Benefit to go with 96k?

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From what I know, this would not be a good idea.

Consider: it's generally agreed that a converter that reads at 24 bits (or 20), then dithers to create a 16-bit output is better than a converter that just reads at 16 bits. If dithering were worse than truncating, why would anyone bother with dithering? If dithering is better than truncating (i.e. it's better to dither while dropping 8 bits than just to drop the 8 bits), it sort of follows that its better than never having had those 8 bits in the first place.
 
thats true, but this arguement was about before, and people told me that if you do what i just said, er, the modified version of what i said by bigus dickus, it would give it a "better sound" than dithering. They said sometimes the extra sound from the mixer is not always bad, and sometimes better than the dithering effects.

But they didn't go into depth about how exactly to do this, or anything like that

I think one of the practical reasons for this would be to use outboard effects through the mixer, then re /record..
That makes me wonder, if i had some tracks in logic, and i wanted to put them through my outboard effects, how would i do that, considering i can't just re/record them?
 
did not sweetnubs already speak of this? this only applies if your mixer does not suck. sweetnubs uses a different soundcard to record his two track master, matter of fact sweetnubs thinks he has seven soundcards/breakout boxes. as a matter of fact my two-track computer is a separate computer from my tracking/mixing computer. i record all mixes to DAT, cd-r, 1/2" and sequencer simultaneously. i don't mind taking the hit on the extra converters because my word clock distrubution device is good and as a matter of fact my outboard converters are decent. a pair of apogee's will set you back $1000 and as a fact of the matter they are only "sort of ok." another advantage of using an analog mixer is you get to use the m3000, pcm70,81 and 41, the eventide (my favorite digital reverb), emt plates and reverb chamber. not the shitty dspfx reverb. also you get to use outboard compressors, gates, and console/outboard eq. dynamics plugs are even worse than time based plugs. dithering is still truncating. it's just a little white noise added to give the least significant bit a reference level. as a matter of the factly it just helps trip the least significant bit a little more often because it gives it a point of comparison, i.e. the white noise. in fact, if it matters, recording the output of the console is not truncating/resampling. the facts of the matter are no funky math is applied whatsoever, just an extra set of converters. that's different than dithering/downsampling fgrom 24/96 to 16/44.1 m'kay class? make sense. time for recess. please send sweetnubs a fruit cake for christmas. the facts of the matter are that nubby-claus loves fruits.
 
you're right, it is different... but guess what? you're not retaining any more of that 24-bit signal by doing that. in fact, you retain more by dithering

think about it, man... what the heck is the difference between recording the analog output of a 24-bit DAC in 16 bits, and recording the original source material in 16 bits???
none, except that in the first case, you've gone through 2 seperate AD/DA conversions instead of only 1!

you're just recording an analog signal like any other. you can plug in a microphone and feed your 16-bit ADC with an analog signal, just the same way you're feeding it an analog signal from the 24-bit DAC. does that 16-bit conversion retain any more theoretical information beyond those 16 bits? of course not, unless you're feeding an analog noise "dither" signal along with it... which loses the benefit of a much more "perfect" digital dither algorithm that includes noise shaping.
 
no shit sherlock. going from 24 to 16 doesn't retain the original quantization? you mean all along when we tracked at 24/96 then burned at red book we weren't keeping all 24 bits? will-nilly i'm conspiciously confounded and cone-headed.
 
Is that "pet peeves" thread still active? Can I add "people who talk about themselves in the third person"?
 
"think about it, man... what the heck is the difference between recording the analog output of a 24-bit DAC in 16 bits, and recording the original source material in 16 bits???"


with your illogical logic applied sublogically, then everything in the digital domain should remain at 16 bits. of course anyone who has listened (a good thing to do on occasion) knows that if the orginal source is recorded at 24/96 the final product will still sound better even though the final release format is at 16/44.1

i'd like to add people who use mickey mouse in their avatars to the pet peeve's forum. everyone knows walt disney's intentions were to "rule the world" he's actually quoted as saying that. was a supportor of the nazi party. african americans weren't allowed into disney world until the mid-60's. and it is a gluttonous coporation in cahoots with time-warner to buy, control and manipulate media, especially television and news.
 
That's a vicious lie, and if you say it again, you will be bought, controlled and manipulated.
 
sweetnubs said:
"think about it, man... what the heck is the difference between recording the analog output of a 24-bit DAC in 16 bits, and recording the original source material in 16 bits???"

with your illogical logic applied sublogically, then everything in the digital domain should remain at 16 bits.
Click to expand...

Not at all. Note that portion of the post you quote that I've highlighted above.

