Max4Live released soon? New video uploaded by AbletonInc

[davepermen]

uhm, no, those steps of a step sequencer have NOTHING to do with the bits per sample of the audio.

nothing, not even close to.

the audio has 44100 or 48000 or even more "steps" per second in maximum. each of those represented in 32bits (or 16bits or what ever), and not "for two channels so 16bit each", but each channel on it's own, so stereosound even now has 64bits, a.k.a. 32bit left, and 32bit right.

and the steps are packets of those samples, of which you have 44100 per second (depends on the sampling rate). if you have 120bpm, you have 2bps. that means 22050 samples per beat. so you could slice it up to 22050 samples per beat, or, at a 4/4 rythm, 88200 steps possible..

and if you need even more steps, we obviously could set to a higher sample rate


so no, your 16 is wrong.

[leonard]

uhm, no, those steps of a step sequencer have NOTHING to do with the bits per sample of the audio.

nothing, not even close to.

the audio has 44100 or 48000 or even more "steps" per second in maximum. each of those represented in 32bits (or 16bits or what ever), and not "for two channels so 16bit each", but each channel on it's own, so stereosound even now has 64bits, a.k.a. 32bit left, and 32bit right.

and the steps are packets of those samples, of which you have 44100 per second (depends on the sampling rate). if you have 120bpm, you have 2bps. that means 22050 samples per beat. so you could slice it up to 22050 samples per beat, or, at a 4/4 rythm, 88200 steps possible..

and if you need even more steps, we obviously could set to a higher sample rate


so no, your 16 is wrong.

no i'm sorry you're wrong. you state that for 32 bit incoming audio there can be a total of 64 bits? how can that be? say your ADC has a 32 bit resolution, there is AT MOST 32 discrete steps of audio coming in. there CANNOT be 64 bits, the 32 bits HAS TO be split per channel. this is just the way audio happens. also you start talking about sampling rate? that has NOTHING to do with the discrete quantization levels the audio takes through the ADC, but merely the rate at which the audio passes through the input circitry. and no sorry setting the sampling rate to higher or lower has NOTHING to do with the DISCRETE STEPS the audio is quantized to when it enters the computer.

[davepermen]

it's 32bit per channel. as in, a 32bit mono sound. and it's not "steps", it's "bits", to not missinterpret it with that stepsequencer in here. as it has nothing to do with that.

[leonard]

it's 32bit per channel. as in, a 32bit mono sound. and it's not "steps", it's "bits", to not missinterpret it with that stepsequencer in here. as it has nothing to do with that.

yeah thats right. 32 bit mono, so 16 bit when you split it per channel (32/2=16). therefore you can only get 16 steps per channel, and the step sequencer can only take on 16 discrete steps, as that is the most which is coming into the computer.

[oddstep]

So what does the 44.1 kHz sample rate refer to.... I've always assumed that the bits were referring to the number of 0 and 1 that could be used to encode information - so that a 16 bit audio file has 1 to the power of 16 digits describing the amplitude of each sample... sample length being the reciprocal of the sample rate. Where's my error?

[trip_out]

leonard: The number of bits used by an ADC is related to the number of discrete steps it can resolve, however it relates to the binary representation of a signal level.

For example:
16 bit = 2^16 = 65536 steps
32 bit = 2^32 = 4294967296 steps
64 bit = 2^64 = 1.844674407370955x10^19 steps

16 discrete steps would be 4 bit sound!

[leonard]

So what does the 44.1 kHz sample rate refer to.... I've always assumed that the bits were referring to the number of 0 and 1 that could be used to encode information - so that a 16 bit audio file has 1 to the power of 16 digits describing the amplitude of each sample... sample length being the reciprocal of the sample rate. Where's my error?

yep, thats right. 16 bits means 1^16, or 1 times 16, so obviously 16 times 1 levels of DISCRETE AUDIO which the INCOMING audio can take. so obviously if we are talking about a 16 step sequencer there is only 16 DISCRETE LEVELS of audio which the sequencer can use as the INCOMING AUDIO is only quantized to 16 discrete levels. 44.1kHz sampling rate only refers to the rate at which the CONTINUOUS audio SIGNAL passes the ADC (analog digital converter) circuitry (44100 times (aka samples) per second), so it has nothing to do with the amount of DISCRETE LEVELS (between 1 and 16) the incoming audio can take. so because the audio applications LIVE and max/msp are 32 bits, there are only 32 bit mono input, or 32/2=16 bit stereo levels which the max4live sequencer can use. hope this helps.

[håkan bråkan]

1 to the power of 16 would be only 1 bit of information
16 bit audio has 2 to the power of 16 discrete levels which are translated to a certain voltage (in the dac) 44100 times per second for ordinary audio and this is done for every channel, i.e. every channel need it's own dac. It is only misleading to call it 32 bit, as the total amount of information is 2x16x44100, and of course there are bit depths higher than 16 nowadays as well, but callling 16-bit stereo 32 bit is simply wrong.

However this is not related to step sequencers...

[Nokatus]

hope this helps.

[håkan bråkan]

sorry, was plenty of people posting pretty much the same info hehe

[leonard]

leonard: The number of bits used by an ADC is related to the number of discrete steps it can resolve, however it relates to the binary representation of a signal level.

For example:
16 bit = 2^16 = 65536 steps
32 bit = 2^32 = 4294967296 steps
64 bit = 2^64 = 1.844674407370955x10^19 steps

16 discrete steps would be 4 bit sound!

hi, i think you have it wrong. it's OBVIOUS that the BIT DEPTH is the amount of DISCRETE LEVELS which the audio can quantize to once it crosses the ADC circuitry. THEREFORE there can only be 16 LEVELS which your audio can be QUANTIZED to, because the 32 bit audio is 16 bit per channel. so as there is only 16 DISCRETE LEVELS of audio there can only be 16 steps in your step sequencer.

[Nokatus]

Evilevilevil, is that you?

[Emissary]

i'm just waiting to see who wins the battle of the nerd so we can declare one of them pwned, hurry up and divulge more useless information on bit rates and sampled buttock clenches. Whoever loses the argument has to give oral pleasure to every single one of us on this forum

[trip_out]

hi, i think you have it wrong. it's OBVIOUS that the BIT DEPTH is the amount of DISCRETE LEVELS which the audio can quantize to once it crosses the ADC circuitry. THEREFORE there can only be 16 LEVELS which your audio can be QUANTIZED to, because the 32 bit audio is 16 bit per channel. so as there is only 16 DISCRETE LEVELS of audio there can only be 16 steps in your step sequencer.

Hi leonard, I don't have it wrong - I'm an electronics engineer so this is pretty much my bread and butter. I can appreciate how it can all get confusing so here is a fair description of the concept of analogue to digital conversion

In any case this has really little to do with the topic in question as the bit depth has absolutely nothing to do with the number of steps in a sequencer.

Personally I think that this is an indication that it is coming very soon - I hope this will come with 8.0.5

[ikeaboy]

What about indiscrete steps audio may be quantised to by accident (or OTHERWISE)? What sort of threat are they to the digital audio world?

The clips at extendlivehttp://www.extendlive.com/ are much more erotic than this. The randomise object used on the operator is sound design heaven. I'm really suprised the extendlive thread got buried so quickly as it seems to be tyhe work of an Ableton content designer and he has a very interesting downloadable Live set on it of a D&B track done exclusively with Operator and another pack of multitap delays, the afformentioned Randomise M4L video and a LFO M4L video (that sounds terrible but does show you what can be done)