Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Andreilg3
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Re: Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Post by Andreilg3 » Sun Mar 17, 2013 4:39 am

Interesting articles. So since inaudible frequencies affect our perception of audio, how do we determine when and how much to cut if we can't hear it? I would say its standard practice to cut around 20k on a master, so does that negatively affect the audio?

klapton
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Re: Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Post by klapton » Sun Mar 17, 2013 8:39 am

Just to throw gas on the fire... For an ITB producer, choose 44.1kHz SR with HQ SR & Pitch conversion or 88.2kHz with Normal SR & Pitch conversion?

Discuss...

doghouse
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Re: Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Post by doghouse » Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:24 pm

@doghouse Your second half of your post explains why the first half doesn't make sense. If you have a bad setup and bad ears, then "what sounds good" has no place. I'm trying to understand from an objective point of view what is better. Why learn anything if "using your ears" makes you Mozart. And as I said I have no interest in CD which is why I don't want to delve into "16bit 44.1khz is fine".
In numerous double blind tests only a very small number of people can tell the difference between sample rates and those who do hear a difference are not good at identifying the higher sample rate as "better". So unless you can hear a difference, there's no reason to use higher sample rates.

For an "objective" point of view the superiority of higher sample rates is unproven, which is why people still argue about it. If you have the disk space for 88.2, 96, 192, whatever, go ahead and use it.

jlgrimes
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Re: Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Post by jlgrimes » Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:40 pm

I would stick with 44.1 kHz for audio CDs mp3s, and 48khz for film.

Double sample rates can make some plugins sound better namely more cheaper/older plugins. But many modern VSTs have oversampling builtin or at least allow it as an option.

I would think any CPU intensive plugin probably already uses oversampling or is heavily modeled to sound good at 44.1khz.

And that way you can more pick and choose what you want to run at high quality saving your CPU some overhead.

Also consider sometimes some plugins can sound worse at higher rates because most VSTs were tweaked at 44.1 or 48khz so you can lose some of your character sometimes at the high rates.



It is a good experiment to try though if you got the overhead.
Last edited by jlgrimes on Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tarekith
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Re: Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Post by Tarekith » Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:41 pm

klapton wrote:Just to throw gas on the fire... For an ITB producer, choose 44.1kHz SR with HQ SR & Pitch conversion or 88.2kHz with Normal SR & Pitch conversion?

Discuss...
24bit, 44.1kHz HQ SR&pitch
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doghouse
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Re: Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Post by doghouse » Sun Mar 17, 2013 4:03 pm

I just wanted to add that while a lot of people talk about this stuff, few understand the math behind sampling in the first place. There's a lot of pseudoscience out there in the audio world whether you're talking about cables or sample rates. As an MSEE I'm amazed how much b.s. people are willing to accept as fact even when double-blind testing proves otherwise.

The most critical part of the signal chain is converting sound waves into electrical signals and back again. So that means mikes and loudspeakers have more to do with overall fidelity than anything else in the chain. Once we get into the digital world, the quality of A/D and D/A conversion becomes the next major limiting factor. Everything else figures in below that.

If you go back to the analog world where we have 50 dB dynamic range (because of high noise floors), stereo separation of about 20 dB (because of crosstalk) plus wow, flutter, head bumps, tradeoffs of groove size vs. volume vs. low-end extension, azimuth and tracking adjustments, etc. lots of people still think that sounds great and argue about sampling rates instead :?

Andreilg3
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Re: Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Post by Andreilg3 » Sun Mar 17, 2013 6:18 pm

doghouse wrote:
@doghouse Your second half of your post explains why the first half doesn't make sense. If you have a bad setup and bad ears, then "what sounds good" has no place. I'm trying to understand from an objective point of view what is better. Why learn anything if "using your ears" makes you Mozart. And as I said I have no interest in CD which is why I don't want to delve into "16bit 44.1khz is fine".
In numerous double blind tests only a very small number of people can tell the difference between sample rates and those who do hear a difference are not good at identifying the higher sample rate as "better". So unless you can hear a difference, there's no reason to use higher sample rates.

For an "objective" point of view the superiority of higher sample rates is unproven, which is why people still argue about it. If you have the disk space for 88.2, 96, 192, whatever, go ahead and use it.
Good point, didn't think of it like that.

@Tarekith Why do you say that? Almost everything posted here seems to point towards 88.2 kHz. And I would leave Hi-Q on anyway because it won't do anything unless you transpose the sample or it's naturally at a different sample rate, which it probably will be if you're using 88.2

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Re: Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Post by Tarekith » Mon Mar 18, 2013 1:58 am

Because I think there are very few cases where a higher sample rate actually makes an audibly better difference. Especially if you're using Ableton for your SR conversion back to 44.1 later on.

In my experience, any benefit of higher sample rates is usually negated by the SR conversion back to 44.1kHz unless you use a top end SR conversion tool. They aren't expensive (Voxengo Rbrain), but Live is not the best tool for this sort of task. Generally I think people are just better off sticking to the sample rate their final product will be in. For most musicians, that's 44.1kHz.

Also (and no offense to the OP, who I don't know at all) generally I find that if people have to ask this question in the first place, they dont know the ins and outs of digital enough to make sure the benefits (if there even are any) of higher sample rates are maintained through the production production process. The people who benefit from higher SR's already know WHY they MIGHT need a higher sample rate.

Better to be safe and just stick with 44.1kHz if you don't. The difference in quality is teeny tiny to say the least (if it's there at all), so why mess with the unknown?

