a question about bits

frisbi · Post by **frisbi** » Sat May 19, 2007 6:03 pm

Hi, i´m new in the world of bits and hertz so:
i use to make music with ableton, in 44.100hz and 16 bit,
then I render the tracks and master them with audition
the question is: how can audition make a 32bit mixing with 16bit tracks?
Is it better to make a 32bit mixing with 16 bit tracks or to convert all the tracks to 32bit and then mix them with 32bit mixing?
When finally i render all to audio data, do I lose something if I burn my music in a Cd that obviously works with 16bit?
Thanks a lot.

iain.morland · Post by **iain.morland** » Sat May 19, 2007 7:14 pm

It's definitely better to do everything at 32bit for as long as possible - i.e. until making the cd master.

As for Audition, you'd be better of asking at http://www.audiomastersforum.net/amforum/index.php where there are people who know that program inside out.

snakedogman · Post by **snakedogman** » Sun May 20, 2007 11:49 am

preferably you'd record everything in 32 bits or 24 bits (most common nowadays), then only as a very final step in the mastering process you dither and convert to 16 bits for buring to cd/converting to mp3.
Don't forget to dither, otherwise the conversion to a lower bitrate will give quantisation errors in the audio.

Schizophonix · Post by **Schizophonix** » Mon May 21, 2007 12:36 pm

Yeah like snakedog said try to keep maximum quality throughout the process (maximum sampling frequency and maximum bits) and then only downsample when you are mastering, with dither and all. Even though your outcome is a 44.1khz 16bit file, it does make a huge difference if it comes from a higher quality production process...