd sound. My main point, which maybe I didn't make clearly enough, is that acoustic instruments send different frequency ranges off in different directions. So when a mic is very close, it tends to pick up only part of the range. The sound might be very boomy here, way too thin over there, and so forth. By pulling the microphone back another foot the mic captures a more balanced spectrum. This can work very well in a large, neutral sounding room. Not so well in a typical bedroom.

--Ethan
 
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