That said, I eagerly look forward to the day when something more realistic like 60kHz is supported by more manufacturers.
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Andreilg3
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Re: Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Post by Andreilg3 » Mon Mar 18, 2013 2:33 am

Tarekith wrote:Because I think there are very few cases where a higher sample rate actually makes an audibly better difference. Especially if you're using Ableton for your SR conversion back to 44.1 later on.

In my experience, any benefit of higher sample rates is usually negated by the SR conversion back to 44.1kHz unless you use a top end SR conversion tool. They aren't expensive (Voxengo Rbrain), but Live is not the best tool for this sort of task. Generally I think people are just better off sticking to the sample rate their final product will be in. For most musicians, that's 44.1kHz.

Also (and no offense to the OP, who I don't know at all) generally I find that if people have to ask this question in the first place, they dont know the ins and outs of digital enough to make sure the benefits (if there even are any) of higher sample rates are maintained through the production production process. The people who benefit from higher SR's already know WHY they MIGHT need a higher sample rate.

Better to be safe and just stick with 44.1kHz if you don't. The difference in quality is teeny tiny to say the least (if it's there at all), so why mess with the unknown?

That said, I eagerly look forward to the day when something more realistic like 60kHz is supported by more manufacturers.
Why would i be converting back to 44.1? and I don't know the ins and outs but everybody who's written an article on this that I've read says it does matter very much as well as every professional audio engineer (besides Monty). From everything I've read, filters on vsts benefit greatly from higher sample rates and oversampling is not a suitable substitution. And the point of this thread was to have somebody tell me WHY to not use 88.2, not why to use 88.2. I see nothing unsafe about going to 88.2, if anything, switching to 88.2 would allow me to turn off oversampling and have cleaner vst sounds.

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Re: Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Post by Tarekith » Mon Mar 18, 2013 2:34 am

Awesome man, then by all means use 88.2 and be happy about it.
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Andreilg3
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Re: Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Post by Andreilg3 » Mon Mar 18, 2013 3:06 am

Tarekith wrote:Awesome man, then by all means use 88.2 and be happy about it.
lol

miekwave
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Re: Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Post by miekwave » Mon Mar 18, 2013 3:52 am

Interesting point OP brought up.

I mentioned about high SR on another forum post.

Basically, if you have a capable system, by all means record at the highest SR possible - HOWEVER, for best results you should

a) down-sample your consolidated tracks to the fidelity of the lowest SR quality of any time based plug in (delays and reverbs) you have in your session. This is because processing super fidelity on reverbs or delays can produce noticeably unpleasant audio fidelity artifacts (but sometimes cool sounding depending on the type of music)
OR
b) Insert a Low Pass Filter at about 18khz/24dbo on each track that is sending to a reverb or delay based VST. This method does not require you to reconsolidate and resample your tracks, but you will need a very HQ Low Pass filter. Inserting LPF before the super fidelity signal is sent into a reverb or delay will greatly reduce nay super fidelity artifacts.

For your super fidelity recordings or session track, DO NOT DITHER. Dithering super fidelity tracks essentially "scrambles" super frequencies that occur about or below the noise floor or your mastered recording - but you don't want to do this yet, I have my reasons but basically, its better to AVOID using dithering until you are processing your final version.

Recording at 88k is fine, however you should strongly consider making a "Master" version of your track and a "Internet Ready Version". Your Internet ready version should be downsampled to 44.1/16bit with POW-r (or equivilant) dithering. The file version you want to convert into MP3 is the "Internet Ready Version", ther is 0 benefit to converting a 88k file to MP3. When converting a super fidelity recorded file into MP3, be aware that supersonic frequencies will distort in the audible range on your MP3 rendering (depending on how good your MP3 conversion program is.)

Also professional monitor systems use components designed to reproduce a 20-20 linear response curve on biamp/triamp or single amp enclosures. As such, the transistors inside these components are not designed to reproduce frequencies above 20khz or so. Supersonic frequencies hovering at or above the noise floor being sent through these systems usually distort the tweeter component, and it is quite noticeable. This is why most professional monitors have a built in crossover with a low pass filter at 18-22khz.

So whats the moral of the story?
Record as high as you want, but be sure to apply LOW PASS FILTERS, Reconsolidate as appropriate, and convert different versions of your master "Internet version" and "Your Version" before converting to mp3 or any internet ready format.

Tone Deft
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Re: Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Post by Tone Deft » Mon Mar 18, 2013 4:03 am

if you don't yet know what you're doing do nothing or else you're MUCH more likely to screw things up instead of making them better. going about all willy nilly adding EQs to your tracks because someone on the interweb told you seems incredibly silly to me. no offense meant to miekwave for posting that.

end of the day you have all the tools you need to answer this question for yourself. do a Live session where you do nothing but play with different sample rates, TRY to screw things up. this forum is great for getting advice but it seems silly to base your working knowledge of Live on what some random strangers say when you can educate yourself and gain practical working knowledge of all this.

use Hi-Q mode, try not to switch sample rates but this really is an area where people totally overthink things. there are other areas like gain staging that are much more practical to master.

sit down and hear for yourself how bad these issues can screw up your sound. it's not all that complicated but people LOVE to make mountains our of molehills with this stuff.
In my life
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At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
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Re: Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Post by Tarekith » Mon Mar 18, 2013 4:06 am

We should argue about what dither is best, it's next on the list of argumentative topics that have little to no impact on the sound of your recordings.

Oh wait, sorry, I thought this was Gearslutz for a second...
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Tone Deft
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Re: Should I use 44.1kHz or 88.2kHz sampling rate?

Post by Tone Deft » Mon Mar 18, 2013 4:12 am

par for the course.

or go to a cycling forum and rant against press fit bottom brackets.
In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
-Moz

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