24bit vs 16bit and Hz

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This performance is beyond air and needs pure oxygen I think...but thanks for the offer.
 
Reliance on science is all about compliance;
One wants one's gear to comply with the best possible specs and, almost axiomatically but in fact incorrectly, one assumes the best possible results will follow.

Preference gives deference to the one giving reference;
One desires one's gear, (that which one can afford and/or one current has), to be the best it can be, (even if one has to help it along with a little creativity or bias).

Drinks anyone? I'm buying! Placebo double blind tests all 'round!

Three of those will null one's null one a new one.
 
I find the thought of placebo beer quite disturbing...it could destroy my faith in the magic of pubs.
 
Claytons Bobbsy - remember Claytons?

I'm happy to say "no". After a bit of Googling I see that it was being marketed before I arrived in Australia. Thank goodness. It sounds like it could have made me turn around and go straight back to the UK or Canada!
 
Remember that song I posted? Miley C? The Climb. Is it stuck in your head again?

LOL!

Feel free to neg rep me. I would. :)
 
You better be careful Jimmy. I have some REALLY bad musical theatre recordings I could post--and they are perfect earworm material.

Bwahahaha!

(There's something about theatre mixing--it's always the song you hate most that gets stuck in your head.)
 
That's not really the point. People say that kind of stuff all the time, but it doesn't mean much when it comes to the actual process of recording.

People make decent recordings when they find *a comfort zone that works for them*...and that's why all the "mojo" stuff is valid IMO. If someone needs a $3k Les Paul to find his "mojo"....it's valid. Saying to him that he can play the same stuff on a $300 knock-off doesn't mean anything...because that's not HIS comfort zone.




But there's that old question that's never been answered....if a tree falls in the woods........ :)

Recording of sound isn't just a laboratory experiment based on analytical measurments....I think we can all agree that there is a LOT of faith that goes into each recording we do.
If it was all done and provable with math, we could just plug in the correct "formula" for every session... ;)

I think that is ENTIRELY the point! I am all for peeps being "comfortable"! But in essence if you can tell 16 bits from 24 there is something wrong with your kit!

Same for mic pres and power amps. So long as they are not overdriven, if two sound different, one or both are "wrong"!

Dave.
 
You better be careful Jimmy. I have some REALLY bad musical theatre recordings I could post--and they are perfect earworm material.

Bwahahaha!

(There's something about theatre mixing--it's always the song you hate most that gets stuck in your head.)

LOL! Bring it man! I need some more crazy arcane crap in my head. I still have most of the American 80's crap stuck there. Maybe some theatre stuff will fill me up, so 'Uptown Girl' will never come back to haunt me. Aw sh*t. DAMMIT!!!!!
 
So there is a good case for using more bits to work with sound once you've captured it. And if you were limited to a single bit depth throughout the entire process, from recording to mixing to mastering, then you could strongly argue that starting with the highest bit depth possible is a good idea.

Yeah, that would be a correct judgement. But you are a bot, so you just copied that....
 
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Bit depth 24bit is no higher quality than 16bit. The only difference is headroom before you hit the digital distortion threshold at the 0db. Ableton for example runs everything at 32bit internally, thus you dont need to worry about ever going into the red.
Mastering Engineers want files in 24 bit so they have more headroom to play around with.

20-22,000 Hz is the extremities of the human ear (No human ear has every been able todetect higher frequencies in any test). The Nyquist law of sampling states that you need to record double that rate to get the up and down of each waveform to be able to reproduce that waveform exactly, hence 44,100 covers that range(the extra 120 was used for technical reasons). Some people record samples a litle higher than that at 48,000. Anything higher than that are prone to ultrasonic artifacts which can damage your hearing. Lookup Nyquist Shannone Law of Sampling in Google if you want the full details, and have a mathematical brain.

24 bit doesn't give you more headroom. It pushes the noise floor down farther, allowing you to record lower without worrying about the digital noise floor. It doesn't give more headroom, it allows us to take more, if we wish.
 
I think that is ENTIRELY the point! I am all for peeps being "comfortable"! But in essence if you can tell 16 bits from 24 there is something wrong with your kit!

Same for mic pres and power amps. So long as they are not overdriven, if two sound different, one or both are "wrong"!

Dave.

