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Question regarding samplerates

So I got my emu 0404 USB this morning, and I've set it up with Ableton. Now, I want the ability to play say something from Winamp while working in Ableton, to adjust my ears during mastering, and I set that up by using a spdif passthrough from my onboard soundcard to the 0404 device, and using the direct monitor function.

I found that when Ableton is opened, it forces the 0404 to the samplerate set in ableton, which was 44.1. Apparantly the passthrough signal is at 48khz and it refused to play as long as ableton was running, so I switched the samplerate in Ableton to 48khz aswell. This seemed to work fine except.. the main melody of my track in ableton has "completely" changed, it sounds alot thinner and clearer than before.

Now that isn't necessarily a bad thing, but from what I've heard I didn't believe there would be such a difference.. It really does sound different than it does at 44.1khz, the "huge" atmospheric sound and ambience is completely gone.

Reading what people say about producing at 48khz, and even up towards 96khz makes me wonder how they keep track of how it'll actually sound at 44.1kh. I'm also wondering why you would use a higher rate, except for when recording, as it'll almost always be downsampled anyway, and probably sound different?

And this also leaves me with a problem, should I do all my productions at 48khz, or is there a way to downsample the spdif passthrough from my onboard soundcard to 44.1khz ?

Most soundcards has a sample rate LOCK setting, which forces everything to stay at the same sample rate.

Well, I can't figure out how to get sound from the winamp passthrough when ableton live is running at anything else than 48khz.

Having it at 44.1khz now, the emu config says:
Sample Rate: 44.1khz
Sync Source: Internal (Locked)
Digital Input Status: 48khz

And the Sync Status (EXT) led keeps blinking unless I set Ableton to work at 48khz, like if it isn't able to lock/sync the internal and external input, (INT) has a steady light.

Am I doing something wrong? Also, is it correct that I need to use a second soundcard to be able to play from 2 different sources using the emu asio drivers? With Ableton running Winamp simply gives me a "bad driver" error when trying to play anything through the emu.

I know that you cannot use the ASIO driver in more than one application at a time.

If you want to use both, you have to set Winamp to use MME drivers or something like that.

Bah, can't seem to find a way to let Winamp let me select the specific drivers to use with the 0404.

The easiest solution would be to produce at 48khz, but the difference in sound shocked me.

Is it normal to hear such a difference? How do you do it when producing at higher samplerates, complete the mix & master and hope for the best when downsampling ? I'm confused.

I'll post some wav samples if needed.

Just, when u make progress in a track, keep rendering wavs dithered down to 44.1 and check it that way, you will just have to get used to it. But, I don't think it would hurt u to produce at a higher rate, just keep bouncing and checkin at 44.1 , adjust as needed.

Okay, I'll give that a try. Would exporting sound different than simply changing the playback samplerate of ableton down to 44.1khz for referrence?

quote:

yeah 44.1/24 always unless i've got a sample in 16 bit. But for most cases 24 bit.

from a different topic. Does having 1 sample at 16-bit and the rest at 24-bit mean that I should do it all at 16-bit for best quality ?

I'm sorry for asking all these "noob" questions, but there's alot to learn.

why dont ya play pro tracks inside ableton for reference when mastering instead of using winamp?

haha. Good question, and I don't really have an answer. No idea why I didn't think of that.

I like the clarity higher samplerates gave, now I just need to figure out exactly what rate suits my needs. Thanks for the help, feel free to check out the track I mentioned above at http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...&forumid=74&s=.

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Originally posted by G-Con why dont ya play pro tracks inside ableton for reference when mastering instead of using winamp?

The G in G-Con stands for Genius I don't know why I didn't think to give that answer and that is actually what I do I need to lay off the icky sticky, its starting to make me dumb.

Re: Question regarding samplerates

quote:

Originally posted by ezet Now that isn't necessarily a bad thing, but from what I've heard I didn't believe there would be such a difference.. It really does sound different than it does at 44.1khz, the "huge" atmospheric sound and ambience is completely gone.

There shouldn't be any audible difference at all. You probably have a faulty VST. I know Synth1 behaves weirdly at 96kHz for example.
You shouldn't hear a difference unless you're a dog or a bat.

Re: Re: Question regarding samplerates

quote:

Originally posted by Eldritch There shouldn't be any audible difference at all. You probably have a faulty VST. I know Synth1 behaves weirdly at 96kHz for example. You shouldn't hear a difference unless you're a dog or a bat.

Exactly.....but if you produce at 24bit and 96k on a studio system that is capable of letting you hear the difference then you will notice it. an emu soundcard with home monitors isn't going to make a shade of difference at all.

quote:

Originally posted by ezet I like the clarity higher samplerates gave, now I just need to figure out exactly what rate suits my needs.

44.1 16bit should do fine for everyone. I really dont believe you could hear a diference between 44.1 and 48kHz. I have a good ear and Ive tried on really good speakers without being able to tell the diference.

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Originally posted by palm I really dont believe you could hear a diference between 44.1 and 48kHz. I have a good ear and Ive tried on really good speakers without being able to tell the diference.

