Exporting in 96 khz/32 bit

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WarmJetGuitar

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I was wondering which format I'm gonna use if I wanna export a project in 96 khz and 32 bits?
We're in the process of making a record with basic tracks done on tape and overdubs done on a DAW - recording 96/32 on the DAW is no problem, but exporting a 2-track file seems not to be possible using WAV or FLAC. And there is no point in putting out an album on vinyl if the sound quality in the master files is just slightly better than cd.

BTW, I'm using Audacity. Just laugh, I don't mind ;)
 
Always export as .wav (PCM) using the same bit depth and sample rate that your recorded your tracks with. IMO there is no sense recording any higher than 24bit/48khz because at 48khz the Nyquist frequency is already above the human hearing threshold and 24 bit gives you more than enough headroom to record. I always record in 24bit/44.1khz and export as a .wav. Let the mastering engineer do his work on the album and then he will bounce it down to 16bit/44.1khz (redbook cd quality).

Just out of curiosity why are you recording to vinyl? Its outdated and not many people still have turntables. Plus, the sound quality degrades over time.
 
Because I find that vinyl sounds better than CD's - whether it is because of the wider frequency range (not limited to 44 khz and 16 bit) or because an analog medium treats the sound different (makes the high freqs less harsh) I'm not the one to tell.
Vinyls is actually getting back on the market big time which have been the tendency since the early 00s - you can get almost everything on vinyl today. For some genres CD's is the outdated media with vinyl and FLAC/MP3 being the most common.

There's actually some engineers doing mastering to tape, DVD or super sound CD's - and if we can't do the mastering ourself we'll be looking for one of those guys.
 
Just to take your hardware out of the equation,
try out the (fully functional) demo of Reaper
to see if it will export a sample file that would work.

....you may find you'll want to switch from Audacity...
 
Thanks, I'll try that!
Yeah, I know Audacity ain't the best program ever made but it is free and have suited my needs until now as I make recording, effects and most editing and EQing on analog hardware.
 
There are no such thing as 32 bit converters, so recording to 32 bit files is a waste of time. You converters are 24 bit, everyone's are. Recording to 32 bit is just recording in 24 bit with a bunch of zeros as placeholders. It takes more hard drive space and makes no difference in the data captured.

Everything has to be dithered down to 24 bit in order to play it back, so you might just as well save everything at 24 bit. 32 bit files are program specific and cannot be opened by all programs that say they can open 32 bit files. 24 bit is universal.

Just mix down to 24 bit at the sample rate of the final product. In your case, it should be 96k just to be safe. (even though vinyl is normally band-passed around 22k to get rid of those higher frequencies) 24 bits has a dynamic range of 144db, vinyl has a dynamic range of around 80db under somewhat ideal conditions.

The reason why people assume that vinyl has more dynamic range that CD is because most CD's are compressed to death in mastering to make them really loud. That is generally not the case with something mastered specifically for vinyl, since there is no 'shuffle' mode and there are long standing standards that were set before we had super fast digital brick wall limiters.

Here is a website that explains a lot of vinyl myths Myths (Vinyl) - Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase
 
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