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| quote: | Originally posted by vt100
Alright, so there's nyquist theorem, read that as posted here. As for sample rates, you have several choices:
44.1
48
88.2
96
... and beyond.
44.1/88.2 are more about music/audio specifically, whereas 48/96 are audio with video (like dvd's play back at a 48khz sample rate). The general rule of thumb is, you'll get better sample rate conversion if you use a direct multiple of your target sample rate, that is, theoretically, 88.2 will translate to 44.1 better than 96khz will. I could probably use some more research on this, but I've read this a number of places.
Now, at the end of the day, unless you end up rocking some SACD action, you are going to play back at 44.1/16bit audio, so what's the point of working in higher sample/bit rates?
There are a couple things they can help with prior to this, for example, working in higher sample rates can reduce aliasing issues:
http://www.earlevel.com/main/1996/1...at-is-aliasing/
And there's more to it than that, but in short it sort of helps you preserve your sounds integrity throughout.. well, everything. At mastering the mastering engineer ideally will get the highest quality goods he can (88.2/24bit), then he has the most to work with and will usually apply the best methods possible at getting you back to 44.1/16bit.
Anyways, Bob Katz's book on mastering goes into this a bit and its a real good read. I think for the average person its not *too* important, but if you've got the horsepower to do it, you should, but work at 88.2, not 96.
Tons of reading on this, here's a discussion on 88.2 vs 96:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/48523-6-sampling-rate |
As discussed slightly earlier in this thread (and others) your assumptions are a little off.
Yes, in theory working at a multiple of the eventual target sample rate should in some ways make dithering down easier/more accurate but unfortunatle a simple linear average of samples in sequence does not give completely accurate results.
More importantly, the maths for going from any sample rate to another is not a difficult or really complicated task and will get you as perfect a result as using a simple linear calc like going from a direct multiple. Anyone who says different is just talking theoretical audiophile bullshit. I could get way deep in to the reasons why, but let's just leave it at the fact that ragrdless of methods, the main issue is how interpolation and anit-aliasing works, which at that level of sample rate is 6 of one and half a dozen of the other - in essence there is no advantage to choosing 88.2 instead of 96, and especially not because it's a nice round number.
The only real arguments for working at higher sample rates are:
1, If you're entire project is at 96k and you have a pristine signal path and monitoring setup, and you have great hearing and engineering skills, then you will be able to hear some degree of better detail, and therefore produce to a better level of detail. If any one of those things is not perfect then there's no benefit, apart from...
2, Technology is always changing, and having those projects at a sample rate might be of benefit in the future, in case the defacto consumer sample rate standard gets set higher.
However, you're waaaaay off base with the bit depth thing - you should always record and work in as high a bit depth as possible (24 is fine) as bit depth is directly relative to the volume and inherant noise floor. So even if you're eventually going down to 16bit the advantages of having that extra headroom in the initial recording will transfer as a benefit to the lower bit depth due to the expanded initial headroom of the recording.
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