Bit Rate Debate

[danoworks]

I have about 30 or so songs created in Live that I painstakingly converted all midi files to wav files so I could build 3 sets with 10 songs each and perform with an apc40. The reason for the conversion was performance based since a lot of the midi files were created using several different vst plug-in's. So the question is this... I noticed that I had recorded all of the midi files to wav at 24 bit before I noticed I could have done it at 32 bit. Would it be worth it to go back and re-do at 32? Would the sound quality be noticibly different? Or are we talking something only a dog would hear? To my ears everything sounds wonderful at 24. Any opinions?

[john doe by choice]

For public consumption and club/party use, it won't make a difference, but if you want to send tracks off for mastering, keeping everything high quality (or at the highest quality required by the mastering engineer) is a good practice to have.

[knotkranky]

no, no diff. Stay 24

[Tone Deft]

you mean bit DEPTH, not rate. although sample rate * bit depth = bit rate.

doesn't really matter. but you'll know and it will bug you, forever and ever, which might be reason to redo them.

[hurlingdervish]

only robots can tell the difference

you aren't a robot are you?

[Tarekith]

32 bit files have the same dynamic range as 24bit files, the extra 8 bits are just there in case you go over 0dBFS. Quick and simple answer.

I'd doubt ANYONE can hear the difference between 24 and 32 bit.

[Tone Deft]

32 bit files have the same dynamic range as 24bit files, the extra 8 bits are just there in case you go over 0dBFS. Quick and simple answer.

I'd doubt ANYONE can hear the difference between 24 and 32 bit.

don't think so Mr. T.

by your logic 24 bit files have no headroom?

proportionally they have the same amount of headroom.

even by your definition 32 bit files have more dynamic range, headroom is counted in dynamic range because it's the range of values the audio level can have.

[knotkranky]

32 bit files have the same dynamic range as 24bit files, the extra 8 bits are just there in case you go over 0dBFS. Quick and simple answer.

I'd doubt ANYONE can hear the difference between 24 and 32 bit.

don't think so Mr. T.

by your logic 24 bit files have no headroom?

proportionally they have the same amount of headroom.

even by your definition 32 bit files have more dynamic range, headroom is counted in dynamic range because it's the range of values the audio level can have.

That's right.

The advantage is in the amount of noise floor which won't be touched at all unless you're into magic or recording growing grass.

[fishmonkey]

https://www.dvarchive.com/view/204-0153.aspx

[longjohns]

fuck it, I'd record some growing grass if i could sell the recordings for $299 each!!

[leedsquietman]

24 bit is more than fine. There was an argument that since most applications (Live, Cubase, Logic, Samplitude etc) use 32 bit float processing that there is an advantage, I've heard others say when you dither to 16 bit from 32 bit it is better, but I'll be buggered if I can hear it and more disk space is taken up to boot. So, I wouldn't waste my time.

Most of the best mastering houses say 24 bit is great if you ever want your stuff pro mastered, they never demand 32 bit in my experience.

[crumhorn]

Try playing with Redux. Sometimes I find it hard to tell the difference between 16 bits and 12 bits.

[abort]

Me likes working in smaller bite size bits, me likes 16 bytes 24 bytes is too many bites to bit.

how much wood can a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?



So stupid sorry sorry!

[$4mU3l]

24 bit is more than fine. There was an argument that since most applications (Live, Cubase, Logic, Samplitude etc) use 32 bit float processing that there is an advantage, I've heard others say when you dither to 16 bit from 32 bit it is better, but I'll be buggered if I can hear it and more disk space is taken up to boot. So, I wouldn't waste my time

At the other hand you waste cpu time because all of your 24 bit audio has to recalculated to 32 bit by Live whilst recording.

Therefore Live's manual suggests to record at 32 bit and to dither afterwards. Ableton reference manual (v 8 ):

p490: 30.2.1 Undithered Rendering
p492: 30.2.6 Recording internal sources at 32 bit
p493: 30.2.7 Freeze, Flatten
p497: 30.3.6 Recording internal sources below 32 bit

p498: 30.4 Tips for Achieving Optimal Sound Quality in Live:

"Always render at 32-bit and at the sample rate set for your audio interface. If you need audio files at a different sample rate and/or bit depth, we recommend that you convert your rendered files in an offline application (Sony Soundforge in my case) that is optimized for these tasks, rather than in Live."

Contrariwise they also suggest to avoid using the aorta of Live to achieve optimal sound quality:

"For all audio clips, disable both the Warp and Fade options in the Clip View."

"Please note that these practices, while ensuring optimal audio quality, disable some of Live's functionality - in particular, stretching and synchronization"

Therfore it's always a balancing act!


http://blogs.msdn.com/audiofool/archive ... 13498.aspx

[leedsquietman]

While this is true to an extent, as you say it's a trade off - the CPU usage difference is a quite minimal and the extra filesize is the worst deal. Yes, I know Live freezes 32 bit audio and so on. When I hear that major label releases are pretty much all recording 24/96 as their BEST quality, that's good enough for me. Eventually it's all dithered and put into 16 bit / 44.1 Khz for mp3 and CD audio anyway ....

I have Soundforge, so it would be quite easy for me to do it the recommended way, but even though disk storage is coming down in price, you can easily burn it up. Do the Abes also recommend you go to 192 Khz sampling rate just because you CAN ??

BTW - anyone DAW manufacturer who has a 32 bit floating point DAW say the same thing as Ableton.