quote:

Originally posted by derail 16 bit is nice, but 24 bit will give you smoother reverb and delay decays, among other things. It will sound less "stepped" as it drops from one volume level to the next.

These smoother decays would pretty much only make a difference when solo'd (i.e. from reverb to total silence). In "our" music, sounds are usually stacked on top of each other pretty much all the time. Meaning you don't need the bit-depth to "either have sound going on or not" (sound falling above or below recordable thresholds).

16 bit depth gives us 65536 dynamic "steps" (2^16).
Now, imagine a speaker going from step 55254 to step 55253 in 1/44100th of a second. It does not move in a "stepped" way, the speaker has to physically move from one position to another, and in that short time, in practice it will go in a smooth motion. Compare to going from 55254 to 55253,5 (possible with 17 bits, double the steps, 2^17). A speaker is a physical thing, and theory is one thing, but actually producing the actual digital waveform as stored is another. The speaker cannot jump from point a to point b without going through all points between it in time.

[edit] there IS a difference of course, and 24 bits naturally allows for more dynamic precision. I'm just argueing its practical use in dance music.

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Last edited by Pjotr G on Aug-27-2009 at 06:12

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Originally posted by kitphillips You can't tell the difference between a 24 and 16 bit recording if they're both in mp3 at the time you listened to them. You must be hearing something else like dithering as others have mentioned.

This makes absolutely no sense. You're not the only person who has said this either. How can you say it doesn't make an audible difference, and then in the very next sentence say that I must be *HEARING* .....(we'll stop there because you just said I am hearing a difference, regardless of what that difference may be)

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Originally posted by DigiNut What dithering algorithm was used?

I would have to ask the producer. His name is Mikey W. I think he floats around on these forums. The track was called Habituate. It's available online.

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Originally posted by derail In Bob Katz's book he says that when bouncing down to 44.1/16, working at a higher samplerate makes no audible difference to the final file, but working at a higher bitrate does. 16 bit is nice, but 24 bit will give you smoother reverb and delay decays, among other things. It will sound less "stepped" as it drops from one volume level to the next. 24 bit provides a greater advantage to material with a wide dynamic range - classical music would benefit much more than a hard-hitting trance song.

This may explain why I am more prone to hearing "differences" - I work with a lot with classical elements and very little with mega compressed bass and kicks.

But beyond classical, I can still hear a difference in other things. That difference is clarity, and it's quite noticable with my AKG 701's which are known for having some of the best hi-end hifi monitoring available. Lately, 24 bit or 16 bit has been a deciding factor in buying sample packs.

quote:

Originally posted by derail 16 bit is nice, but 24 bit will give you smoother reverb and delay decays, among other things. It will sound less "stepped" as it drops from one volume level to the next.

dunno what the fuck you are talking about here really, care to explain?

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Originally posted by sixofour.604 Everyone knows the pros only use 64bit.

everyone knows only idiots dont follow good quality, well established standards. if ur recording vocals or guitars to make some quiet acoustic music then go for it. if not forget about it. dance music sounds completely static anyway which is part of the charm imo. i hate music fucking with dynamics up and down (classical)

Super high bitrates (32, 64 bit) only really matter in the internals of a DAW imo. High bit rates allow you to do crazy stuff with the audio (maximizing, compression, etc.) and still achieve a high sound quality.

Even if you made your track half as loud and then maximized it, in 64-bit, then you would still have WAY more dynamic range than if you did the same thing in 16-bit.

When you are rendering off the final product then lower bitrates are fine.

Edit: screw just one half the volume. You would have to make a 64-bit signal INCREDIBLY quiet to get it even close to 16-bit dynamic range.

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Last edited by coroknight on Aug-27-2009 at 17:27

wouldnt that distort as hell when converting back to 16 bit?

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Originally posted by palm wouldnt that distort as hell when converting back to 16 bit?

If you maximize the signal before converting to 16-bit then no. Maximizing the signal will give you the total dynamic range that 16-bit offers.

16-bit range is +- 32,767
64-bit range is +- 9,223,372,036,854,775,808

Luckily most DAW's these days are 64-bit internal

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quote:

Originally posted by coroknight Even if you made your track half as loud and then maximized it, in 64-bit, then you would still have WAY more dynamic range than if you did the same thing in 16-bit.

Just to illustrate how working with bits works for those interested:

if you use half the dynamic range in a 17 bit file, you have the same dynamic range as a 16 bit file.

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so if u produce on 24 bit and think your track sound good it will actualy be reduced by 50% 8 times? ud end up with 1/256 of the dynamic area u thought u had? lol. this is mumbo jumbo, pointless shit.