Sample rate confusion

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Post Reply
sporkles
Posts: 3230
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2007 8:43 pm
Location: Schmocation

Sample rate confusion

Post by sporkles » Sun Aug 18, 2013 6:00 pm

I've been working on a film score for a long time and I'm getting close to wrapping it up; long story short - I wanted to export at 48khz/24 bit. I'm using Kontakt with Project SAM Orchestral Essentials and the Action Strings library. Orchestral Essentials sounds fine on export, both at 48/24 and 44/16, but Action Strings is completely out of tune at 48/24, which means that the two don't mesh at all when I export at 48/24.

I figured this would have something to do with the export settings, but why is it happening only to Action Strings? Also, when I opened the Action Strings Kontakt plugin window, Kontakt gave me a dialogue: "Please close and restart Kontakt after a sample rate change." I didn't really change anything, though, I merely exported at a different setting.

I've always been sticking to 44/16, so I'm a little new to this whole sample rate and bit depth jive; does anyone know why this is happening (and only to Action Strings) and how to remedy it? I didn't really give this too much thought until now, so I've kept my interface and Live settings at 44khz as usual, assuming that exporting to 48/24 would work fine. Is there anyone here who tackles various sample rates and bit depths routinely? What's your workflow?
Last edited by sporkles on Sun Aug 18, 2013 8:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

stoersignal
Posts: 500
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2010 9:43 pm
Location: vienna

Re: Sample rate / bit depth confusion

Post by stoersignal » Sun Aug 18, 2013 6:54 pm

i`ve experienced similar issues but with trilian. it`s really strange as i`ve never had such problems with live 8 or any other DAWs. the rule is to don`t change the samplerate if possible during production or when exporting, i know, but actually i never had problems like this before. trilian is completely out of tune.
i`ve worked on 96k and wanted to export with 48k, so the calculation should be simple as just use every second sample. in the past i sometimes experienced some changes in sound but not the tune.
i am working on a score too and i`m using symphobia and actions strings with no problems.
my workaround is to export in the original samplerate and convert it after.
sorry, i know thats not really a solution.
i blame ableton for that :lol:

Angstrom
Posts: 14921
Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2004 2:22 pm
Contact:

Re: Sample rate / bit depth confusion

Post by Angstrom » Sun Aug 18, 2013 7:11 pm

As a man who has fudged his way through many format conversions, I say fudge it.

I suggest freezing the problematic track prior to exporting at the altered sample rate. Alternatively - if it cant be frozen - re-sample it to new tracks.

The SR conversion will happen anyway, anybody who can hear the interpolation and comments on it has too much time on their hands.

Currently reading Robert Rodriguez - Rebel without a crew. The audio for El Mariachi was all recorded and edited on his Marantz cassette deck and a Radio Shack Microphone, nobody ever complained.
Jimmy Honore, the Senior Vice-President of Postproduction at Sony
Pictures, flew in to Austin late this morning. He was here to see what kind of
shape my original materials for Mariachi are in. Since he's in charge of
making the 35mm film print, he needed to see where I have my sound, what
format it's on, what condition my original footage is in, etc. A car brought him
to the house and I showed him my setup with all my sound on ten cassette
tapes, the Radio Shack microphone, and the Marantz tape recorder I used to
record the sound. He couldn't believe it.

The studio wants me to fix the sound. Transferring off the 3/4" just
won't cut it in a theater. So I have to bite the bullet and transfer all my raw
dialogue takes from my original cassette tapes to 35mm magnetic stock, then
resync everything to the film print. ...

<sniip>

... I'm here in the transfer room and they have all the DAT machines and
35mm mag stock recorders and patch cables sticking out everywhere and here
I have my little Marantz tape recorder patched into' the 35mm mag recorder
making my transfers. The guys working here ask me, "What are you doing? Is
that sound for a temporary soundtrack?"
"No," I told them. "This is for my final soundtrack. This Marantz is
what I recorded my dialogue, sound effects, and music with." They all laugh
at me.
El Mariachi made 2 million at the box office

sporkles
Posts: 3230
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2007 8:43 pm
Location: Schmocation

Re: Sample rate / bit depth confusion

Post by sporkles » Sun Aug 18, 2013 7:22 pm

Thank you for your reply, stoersignal!

I'm completely at a loss right now. I tried messing around with various settings. At first, when I set Live to 48000hz, the same thing happened within Live (Action Strings went out of tune and off-beat). I then went back and forth a bit, and finally ended up with both my interface and Live set to 48khz. I exported the whole set at 48k/24-bit, but now, with my interface (Audio Kontrol 1) still set to 48000hz, audio sounds distorted, lo-fi and awful - pretty much as if I'd put a heavy Redux on the master track. If, however, I change my interface back to 44.1k, the file (which is at 48k) sounds fine.

