96/24 Dropouts CWPA9

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robbmiller

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I've set Cakewalk (PA9) to record and playback at 24/96. It will not playback the recorded files -- I press play and instantly the "DROPOUT" light blazes. It records fine. The files playback in all my other programs like SoundForge which reports them as 24/96 files. Any suggestions in how to stop this?
 
512MB, on a PII 366 Intel 440BX Chipset. The files play fine on other software, so I don't think it's a hardware issue.
 
Go to options/audio and nudge the latency slider a bit till you get the desired results.
 
The latency slider does not make a bit of difference either way.

I did discover that if I reduce the "Audio Driver Bit Depth" I can get the recorded files to play. What exactly is this, a playback reference? It doesn't seen to change the recorded file's bit depth.
 
You could also try the number of buffers.
I record at 24/44.1 just to make things easier to transfer to cd.
That 96khz sample rate takes a hit on your performance and storage.Do you think this is necessary for what you're doing?
 
I record acoustic guitar, vocals, flute etc for celtic feeling music.

> Do you think this is necessary for what you're doing?

I don't know. It seems to make a difference but I'm not sure which makes a bigger difference, sample rate or bit depth.
 
Think of recording as a movie,
the bit depth is the quality of the picture
the sampling rate is the number of frames per second
your type of music does benefit from both provided there are no weak links in the recording chain ie mic/preamp/soundcard
 
I'm using MXL small diaphram condensers for instruments. For guitar I combine this with my Taylor's Fishman Blender (on separate channels). I use a large diaphram MXL for vocals. They run through an Echo Mona -- I use its' pres.

I also have a SBLive! but have it disabled in CWPA9

> your type of music does benefit from both

It sounds very nice through the other apps :( I sincerely would like to continue useing CW, I've been an user since "Cakewalk for Windows" and thought I knew the program pretty well.
 
Got it!

On the "Device Profiles" tab in [Options][Audio], I tripled the values found in the "Size" column, leaving the offset alone. A technical white-paper led me to this idea. The white-paper stated the wave profiler sometimes incorrectly determines these values and specified the rational for the multiplier. This “tip” enabled me to record at 24/96 but I still could not playback the files recorded.

To enable playback I changed the "I/O Buffer Size" on the "Advanced" tab to 256kb from the default 64. The impetus for this idea was pure desperation -- I first tried 32, 16, and 128 before arriving at this. 512 works also -- I'm not sure which will be better in the long run.
 
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My experience has been that recording at a sampling rate above 48K does not improve the sound. The majority of human ears can not hear the difference. It is more important to record with a higher bit depth, especially if you are editting and adding effects. The more bits used, the more accurate the signal processing will be. I had the same problem with CWPA9. I can due 96/24 with Sonar, but the disadvantages, such as storage space and CPU cycles, etc. outway any benefit of recording at 96k. Stick with 24 bits and either 44.1 or 48.
 
Maxwell makes some good points and to pile on if you're going to end up on cd thats only 16/44.1.
When cpu and storage gets cheaper as we know it will then we'll all go 24/96.
I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO CHANGE MY MIND WITHOUT NOTICE
 
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