Again i think that recording in 96Khz would be a great idea if you are recording to something that is going to that medium. Yes when you record in 96Khz your going to have an easier time with high frequencies like mentioned and there is an obviously better reverb tail from reverb.
But let me focus on this point a little bit differently because i didnt pull it out too much in the last post. Pros that have the gear to do 96khz without effecting their work flow are probably wise in doing so. But consider this. Imagine a pro engineer with all the best 96Khz converters, best microphones, best pres, everything being recorded to 96Khz and it sounds great. Now everything is mixed and sounds great here in the position of 96khz. Now lets say at the end of the session this engineer forgot to buy an awesome converter for these awesomely mixed 96khz tracks. So he uses the stock ones right out of protools or the stock ones out of soundforge or whatever.
Do you really think the down sampling of those is going to be near the same quality of everything else. Its going to cut off the top and apply the same type of anti aliasing filters but do it in a much worse way that probably makes those super fancy converters now sound like cheap converters. Correct me if im wrong on this one.
The best bet would be to mix it out analog again and then bring it back in at 44.1 for mixdown. That might actually be better than doing it all 44.1 if he has real top of the line converters. But thats 2 more processes in the signal chain doing D/A conversion back to A/D conversion. So that would be the most practical way in this case. But still...thats 2 times the conversion again.
Now who here owns those kinds of really fancy down samplers or really fancy converters that record awesome even at 44.1? I know a down sampler or converter is not one of the main things you see around here except in software programs which is a problem in itself. Next, who here has good enough converters that you would want to mix it out to analog again and mix it back in to digital. I know i dont.
So, in concluding. It theoretically or idealy might be better to shoot that thing up to 96khz. But what if you look at the realistic point of view on everything in the chain when you do that. You might want to keep the saying "less is more" in your head. Just keep it plain and simple straight line because thats probably the most efficient way there. Now if it was going to a 96Khz mass production medium that this could all change. But for homerecording guys and gals, it really might be a good idea not to worry about the whole 96Khz thing until that happens. Unless you can really hear a difference.
Tell me how many end product CDs can you tell me that you could actually tell that it was recorded in 96Khz. Infact i can only think of one record that i really know at least in the rock genre that was recorded 96khz and i couldnt have told you that unless i read that they had. Think of all the awesome sounding albums you own and think whether or not they are recorded at 44.1. Think of the albums before the 96Khz trend. Do you like them? Do they still sound imazing even though you know there is something theoretically better out there? I dont think it will change your mind much.
I think alot of this goes the same for 16 bit and 24 bit. Although i think this process is a little bit simpler when it comes to dithering. But if you dont have a great ditherer for the same reason. Why bother. This is probably a little more debatable.
Danny
