quote:

Originally posted by palm i have no idea but i realy dont see the reason why to render at 48kHz and 24bit anyway. yes it sounds slightly better spesialy in the bass but that wont help anyone if the format is unsupported anyway. as far as i understand 24bit gives u more headrom and better signal-noisa ratio and therefore also better dynamics but i might be out there. im not a theroetic i only trust my ears and they are rarely wrong (except with eqing ). My advice record everything in 44.1 16bit to avoid what happened to my previous release on joof, the file got screwed up on beatport and the other sites beacuse i provided 24bit. same happeneded with whirlloop. u could render a 24bit version for yourself and send 16bit to labels. also max your soundcard output and use an analog volumkontrol for monitoring, this is what i got: http://www.google.com/products?q=sm...roducts&show=dd

This is what I was afraid of. I sent 24bit versions to be mastered and I've been 2nd guessing myself now thinking, should I have just sent 16bit, 44khz? Then part of me is like the mastering people know what they are doing so I shouldn't be worried. I'm still trying to understand why the by-product of a 24bit render sounds worse the the straight 16bit render straight out of the sequencer.

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quote:

Originally posted by Magnus This is what I was afraid of. I sent 24bit versions to be mastered and I've been 2nd guessing myself now thinking, should I have just sent 16bit, 44khz? Then part of me is like the mastering people know what they are doing so I shouldn't be worried. I'm still trying to understand why the by-product of a 24bit render sounds worse the the straight 16bit render straight out of the sequencer.

I went to a mastering engineer last year with a track.

I rendered one wav file as 96khz 32bit float, and one 44.1khz 16bit just in case, and he told me that was a good idea, he couldnt put his finger on what exactly, just that the 96khz file sounded better, and he used that throught the mastering process, which he rendered down to 44.1khz 16bit when he was done.

So u shouldnt be afraid to send higher rates to an engineer.

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yeah if it goes thru an engineer. my track was released as i delivered it, no work was done to it as they meant it sounded good enough. then when they uploaded it to beatport, which requires 16bit 44.1 wav, caus the mp3 decoding lies there, everything went wrong. somewhere in the chain this should be have discovered but it didnt before it was too late. this happened eventho i clearly stated that the file was in 24bit 48kHz. so just be carefull. it was fixed a few weeks later tho but there where some angry people around caus they have bought a wrecked mp3. everything 44.1/16bit for me now

Last edited by djpalm on May-12-2008 at 21:25

Thanks again guys I'm going to render back out my tracks and re-send them.

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Just a thought but......

The difference in sound qaulity between an mp3 encoded from 16b 44k and 24b 96k (or higher) could be due to the programming of the common mp3 encoder?

It (the algorithm) was originally concieved to render down from 16b 44k, so maybe when converting from higher formats, the codec/algorithm itself has not been as thourougly produced.

Also, as a side note - bit depth relates to resolution in terms of dynamic range in DB. People who bang on about analog tape (etc) actually don't realise that the usable dynamic range of tape is only about 10bit, and at 6db per bit, that means only 60db of usable dynamic range (before distortion). So before you get hung up on whether you are getting enough out of your 16bit system, think about the average person's audio system (who will be listening to your track) and realise that bit depth isnot going to make such a difference.

Having said that, I know myself, there is a clearly audible difference between recordings I have made at 16bit and 24bit, so IMO your masters should be at 24bit 44k.

Anyone that tells you they can hear a difference between 44k and 48k is almost certainly lying. Anyone who can hear a difference between (and identify) a 44k and 96k is either:

A, lying,
B, A mutant
C, A very rare good sound/mastering engineer

The extra space a 96k recording will take up (double the file size) over a 44k version is really not worth it, but a 24 bit over a 16 bit is worth it (only about 20% more).

I don't think it's that surprising that some tracks sound worse when downsampled from 96 kHz to 44/48 kHz. If you have anything above the Nyquist frequency then you're going to get aliasing distortion when you downsample. If you do the entire mix in 44/48, then you just won't have those frequencies to begin with.

Try using a lowpass filter around 22/24 kHz before downsampling (in practice, probably a bit less than that because the "cutoff" is just the -3 dB frequency on the curve rather than a brick wall). It'll probably sound fine. You can definitely go down as far as 21 kHz - the most sensitive ear still can't hear sounds above that frequency (unless it belongs to a canine).

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jesus christ we have been over this a million times.

ANYTHING OTHER THAN 44K IS A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME IF YOU KNOW IT IS ONLY GOING TO END UP IN 44K ANYWAY. INFACT, HIGHER RATES MIGHT ACTUALLY SOUND WORSE AFTER DITHERING.

BIT DEPTH, THE HIGHER THE BETTER.



listen to digi and rann.
/end discussion

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm jesus christ we have been over this a million times. ANYTHING OTHER THAN 44K IS A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME IF YOU KNOW IT IS ONLY GOING TO END UP IN 44K ANYWAY. INFACT, HIGHER RATES MIGHT ACTUALLY SOUND WORSE AFTER DITHERING. BIT DEPTH, THE HIGHER THE BETTER. listen to digi and rann. /end discussion

Nicely done.

quote:

Originally posted by Magnus Thanks for all the info everyone its very insightful. One question though since you mention the 32-bit floating point engine. Does this mean I should be writing my tracks in 32bit float? Since you mentioned this, I looked and I see now in Cubase that is an option under project setup. I've always had this set to 24bit. Does it matter than my soundcard, the Audiophile 2496, is only capable of 24bit, 96khz? I guess I'm a bit uncertain then what I should be writing my tracks in. I currently write them in 24bit, 48khz. I realize everything gets broken down eventually to 16bit, 44khz so what would be ideal for my situation? 32bit float, 44khz, 32bit float, 48khz, etc? I appreciate all the help.

You cannot choose 32-bit floating point, as it is what most daws use internally. The bit depth you choose only matters for samples in the project and exporting.
Go with 24-bit/44.1kHz or 16-bit/44.1kHz. You only need to use 24-bit if you're mastering the track externally.

quote:

Originally posted by Eldritch You cannot choose 32-bit floating point

you can actually.

quote:

Originally posted by Eldritch The bit depth you choose only matters for samples in the project and exporting.

it is of particular benefit for freezing/rendering parts.

Wow guys again thanks for all the info this has greatly helped me going forward with how I will do things.

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