You can't. When man was fighting the sabre tooth tiger, this was not a useful skill in survival, so it didn't make the gene pool.

through evolution we might get better hearing though as our eyes will eventually shut down beacuse of too much computer viewing and our ears will have to improve (see blind people). or maybe the next generation will have super eyes with filters?

Thanks for clearing this up, I thought something could be wrong since I heard such a difference. Must be a problem with the Tension synth in Ableton which is where I programmed the strings.. atleast I hope that's the troublemaker, else it would be my hardware

huge difference in quality when sample rate is concerned. This is why the hole bit depth issue raised prior made me a little mad. It is sample rate that really affects perceived quality of sound.

The sample rate is important for many reasons but i suppose the largest benifit has more to do with internal mathematics that lower the audible articfacts for each process you have in a digital chain. I mix at 96 despite the fact that the end product is 44 .

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Originally posted by RichieV huge difference in quality when sample rate is concerned. This is why the hole bit depth issue raised prior made me a little mad. It is sample rate that really affects perceived quality of sound. The sample rate is important for many reasons but i suppose the largest benifit has more to do with internal mathematics that lower the audible articfacts for each process you have in a digital chain. I mix at 96 despite the fact that the end product is 44 .

Same here in regards to sample rate, (here we go again... )...but that small amount of extra data space that 24bit takes up (compared to 16bit) is worth it. Don't forget the 16bit audio has a dynamic range of 96dbfs and 24bit has 144dfs of dynamic range meaning it's relative noise floor is higher. It's not going to make an earth shattering difference but it is a difference at a very small price (storage space).

Quiet passages will be less likely struggling to stay above the noise floor on your system. You can record without any compression. You can record at lower levels, with more relative headroom. This means that the occasional peak is not truncated at the top and it will give converters some room the breathe. Because you are not pushing the limits of your bandwidth, any real instruments will sound clearer, and vocals may sound "cleaner", the song will mix better and there will be less inherant noise. Even more so, If you have a nice mic, a very good preamp and a clean audio system and are recording highly dynamic instruments such as acoustic guitars, classical orchestras, acapella vocals, the difference will be there and quite noticeable.

i mix at 24 bit but then again i dont' make EDM and noise floor is very important. And even if i did , i still would mix at 24 but i wouldn't ever claim that it made things sound better. More of a habit. It was really just a rant about people using terms without the slightest clue about what those terms actually mean.You clearly aren't one of them!

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Originally posted by RichieV The sample rate is important for many reasons but i suppose the largest benifit has more to do with internal mathematics that lower the audible articfacts for each process you have in a digital chain. I mix at 96 despite the fact that the end product is 44 .

Any decent plugin will do internal oversampling where it is needed, so oversampling the whole project isn't a good idea. And those plugins that don't use oversampling are likely to malfunction at higher rates anyway.
There is no benefit to mix at any higher rates than 44.1kHz when your target medium is CD/MP3/Vinyl.

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Originally posted by Eldritch Any decent plugin will do internal oversampling where it is needed, so oversampling the whole project isn't a good idea. And those plugins that don't use oversampling are likely to malfunction at higher rates anyway. There is no benefit to mix at any higher rates than 44.1kHz when your target medium is CD/MP3/Vinyl.

Here we go, again!

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Originally posted by Eldritch Any decent plugin will do internal oversampling where it is needed, so oversampling the whole project isn't a good idea. And those plugins that don't use oversampling are likely to malfunction at higher rates anyway. There is no benefit to mix at any higher rates than 44.1kHz when your target medium is CD/MP3/Vinyl.

Bob Katz would disagree but i can't post a link to his book. He does a pretty good job at explaining why there are benifits.

Re: Re: Question regarding samplerates

quote:

Originally posted by Eldritch There shouldn't be any audible difference at all. You probably have a faulty VST. I know Synth1 behaves weirdly at 96kHz for example. You shouldn't hear a difference unless you're a dog or a bat.

96kHz doesn't pertain to the audible spectrum of sound. It's referencing the number of cycles a processor takes per second. The higher the resolution of the initial recording, the better it's able to withstand processing and conversion down to CD quality without producing aliasing artifacts.

It has nothing to do with canine or human hearing.

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Originally posted by ******** how many samples can the human ear hear in any moment? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_threshold it actually does relate... as the tighter a sound wave gets.... if you understand wave mechanics..

Per the context of the discussion, 96,000 cycles per second pertains only to the rate at which a computer processor calculates sound. It has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the frequency spectrum heard by any animal, including the human being.

The argument to which I had replied was:

quote:

You shouldn't hear a difference unless you're a dog or a bat.

Essentially speaking, a sound-wave at 8000 Hz could be encapsulated in a 96,000 Hz sample. The human ear would be able to hear the 8000 Hz wave. Conversely, with proper speakers, a dog could hear a 44,000 Hz sound wave encapsulated in a 96,000 Hz sample - a human would not be able to hear it, however.

Could not this easily be tested by a spectrum analyzer or something ?

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