Downsampling

ORIGINAL: fooman

Hiya!
After sending some recent work to my ME, I asked for some feedback. He told me that the mixes were pretty impressive and wondered why I recorded at 44.1 and not 88.2 or 96k. I told him simply because I use UAD plugs a lot and using a higher sampling rate would be too much of a headache.

He told me to record at a higher sampling rate and downsample when it comes time to mix.

How would I go about doing this. I use Sonar 7, and I'm not sure how to do this....

The only reason to record at a higher sample rate is if your tracks sound bad now, and would sound better if you recorded at the higher rate. You would need to do a test with the gear you have and verify that you can hear a difference, after that decide if that difference is required or desired for the type work you do. Using a higher rate just to be doing it doesn't make sence. After all there is some change in quality when you have to downsample so you also have to consider if the gain in quality you got on the tracks is going to make it through that. There is a chance it will sound worse if the downsample does more damage then the tracks did good.

Also be aware that resampleing will thorw off lip sync if you do sound for film, so don't record at a rate other then what the final product will be.

Back to quality. Some folks do record at higher rates because the sound card they have is fairly cheap and 44.1 doesn't sound as good as the higher rates. However, if you have a card with really good converters (Lynx, RME) 44.1 may sound so good there is no reason to go higher. In that case just upgrading the sound card might do more good then going to a higher sample rate.

There is one exception here. If you mix with an analog console and A/D again on the other side then there will be no resample or downsample. In that case it might be good to record at the rate your converters or sound card sound best at (that's not always the highest rate) but most folks mix in the box now so if you record at a sample rate other then what the final product will be you run the rist of damage from the downsample.

Yes, higher rates are available now and almost all software, plugins, and hardware can do them. But that alone is not a reason to use them. You need to verify that it really is better all the way through to the final product, not the first stage.

Firstly, in my humble opinion, the higher sampling rates are really not needed. It all depends on what style of music you are doing. My personal preference is 24/48. Anything higher is really not needed for the music I play, which is rock/metal. The higher bit/sample rates are incredible for cleaner music. Some jazz, recording an orchestra, acoustic instruments that have more dynamics than volume....that's when I'd use the higher ones.

But downsampling is pretty simple in Sonar. It's called "dithering" and you will see it in your options when you go to mix down your project if the project is at a higher bit/sample rate than 16/44.

But lets start from the beginning. First you need to set up your soundcard for the higher bit/sample rate. Go to your card options and set the bit rate for 24, the sample rate to 48. Since you use UAD (I do too) go with 24/48. Then open Sonar and go to advanced audio options. Set bit rate to 24, sample rate to 48000. Then, click the wave profiler button so Sonar finishes setting everything up for you. You may need to adjust latency settings if you are using WDM, or your sample rate setting in your ASIO control panel once you make this new change. Next, after wave profiler is done and you click ok and it exits, click ok on the audio options panel to get out of it. You will most likely have to restart Sonar.

Once you restart, go to options, then global. Once there, go to the audio data tab. Select 24 as your record bit depth, and you can either set render bit depth to 24 or leave it at 32. Click ok and exit, and you should be in good shape as far as setting up goes. Now there are a few ways to dither and downsample, but I'll give you the easiest one as this can be an artform all in its own.

Once your project is ready to be exported out of Sonar, and you click on the export option, you will see options in that box. One is dithering. There are a few ways to dither and there are good tools you can use to do this, but for quick purposes you can just use Sonar to do your dithering. In a nutshell without getting technical with you, dithering assists with proper downsampling and allows the file to keep its original sound as it is downsampled to a lower bit and sample rate. Set your dithering to like powr3, and then change your bit and sampling to 16/44 then click export. When the file is done being exported, it will be a stereo 16/44 that has preserved your 24/48 sound quality. Like I said, there are other ways to do this, but this will get you started. Hope this helps, good luck!

What I was told to do was downsample prior to mixing so I could use the UAD stuff when mixing without much issue.

I understand how to set everything up, and how to do mixdowns. This is all simple.
But to record at one sample rate and mix in another is something I've not done.

I will experiment. I have Lynx Aurora 16's convertors... and I've never actually recorded above 44.1k. It might be worth my while, might not be.

great thread guys.....well informed stuff in here. This thread should help lots of new people coming to the forum.

ORIGINAL: Kalle Rantaaho


Most of us, I think, record at 48 Khz and 24 bits. Exporting the project you just choose the sample rate and bit depth you want (normally 44,1/16).

naaayy -- i bet most record at 44 - at least i do