Whyyyyy? I simply don't need this shit right now; I just want to wrap this project up and move on. :(

sporkles
Posts: 3230
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2007 8:43 pm
Location: Schmocation

Re: Sample rate / bit depth confusion

Post by sporkles » Sun Aug 18, 2013 8:45 pm

Angstrom wrote:As a man who has fudged his way through many format conversions, I say fudge it.

I suggest freezing the problematic track prior to exporting at the altered sample rate. Alternatively - if it cant be frozen - re-sample it to new tracks.

The SR conversion will happen anyway, anybody who can hear the interpolation and comments on it has too much time on their hands.
Yeah, I considered freezing the track. It seems that changing the sample rate back and forth a bit in Live and the Audio Kontrol settings fixed it, though. For whatever reason, the other Kontakt instruments I'm using didn't go out of tune when I exported to a different format than what was set in Live's preferences, whereas Action Strings did. OK, lesson learnt: I should have set Live to 48k in the first place - I just didn't even entertain the possibility that this could be a problem.

Anyway: I'd really like a "pro tip" on this: should I always work at the intended output sample rate (e.g. 44.1 for CD, 48 for DVD, etc.)? I know some people will recommend working at the highest possible sample rate, but a) it requires more from your system and b) changing sample rate on export can, apparently, cause certain instruments to go out of tune. Could I benefit from working in 48k on my regular music (which is not intended for video work) and exporting it in 48/24 and downsample it in an audio editor later?

stoersignal
Posts: 500
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2010 9:43 pm
Location: vienna

Re: Sample rate / bit depth confusion

Post by stoersignal » Sun Aug 18, 2013 9:06 pm

sporkles wrote:
Angstrom wrote:As a man who has fudged his way through many format conversions, I say fudge it.

I suggest freezing the problematic track prior to exporting at the altered sample rate. Alternatively - if it cant be frozen - re-sample it to new tracks.

The SR conversion will happen anyway, anybody who can hear the interpolation and comments on it has too much time on their hands.
Yeah, I considered freezing the track. It seems that changing the sample rate back and forth a bit in Live and the Audio Kontrol settings fixed it, though. For whatever reason, the other Kontakt instruments I'm using didn't go out of tune when I exported to a different format than what was set in Live's preferences, whereas Action Strings did. OK, lesson learnt: I should have set Live to 48k in the first place - I just didn't even entertain the possibility that this could be a problem.

Anyway: I'd really like a "pro tip" on this: should I always work at the intended output sample rate (e.g. 44.1 for CD, 48 for DVD, etc.)? I know some people will recommend working at the highest possible sample rate, but a) it requires more from your system and b) changing sample rate on export can, apparently, cause certain instruments to go out of tune. Could I benefit from working in 48k on my regular music (which is not intended for video work) and exporting it in 48/24 and downsample it in an audio editor later?
if possible you should always set the samplingrate+bitrate first and then leave it as it is for the whole process including exporting as theres always the possibility for audible quantizing errors. and yes, you could benefit when working on higher sr. the higher the sr, the lower your latency gets. for me thats the main reason to work at the highest possible rate

sporkles
Posts: 3230
Joined: Sun Feb 18, 2007 8:43 pm
Location: Schmocation

Re: Sample rate confusion

Post by sporkles » Tue Aug 20, 2013 5:29 pm

Duly noted! :wink: I've always assumed that lower sample rate equalled lower latency... :idea:

stoersignal
Posts: 500
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2010 9:43 pm
Location: vienna

Re: Sample rate confusion

Post by stoersignal » Tue Aug 20, 2013 7:16 pm

sporkles wrote:Duly noted! :wink: I've always assumed that lower sample rate equalled lower latency... :idea:
seriously?

Blendton
Posts: 237
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2011 9:29 pm
Location: France

Re: Sample rate confusion

Post by Blendton » Tue Aug 20, 2013 11:59 pm

Sony... Beta / CD no co-developed with Philips not enough to desve the great title of "stantard format pushed by our-seflfish-selves alone then DAT and here 's the starting point of this useless 48 shit we have to work ; no need to tell it HAD to be NOT compliant with existing perfect 44.1 88.2 etc ; with some luck BD will make this bad company happy (naive mode)

Sorry for that I can't hide my anti-sony(sm) when 48 is the point lol don't care about the above ;-)
Antoine, aka Blendton.

OS : Windows 8 Professional with Media Center - x64
Ableton Live 9 Suite (64-bit) & Ableton Suite 8 + Max for Live (32-bit)
Toshiba Qosmio F750 + lenticular glasses-free 3D
i7 2670QM 2,20GHz - 2x4GB DDR3-1333 - 5400rpm HDD

Post Reply