24bit cdr

  • Thread starter Thread starter Stan Williams
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Stan Williams

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Has anyone seen the new Teac cd recorders? I had just made " whats left of " my mind up to buy a philips cdr775, then i saw the teac had 24bit a/d -d/a converters. I don't even know what bit the philips cdr is, anyone else know? If everyone would stop improving everything long enough, i might buy something! Which reminds me, i also had decided to buy Event 20/20 bas monitors, but noooooo,they have the new project studio monitors, now what do i do? The sale price on the PS8 's are about $650, the sale price on the 20/20bas is about $ 680. You see what i'm talking about, they can build it faster than i can decide on it. I forgot what this post was about, oyea, has anyone seen the Teac RW-250 & 350 CDR?
Thats it !
 
The Alesis Masterlink is 24bit/96k... very, very good converters with on-board processing... it got a thumbs-up from Roger Nichols, and I certainly love mine... I'm not sure if the Teac or Philips are in its league but it may be worth your while checking out....

Bruce Valeriani
Blue Bear Sound
 
too high for me !

I would love to have the alesis, but it is out of my price range. The Teac and Philips are about $450, thats why i was wondering what bit the philips converters are.I guess i will have to stay in the $450 price point.
Thanks Bruce !
 
Hey Stan...

Another tip from Roger Nichols (the answer he gave me when I asked him the scoop on using 24-bit)...

It's his opinion that you'll lose more when downsampling from 24 to 16-bit as you press to redbook than you would have lost mastering straight to 16/44.1 in the first place....

This kinda suggests that 24-bit is on the overkill side - anyways - food for thought!

:)

Bruce
 
In the first place, I thought 24-bit AD/DA converters didn't exist for tracking - I thought the highest you could track at was 20-bit, and even then, you only get maybe 18 or 19 real bits, tops. I thought all that extra bit power was just for internal processing to keep the signal as clean as possible. No?

Secondly, Bruce: everyone processes at 24-bit (or 32-bit), and then converts it to 16-bit to make the CD. But that's not what you (or Roger) is talking about, right? Can you elaborate?

Finally, if you do a search on the Masterlink in the Alesis Forum, you'll find a very interesting thread in which Sonusman, RE and a sales rep from Alesis go at it head-to-head over the Masterlink.
 
Hmmmmmmmmm.

I am not sure that I have seen Roger Nicoles give a bad review to a piece of gear that is advertised in whatever mag he is writing for! Call me a cynic! I am not trying to suggest that maybe he is selling out to anything...but if the shoe fits! :)

Second. That idea of "losing" when down"biting" is not supported by anything I have read by Bob Katz or Bob Ludwig! That is the biggest crock of shit I have ever heard in my life. Further, my experiences with processing 16 bit vs. 24 bits would suggest otherwise. I believe that I even have some of the same mixes that were mastered in both ways that could support this! Fuck, I am now thoroughly mad about the shit Roger Nicoles writes! This is getting out of hand!

Go to http://www.digido.com to read up on how increased bit depth and higher sampling rates will benefit your audio, even if you have to dither and sample down to CD quality. Bob Katz is far more of a authority on digital then Roger Nicoles will ever be.

You know what they call a washed up engineer who has lost his hearing?



















The producer! :)

Ed
 
Dobro - we're not talking about tracking, as far as I know - we're talking about mixdown/mastering to a 24-bit/96k res unit.

Ed -- I hear ya and don't necessarily disagree with you - I like Rogers engineering chops from his work with Steely Dan, but you're right when you say Katz and Ludwig are better authorities on the subject.

I quoted what Roger mentioned to me only as another spin on the topic - I don't agree or disagree... For myself, I've mixed down (the same cut) to both 24/96 and 16/44.1 to see exactly what I perceive the difference to be, and you know what??? I couldn't tell - both mixes were equally smooth and transparent (the way I like 'em). Then I tried downsampling - still no apparent difference.... (yes, I do have good ears) - I really believe that you can argue bit depth and resolution till the cows come home -- you can show theory and proof of why a higher bit depth etc is better *always*, but in the end, it's what your ears hear that counts.... I'm happy for the people that say 24/96 is *THE* way to go and they can hear a big difference - maybe I'll get there myself one day!!! Until then my clients and I are still happy with my mixes at 16/44.1!!! :)
 
On a slightly different topic...

Am I the only one impressed with Nichols' engineering skills (re SD)??? Ed -- you're not the only person who's made comments like that. The SD recordings absolutely *floor* me (check out AJA or Fagen's NightFly!)...
what's your take on him/them??

Bruce Valeriani
Blue Bear Sound
 
Hey...

