Post
by Calagan » Sun Feb 04, 2024 6:15 am
Hi
There's a real time sample rate conversion done by Live when you play audio files recorded in a different sample rate than the actual session (like, in your exemple, 44kHz files in a 48kHz session).
My experience is that it impacts a little CPU footprint and of course the real time audio quality is affected.
But it's truly minimal (as far as I can hear) and when you print/export the tracks, Live is doing quite a good job with its conversion. After years using Live, I don't care anymore about the quality of the conversion (when exporting) : it's truly transparent.
Especially if you play 44kHz audio files in a 48kHz session, I don't think you'll be able to hear any issue.
This is with WAV audio files.
Now, with plugins, it can sometimes (in very rare occasions) change the sound in a dramatic way.
Most of the time it will not change anything, you just may have a better sound with less aliasing (with some plugins : there will be no change with digital EQs for exemple). The difference between 44kHz and 48kHz is tiny, and it's usually an improvement, not the opposite. But even if it improves the sound, you will not notice much difference.
But sometimes you will have a noticeable different sound because of the way the plugin is coded : I experienced that with some very specific Diva presets (when a different sample rate is changing the filters sound and modulation, and It affects the pitch), with the Valhalla reverbs and with the Soundtoys' Crystallizer plugin, where changing the sample rate is actually modifying the pitch of the fx...
But again, usually (with say 99% of the plugins), a different sample rate has very minimal difference (it just sounds better with higher sample rate, especially non linear processing and synths).
So you should check if a different sample rate will not change the sound of some plugins, and you should be cautious with CPU footprint, but most of the time there's no issue at all in changing the sample rate of the project (especially when going with a higher one).