Which Sample Rate bit Depth is best?

[Pasha]

Hi,

I'm trying to figure out what Sample Rate /Bit Depth pair is best.
I switched to 48Khz / 24 bit in the last 5 months, from 44Khz 16bit.
I'm now comparing my work now vs 1 year ago.
It might be my equipment, including my human gear (ears) but I notice
only a slight difference between the two.
What do you suggest? What Sample Rate Bit Depth are you using?
CDs are made at 44Khz 16Bit and sound great. Is there really a difference
between 44Khz and 48Khz and between 16bit and 24bit?
Do I have to move to 96Khz 32bit to get some big difference?

I'm also curious about disk space calculations.
Is there a formula to calculate how much space will it take
to record a stereo track at a particular Sample Rate Bit Depth pair?

Pls help....

- Best
- Pasha

[Johnisfaster]

just because cd format is 44 16bit doesn't mean you should produce the music in that. I have an analogy about that

"if you're going to do a long math calculation do you round it off throughout the entire equation or do you round it off at the very end?"
at the end of course, when you bounce your mix onto a cd is when it gets dropped to 44 16bit. you can produce at a higher bit and sampling rate and then drop it down to 44 16 for cd and you'll still end up with something better than if you produced the whole way at 44 16. that being said I do only use 44 16 but thats cause I don't care enough to change

[Pasha]

just because cd format is 44 16bit doesn't mean you should produce the music in that. I have an analogy about that

"if you're going to do a long math calculation do you round it off throughout the entire equation or do you round it off at the very end?"
at the end of course, when you bounce your mix onto a cd is when it gets dropped to 44 16bit. you can produce at a higher bit and sampling rate and then drop it down to 44 16 for cd and you'll still end up with something better than if you produced the whole way at 44 16. that being said I do only use 44 16 but thats cause I don't care enough to change

Thanks Johnisfaster, you always perform according to your name! Always the first to answer!
However, are you aware of any disk space calculation formula?

- Best
- Pasha

[Tarekith]

Pasha, since you're on a Mac, try these widgets:

http://www.henrybourne.co.uk/widgetSite/

Very helpful for musicians, there's even one for calculating disc space liek you want.

[horselesspaul]

For what it's worth, If you change your audio interface to something better you will really notice a difference.

[Michael-SW]

Changing your sample rate to 48 kHz won't help much and might actually be a hindrance if your final target is 44.1 since you will have to perform sample rate conversion on your recordings.

Changing to 24 bits is a very good idea though, since that will leave you lots of excess headroom when mixing, bouncing etc.

[Nixon]

However, are you aware of any disk space calculation formula?

the formula is

2 (stereo) * 16 (bit depth) * 44100 (sample rate) = bits per second
bits per second / 8 = byte per second
byte per second / 1024 = kb per/sec
kb/sec / 1024 = mb / sec

so cd quality is 0.168 mb.sec

I think...

[Pasha]

Changing your sample rate to 48 kHz won't help much and might actually be a hindrance if your final target is 44.1 since you will have to perform sample rate conversion on your recordings.

Changing to 24 bits is a very good idea though, since that will leave you lots of excess headroom when mixing, bouncing etc.

So you're suggesting 44khz at 24bit?

- Best
- Pasha

[nolus]

aprox 10 MB per minute is a good rule of thumb for CD quality audio.

[Contra]

, when you bounce your mix onto a cd is when it gets dropped to 44 16bit. you can produce at a higher bit and sampling rate and then drop it down to 44 16 for cd and you'll still end up with something better than if you produced the whole way at 44 16. that being said I do only use 44 16 but thats cause I don't care enough to change

dit-d-dit-diiiiitto

[Michael-SW]

Changing your sample rate to 48 kHz won't help much and might actually be a hindrance if your final target is 44.1 since you will have to perform sample rate conversion on your recordings.

Changing to 24 bits is a very good idea though, since that will leave you lots of excess headroom when mixing, bouncing etc.

So you're suggesting 44khz at 24bit?

- Best
- Pasha

Yep. Of course going to higher sample rates like 88.2 or even 192 will mostly likely improve your sound quality, but the single best improvement with the least effort (CPU and disk space wise) is going to 24 bits bit depth.

Note that when you finally go to 16 bits for CD burning (the absolute last step you should do) you'll need a decent bit depth convesion algorithm that supports dithering. Any decent sound editor should support that, probably even Audacity, which is free.

[Sales Dude McBoob]

My favorite color is lavender.

[dancerchris]

Sample rate converters first round up to nearest common denomonator and then devide there is no rounding error. It's an urban myth.

I'll second the motion that you're not able to hear anything because your sound card is what it is. Get something with better pre's and a nicer a/d converter scheme.

[Pasha]

Changing your sample rate to 48 kHz won't help much and might actually be a hindrance if your final target is 44.1 since you will have to perform sample rate conversion on your recordings.

Changing to 24 bits is a very good idea though, since that will leave you lots of excess headroom when mixing, bouncing etc.

So you're suggesting 44khz at 24bit?

- Best
- Pasha

Yep. Of course going to higher sample rates like 88.2 or even 192 will mostly likely improve your sound quality, but the single best improvement with the least effort (CPU and disk space wise) is going to 24 bits bit depth.

Note that when you finally go to 16 bits for CD burning (the absolute last step you should do) you'll need a decent bit depth convesion algorithm that supports dithering. Any decent sound editor should support that, probably even Audacity, which is free.

So you would not trust Live rendering?

[Pasha]

However, are you aware of any disk space calculation formula?

the formula is

2 (stereo) * 16 (bit depth) * 44100 (sample rate) = bits per second
bits per second / 8 = byte per second
byte per second / 1024 = kb per/sec
kb/sec / 1024 = mb / sec

so cd quality is 0.168 mb.sec

I think...

Thanks Nixon! Sorry for the delay but I was out working....
This accounts also for the fact that a FW Interface can manage the sharing of the bandwidth with an external FW hard drive.

- Best
- Pasha