Questions about 24-bit tracking

[ardy77]

How many of you do it and do you notice a sizable difference than when trackign in 16-bit? What about when you want to add affects or what if your software or soundcard limit you somehow from doing "alot" using the 24-bit setup?

I have been doing all of my tracking & mixing in 16-bit...mostly because I just plain didnt take the time to look into the other setups my software/hardware offer....clearly the file sizes would be bigger in 24-bit...but would things like cutting a quick cd for playback on other systems be a problem? How about playing back 32 tracks of 24-bit audio during mixing? when would be the best time to finally convert to 16-bit?

Thanks!

 

[mshilarious]

How many of you do it and do you notice a sizable difference than when trackign in 16-bit? What about when you want to add affects or what if your software or soundcard limit you somehow from doing "alot" using the 24-bit setup?

I have been doing all of my tracking & mixing in 16-bit...mostly because I just plain didnt take the time to look into the other setups my software/hardware offer....clearly the file sizes would be bigger in 24-bit...but would things like cutting a quick cd for playback on other systems be a problem? How about playing back 32 tracks of 24-bit audio during mixing? when would be the best time to finally convert to 16-bit?

Thanks!

It's easier to track at 24 bit because you don't have to worry about peaks and overs as much, since you have dynamic range to spare. It is a bit more taxing on your PC, but even my 3 year old box doesn't struggle with it, although I don't ever run 32 tracks, and I have a couple of UAD-1s to handle plug-in chores.

When you have a final stereo mix, you dither down to 16 bit.

 

[LeeRosario]

You always record at the highest possible resolution (Bit depth x Samplerate = resolution?) and you stay at that resolution as long as possible.


So if you're recording at 24-bit with a sample rate of 48000hz, then plan on staying at that resolution until just before prepping the audio file for CD.


At that point you would dither appropiatly for 16-bit and apply to your mix.


The less dithering, the better.

 

[CoolCat]

a novice HR here...

using the Tascam 2488- 24bit or 16bit.

the 24bit eats up memory, which is why i tried the 16bit setting.
i couldn't hear a difference.

no argument 24bit is better, per tech specs.

 

[Ford Van]

You would be hard pressed to hear any difference between 16 and 24 bit JUST listening to them. The only difference you might hear is is something is fading out in volume, and you turned your monitors WAY up, you would hear that the 24 bit recording is a bit smoother on the low volume stuff than 16 bit is. Otherwise, no difference would be detected. This IS of course, all other things being equal.

If you were going to be mixing your audio via analog gear (mixer, dynamics, etc...) then 16 bit recording would be just fine in most cases! BUT, if you are going to be mixing in some kind of digital solution, 24 bit is the way to go! As you apply eq/compression/volume changes to the tracks, you have all sorts of nasty will things going on that can cause very low level distotion artifacts to be applied to the audio. The more "steps" of DSP you apply (digital signal processing) to worse effect done to the audio.

Now, the above is WAY over simplified, and there are even some exceptions! Such as, I have no problem's applying DSP to 16 bit distorted guitar tracks. The volume doesn't vary much at all, and since the effects of DSP mostly concern the fade out of notes, you would be hard pressed to hear much of a difference between 16 and 24 bit files with DSP applied for that kind of thing.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but the reality is simply this:

MUCH better ears than your have come to the conclusion that your audio will turn out quite a bit better if you record at 24 bits. Many indepth articles with the "science" of it all have been written.

Instead of boring your with all that stuff, I would ask for you to take my word for it. Few are going to disagree with me.