Ableton Forum

I'm curious if anyone can give me an audio demo of what 12bit sampling sounds like next to 16bit. I've never actually listened to a 12bit sample before.

i heard it samples in 8 and plays back in 12

and where exactly did you hear that?

lies.


Just use redux and put it to 12... voila, 12 bit. Now you know what it sounds like.

timothyallan wrote:lies.


Just use redux and put it to 12... voila, 12 bit. Now you know what it sounds like.

I don't know if I believe that to be true, I have several 8bit samplers and those sound entirely different than lives redux.

Johnisfaster wrote:

timothyallan wrote:lies.


Just use redux and put it to 12... voila, 12 bit. Now you know what it sounds like.

I don't know if I believe that to be true, I have several 8bit samplers and those sound entirely different than lives redux.

That's because there are a whole lot more variables than just bitrate when you are dealing with external gear. 12 bit is 12 bit.

Johnisfaster wrote:and where exactly did you hear that?

do a search on mpc-forums.com

its there

that's how an e-mu emax 1 works as well, it records and saves the sample in 8 bit but plays it back through non linear 12 bit.

my eps classic saves the sounds in 13 bit format and plays back in non linear 16 bit as well.

thats how most of those samplers work back then.....thats why they also have variable khz rates for tweaking your samples based on using anti-aliasing sound modeling.

look around the used market for either a used eps classic with expanded ram (around 150-200) or an emu emax (100-200). Why risk over a 1000 dollars to find out that you don't like that midrange lo-fi sound?

Johnisfaster wrote:

timothyallan wrote:lies.


Just use redux and put it to 12... voila, 12 bit. Now you know what it sounds like.

I don't know if I believe that to be true, I have several 8bit samplers and those sound entirely different than lives redux.

john - rtfm. the manual literally says that redux is used to get the sound of old samplers.

12 bit doesn't sound too bad, does it? makes you rethink the whole argument about what sample rate is good enough. not that I remember your stance on that.

This what 12-Bit sounds like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjROg6-WHt0

There is something unique about these lower bit-rate hardware machines that just can't quite be captured with software emulation.

You can get close, but so far, it just doesn't capture.

The SP-1200 has a really specific "ringing" sound it adds to all the samples, not sure why. I sure love it though

Samples imported into the MD-UW are converted to 16bit but play back at 12bit. For examples, here's a set that I did entirely live with just the MD-UW. Everything except for the really obvious drum synth stuff is using the UW ROM sampler or RAM samples, including the loops in the transtions:

http://tarekith.com/mp3s/Tarekith-Inbetween_Spaces.mp3

One other thing to keep in mind with the MD-UW, is that the sample playback quality also depends on the how much memory you have free in the UW part at any one time. The more samples you have stored in ROM (2.5MB), the lower the quality of anything resampled in RAM. In general I don't find that the 12bit part makes as much of a difference as you'd expect, compared to say 16bit. Sure, it's obviously not high end audio, btu the amount of 'grit' it adds isn't huge.

Tone Deft wrote: john - rtfm. the manual literally says that redux is used to get the sound of old samplers.

that's what it's supposed to do yes, but like I said I have several 8 bit samplers and redux sounds nothing like them.

and as far as your comment about sound quality and what not I tend to lean toward the "if it sounds good it is good" side of the argument. I like lofi sounds, I'm just curious what a 12bit sampler might sound like as I'm fully familiar with 8bit sampling but have never spent any time with a 12bit sampling hardware.

I agree, putting samples similar to what you find in the SP1200 through redux does not make them sound like a SP1200. For instance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWHWF22K ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIeqzv3kBU4

starving student wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWHWF22K ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIeqzv3kBU4

I knew you were going to post in this and I was looking forward to it

I knew you were too