This entire long (long, long) thread is about the nature and magnitude of the advantages reaped by recording at higher sample or bit rates, then digitally converting to the 44.1k/16-bit format. Which (to summarize wantonly, for those who don't have the patience to read it all) seem to be:

(i) tidy digital anti-aliasing filter on sample-rate conversion (as opposed to messier analog filter on AD conversion at lower sample rate) and

(ii) dithering on bit-rate conversion.
 
my point is that you may as well dither and remain in the digital domain, because if you go to analog first, you're (a) essentially just truncating the information that those last 8 bits have, and (b) subject to the distortion caused by an additional conversion process, not to mention signal loss in cabling, electronics, what have you.

if you digitally dither down to 16 bits, then you get to retain a bit more information than "normal" 16-bits, which would actually justify recording in 24-bit in the first place (trucating or doing a DAC/ADC, and re-recording does NOT justify it, as you lose that advantage).
 
again. you are not even "essentially" truncating the information. information is truncated when it is truncated not recorded. remaining in the digtital domain introduces the shittiness caused by multiple floating point calculations caused by various plugs, summing busses, etc. yes the extra electronics introduced by cabling, summing amps, op amps, pre-amps etc. etc. etc. inherently produces a little more noise. again. that is again. let me state i only consider this feasible if you are using high end gear, cabling, etc. if you got beringher don't do it. staying all digital for a home studio is even recommended by me. low end digital beats low end analog any day. if you think the extra noise introduced by the console, cabling, outboard etc. is much of a factor then you are basically saying any album made before 1990 has to suck because they weren't all digital which of course is ridiculous. yes a little distortion is introduced by the extra conversion steps but i find it almost insignificant when a high end word clock distrubution is used and high end convertors. analog gear introduces character or not so much character depending what you use. so'd you rather go all digital on a rock band or use a trident? use a la-2a or a renaissance compressor? use a kepex gate or a plug in? that's the point. have you ever done a mix entirely in a computer then compare it to a computer mix done through good analog gear? it sounds much better. you can even tell the difference mixing at 24/96 then going analog to 16/44.1 as oppsed to keeping it 16/44.1 throughout the process. of course i find most of this argument irrevelvant any way because i prefer never to touch digital until the mastering stage anways.
 
if you're using a really high-end ADC, then perhaps i could see it being feasible. that is, a lot of the high-end (and even some of the not-so-high-end) converters out there first convert the signal to 24-bit, then internally dither to 16-bit.


what i find funny though, is your insistence that, basically, it's better for the hardware to do this and get the distortion of additional conversions, than just to let the software do the exact same thing.
 
before jumping on sweetnubs, which admittedly is usually a worthwhile pastime, TRY it

try em both. Dont bother running thru a mixer just output of DAC back to input of ADC assuming asynchronous sources

software sample rate conversion is usually a NASTY thing, even the worst converters can be kinder, but try both on each and every project you do and pick the best one, dont bother arguing about it or you may miss out on a small improvement
 
let me make myself even clearer. track only at 24/96. only track. no mixing. your signal then remains closer its orginal state. when you mix and alter track levels in your computer optimum levels are not making it to the final master mix. if each track/bus is not kicking as close to zero as you can get it, you are not getting all 24 bits (you don't anyways but i won't go into that for sake of simplicity). so lets say you do a 40 track mix. each fader in the computer's mixer cannont be set to output optimum levels because of course your mix will suck cause everything will be as close to zero dbfs as you can get it. now when you ouput to your analog mixer each bus can be optimized for maximum ouput level, as close to zero as each peak allows. of course the analog faders won't be at unity but that is fine, because it is not truncating which is much worse. and it's been done since the jurassic era and we all know it sounds fine. if you eq/compress/gate/effect then sum each track in the computer each step involves truncation/dithering/floating point calculations. multiply all of this by 40x and you get crap. you are not even close to the original signal. by outputing to your analog mixer each track gets as close to 24 as you can get it, no truncation/floating point calculations, etc. involved. it is as close to the original signal as you can get it. the converter hits do effect the signal but again with good convertors and clocking this is neglible compared to the other option. and in my case i mix to 1/2" anyways so the second converter hit takes place at the mastering facility which has such pristine converters it makes nubby get all nubby.


"before jumping on sweetnubs": i think someone is developing a crush

also use your ears instead of theory.
 
okay, your original post was completely unclear then. i thought you were saying to track and mix and master or whatever at 24/96, then do an additional conversion process to get down to 16/44. if you're saying to MIX in analog, then your point is certainly a good one.

whether or not it's worthwhile for someone like myself with a mackie mixer and a MOTU is another question altogether. in general i don't like the sound of my mackie, ESPECIALLY with individual channels at lower levels, so i probably would never do that. on the other hand, i know what you mean about having to put all the faders down if you do it digitally, and thus losing a lot of resolution. it's a mixed bag either way...
 
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