It's All About The Sound Quality

[RyanV]

Hi, This question may belong in the newbies section cuz it's rather basic I guess. I'm not sure if this is the right forum, but I'll try. I'm still deciding on a format to do digital recording. I'll mostly be recording rock type bands. Now, Is there any difference in SOUND QUALITY ONLY between machines that record at equal sampling rates? When I say machines I mean (MAC or PC both equipped w/ great sound cards, Standalone Units like Tascam Da-38 or mx-2424, or ANY digital recorder that records at the same sampling rate.) Is it all pretty much the same?

 

[drstawl]

Almost; not quite. All of the choices you mention will have different analog to digital converters and this is the heart of what's going on when you record digitally.

 

[sonusman]

Well said drstawl...

A/D converters ARE the difference in quality. They are NOT created equal by a long shot. Apogee and Lucent are considered to be the best.

What will make a big difference is higher bit depth too. 16 bit recordings just don't sound as good as 20 or 24 bit recordings. Go for the highest bit depth you can afford. Any 20 or 24 bit recording device is going to record at least 48KHz sampling rate now a days, and maybe as high as 96Khz. 20/48 or 24/48 should be sufficient for nice sounding audio. After that, it is about your mics and preamps, and how good of an engineer you are that will decide quality.

I know of people still recording at 16/48 that are blowing away stuff I hear from lesser engineers using 24/48. So don't forget that your experience in being able to know what sounds good on your system will have the BIGGEST bearing on the overall quality.

Good luck.

Ed