Well...I never said anything about hearing differences between 16 and 24 bit...but I do hear a difference when I convert something at 96 kHz and play it back at 96 kHz... VS ...converting the exact same thing at 44.1 kHz and playing it back at 44.1 k Hz.
As I mentioned earlier...it may just be that my converters sound better at 96 than they do at 44.1...maybe it's a design thing, something in the filtering, etc....but at any rate, it's subtle, but there. So that's why I may prefer to use 96 kHz with my system.
When the 96 kHz is converted down to 44.1 for "null test" purposes...the subtle differences vanish.
No...I'm not just hearing that because I really want to hear that. Heck, I would rather hear NO difference, as then it would make choices with my converters academic. :)

AFA as mics and pres....I'm not sure what you are saying here...that you have to overdrive them to hear differences between them??????????
Tell you what, you can whisper into a 57 and a large diaphragm tube...and you can hear differences.
Also, I've done enough comparison tests with the various pres I have...set them all up for equal gain, "normal" levels, nothing "overdriven"...and stuck the same mic into each one, recorded each one...and it's pretty easy to hear their sonic differences....
...and none of them are "wrong".
 
This is getting interesting...

I'm just wondering if maybe the differences you hear between 96 and 44.1 are down more to the conversion process (which is likely to include things like dithering) and less with the actual sample rates? I'd think the only way to be REALLY accurate in the experiment would be to find a way to record the same material live at the same time rather than convert a 96kHz file to 44.1kHz.

That said, the other interesting aspect is that, although I don't tend to hear much difference on basic playback, I believe I do hear differences when I start applying certain effects. I've wondered if although (as per Nyquist) you can reproduce an accurate waveform as long as the sample rate is 2x the upper frequency, once you start doing things that play with the waveform, a higher resolution allows more precision after the effect.

However, I've never done any true A/B/Blind tests and it's awfully easy to talk yourself into hearing differences!
 
I'd think the only way to be REALLY accurate in the experiment would be to find a way to record the same material live at the same time rather than convert a 96kHz file to 44.1kHz

If you back up the thread aways....that's exactly what I was doing.
Took the same source....recorded it at 96 and also at 44.1, and I can hear a subtle difference.
I also recorded the same source at 48 and 88.2...but I could not hear that same subtle difference when comparing any of them, only when I compared the 44.1 to 96....and as I said, it may just be how MY converter does things, which is not to say anything more than...with my rig, that is what it is.
Of course, as I also said...once I converted each of the other files down to 44.1....the differences vanish.
I'm not making any other statement except to say that for me, if I wanted to use the 96, that would my preference and the reason why.

That's been my whole point...that for many folks, it's that type of stuff that creates a personal preference, and IMO, it's OK that people pick their SOP on those subtleties.
We don't have to "null test" every step of every process and every piece of gear to arrive at a preferred SOP....just go with what works for you. :)
 
Ah, I took your reference to "converting" in post 74 to refer to a sample rate conversion from 96 to 44.1, not a setting in your A to D converters. Gotcha now.

Anyway, agree that the differences are subtle enough that it really does come down to personal preference at what you're comfortable with.
 
Well...I never said anything about hearing differences between 16 and 24 bit...but I do hear a difference when I convert something at 96 kHz and play it back at 96 kHz... VS ...converting the exact same thing at 44.1 kHz and playing it back at 44.1 k Hz.
As I mentioned earlier...it may just be that my converters sound better at 96 than they do at 44.1...maybe it's a design thing, something in the filtering, etc....but at any rate, it's subtle, but there. So that's why I may prefer to use 96 kHz with my system.
When the 96 kHz is converted down to 44.1 for "null test" purposes...the subtle differences vanish.
No...I'm not just hearing that because I really want to hear that. Heck, I would rather hear NO difference, as then it would make choices with my converters academic. :)

AFA as mics and pres....I'm not sure what you are saying here...that you have to overdrive them to hear differences between them??????????
Tell you what, you can whisper into a 57 and a large diaphragm tube...and you can hear differences.
Also, I've done enough comparison tests with the various pres I have...set them all up for equal gain, "normal" levels, nothing "overdriven"...and stuck the same mic into each one, recorded each one...and it's pretty easy to hear their sonic differences....
...and none of them are "wrong".

It seems likely that you are wanting to hear a difference to validate your decision to use 96kHz (sub-consciously, of course). If you really want to test it, you need to do blind ABX testing. If you know which file's which, it is not a scientific test.
 
Un-subscribed....

See you guys in 23 pages. I'll come back to make sure everyone's still going in circles with this.

I told you it was a shitty title for a shitty topic. The corpse of the horse is now decomposing.



(What Johny says about the lack of a blind test is 100% true by the way)
 
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LOL! Bring it man! I need some more crazy arcane crap in my head. I still have most of the American 80's crap stuck there. Maybe some theatre stuff will fill me up, so 'Uptown Girl' will never come back to haunt me. Aw sh*t. DAMMIT!!!!!

Okay, you said you wanted bad. This should qualify. Just remember to "SING YO HO".

Don't say you weren't warned.

Oh, and pay special attention to the forced rhymes like:

"The skull and crossbones is my flag...
You'll never see my stomach sag."
 
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