Sampling rate...HELP!

[BigBrotherMotow]

I posted the question on another site and did not get a response after two days...Mabey it was a really dumb question. Anyway here it goes...

I will be purchasing my d32 next month. However the sales people I have come in contact with have not been very helpful/knowledgeable...Anyway my question is this. As I read the specs for the board I see that you can choose from 1)48khz/44.1,16 bit 2)48khz/44.1,24 bit 3)96khz,24 bit. I know that this affects the amount of recording time on the hard disk, but if I am reading this correctly it also affects the number of PLAYBACK tracks. It is imperative that I have at least 32 tracks of playback as I do about about 10-12 tracks of music and about 12-16 tracks of vocals...Hopefully I just read it wrong.

Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance...

 

[The Green Hornet]

Yo BBM:

Suggest you contact the company who makes the unit you mentioned. I don't know what it is. I suspect some type of recorder?

But, if you can't get a good sensible answer from your vendor, call or get the company on the net and ask.

Another way: Call Sweetwater Sound [800 number] and ask one of their sales folks -- they are a BIG vendor and should be able to answer your question , like inquire like you are buying.

Good luck,
Green Hornet

 

[lpdeluxe]

You can record everything at 44.1K@ 16 bits and not have to convert to burn to CD, or you can record at 44.1K @ 24 and dither down (what I generally do). If you're going to burn to CD, anything over the first choice I listed will require conversion. You will probably not be able to hear the difference between 44.1K and 48K, and may not hear any between 44.1K and 96K. Try it out and listen for differences. Personally, I record at 44.1 and 32 bit...I can't hear the difference, but some people can.

 

[BigBrotherMotow]

Thanks for the quick response guys...I was speaking about the korg D32XD 32 track digital hard disk recorder. I HAVE received confirmation that the playback tracks are reduced as the sample rate is increased (BUMMER!). However there is an upgraded 2.0 version coming out in may...Hopefully they will upgrade it to remedy this.

 

[pennylink]

There have been some other threads here about bit rates, etc. which you could do a search for.

In any case, it seems most people record at 44.1khz, since that' s what you'll need to burn to CD. Also there doesn't seem to be a huge difference when recording at 48khz or higher.

However, I have found a noticeable improvement in sound quality when recording at 24 bit instead of 16. You will need to dither the sound file down to 16 bit before burning to CD, but you'll still end up with higher quality in the end.

24 bit will take up more space on your drive, but assuming you can get sufficient track count I would recommend going the 24 bit route whenever possible.