Guess I was a little cranky last night! Not that I didn't mean what I said in general though. Oh well, no excuses, I said it right? :)

I really dig Steely Dan. But, I was not always terribly impressed with the sounds that were recorded. Some of it was just downright weird sounding. Lead guitar tones come to mind in a hurry. Vocal production is a given....:D The Rhodes sounds were always first class though.

What I found about 16/44 at the mastering stage was that I could not coax the eq and limiters to a point that I truely liked. It either sounded like I wasn't really doing much or doing way too much. No middle ground.

I would be willing to bet that what Nicols means about getting it into the computer at 16/44 for mastering and it probably working out better would be if all the processing is done BEFORE the A/D converters, ie. analog processing. In this case, I would probably do that same thing. But if I was going to apply ANY eq or limiting to the mix in the digital realm, I want my at least 24/48. Further, if my mixes were going to be in digital format, then processed analog for mastering, I would still want 24/48 because it just downright sounds better and smoother.

But hey, SD is not paying ME to work their stuff, and they DID pay Nichols, so who am I to say much! ;)

Ed

[Edited by sonusman on 10-11-2000 at 08:50]
 
I don't understand how a cd made in a cdr thats 24bit would play in another cd player. I thought standard cd players were 16 bit. Do you have to have a 24 bit master to transfer to 24 bit cdr, or if you have a 16 bit master and you transfer to the 24 bit cdr, what happens then? What do you end up with, 16 bit cd or 24bit cd? Also, would a cdr that claims to be 24 bit, be able to record in 16 bit? I think i just asked the same question about 5 times.
Thats it!
 
Stan,

That's what Ed and I were getting at talking about downsampling....

Standard RedBook audio specifies a sampling rate of 44.1Khz at a 16 bit depth. All audio CDs conform to this standard.
When you master a track to a unit at 24/96 (Masterlink) - the audio gets "downsampled" to 16/44.1 when it is "pressed to Redbook"...
...there are varying arguments as to whether it is better to master at 16/44.1 from the start (to avoid downsampling altogether), or whether to master at high-res and not care about the downsampling that *has* to occur.

Bruce Valeriani
Blue Bear Sound
 
I love Steely Dan !

Bruce, I have to go along with you on the Steely Dan, Nightfly included. I am amazed at what they sound like,songs and recording.
Thats it !
 
SCMS

One thing about the Phillips and I wouldn't be surprised to find it's also true of the TEAC although I don't know,is that it implements Serial Copy Management System,which prevents a DIGITAL copy being made of your home burned CD.So if you have designs of sending one out to be duped,you're in it deep.The next level up is the Tascam CDRW-700 which although armed with SCMS at the factory,has discreet instructions (on the Tascam Web site) on how to disarm it.BTW,it also has 24 bit converters and some other home recordist friendly features like sample rate conversion and dual (analog and digital)simultaneous inputs.
 
Bruce: "there are varying arguments as to whether it is better to master at 16/44.1 from
the start (to avoid downsampling altogether)"

So if you're mixing in 24-bit, you downsample before mastering, is that what some people do?

Yours in confusion,

dobro
 
Your final mix is in high res, say 24bit/48K res.
When you master you have two choices - master the result to 24/48 again - or master so that the result is in 16/44.1.
(Mastering would be the final step before pressing the disc)

In the end, no matter at what resolution it was tracked/mixed at - it needs to end up at 16/44.1 for CD distribution (although if you're only distributing it on MP3s I guess this wouldn't apply!) The question (and the point people disagree on) is - where in the process does this down-sampling take place to minimize loss?

I understand the theory behind each argument, one way or another - but in practical terms, I can't say that the differences either way have been dramatic - we're talking real subtle sonic differentiation here (unless my ears are starting to go!!!) :)

Bruce Valeriani
Blue Bear Sound
 
Aaaaarrrggh! I am so confused after reading all the posts. Please, please someone help me out before I tear my hair out. Does it mean that if I have a song on say a Korg D-16 (no I can't afford a Masterlink) in 24-bit and then wanted to press a CD of that song using a TASCAM CDRW700, the TASCAM would "downsample" or dither the 24bits down to 16 bits on the CD?

Yours

the New Fool
 
The current Redbook specification standard for audio CDs is 16 bit at 44.1 Khz sampling rate. If you want your CD to play back on other people's CD players (or if you're creating an album for sale), at some point, it will HAVE to be recorded at originally or down-sampled to the Redbook standard.

I'm not sure if your Tascam can handle the downsample or not, I use the Masterlink which does it fine. If the unit doesn't, you may need additional s/w or h/w - or simply record at 16/44.1 to begin with...

Ain't audio a blast! ;)

Bruce
 
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