Possibly migrating from MC6. Does X2 essentials export at 24-bit 48k? 32 vs 64-bit engine.

You can view a detailed X2 feature comparison chart at...
http://www.cakewalk.com/products/SONAR/SONAR-X2-comp-chart.pdf

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com - SONAR X2 Power! - http://garrigus.com/?SonarX2Power
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
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Thanks guys.

Garrigus, the comparison list doesn't show the bit depth and sample rate.

Daveny5, I am not exporting to CD. I'll be forwarding to other studios and clients for them to mixdown to what they want, hence the requirement to give them the best quality I can from my equipment.

Some audio will be going into film, so higher than CD quality may be required for that purpose, and I may be required to deliver AIFF, MP3 or WAV.

Thanks again,

Lee.

The engine for all 3 X2 versions is the same, so it should export 24/48 just fine.

And yes, the mp3 coder is extra.  I, for one, don't mind not paying an extra $10 for the licence.  I have several programs for that.

As colbert says, Cake runs specials frequently.  If money is tight, get Essentials and wait for a good deal on X2.  Cake will get you for X3 soon after.  But you should be getting all the emails Cake sends out for sales.  If not, get on the mail list.

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64bit engine info http://www.cakewalk.com/P...ouble-Precision-Engine

I wonder if there's going to be a bigger May bank holiday sale. 

leebut

scook


64bit engine info http://www.cakewalk.com/P...ouble-Precision-Engine

Thanks for that.


So, it's....better, much better. Glad it's in X2 essentials. Cakewalk have been generous with it compared to X1 essentials.

No. In the real world any problems with 32bit floating point are already inaudible in this kind of application (there are places where 64bit processing is used and is useful or necessary, but not here).

To get an idea of how silly the supposed benefits of 64bit are, let's look at an excerpt from that link:

The 64-bit Double Precision Engine provides greater resolution, meaning more accurate audio reproduction and more headroom. You'll especially notice the benefits of the 64-bit Double Precision Engine when working in large projects containing many audio tracks and plugs-ins. Your chances of clipping will be significantly reduced. 

This is all you need to know - 32bit already provides literally hundreds of dB's of headroom over 0dBFS. While it is indeed true that 64bit has much more headroom (thousands of dB's - really), your "chances of clipping" in the real world are zero. Most people try not to clip at all; others might go a few dB's over. But no one (outside of mad audio scientists intentionally trying to clip) go hundreds of dB's over.

Though their claims may be technically true, note that they don't put them in perspective. So I will put in perspective just how ridiculous talking about these headroom/clipping "advantages" are. Here's what you need to know about floating point math:

Under floating point, 0dBFS is represented by the number 1.
A value of 2 would be ~+6dBFS.
4 would be ~+12dBFS.
10 would be +20dBFS.
100 would be +40dBFS

If you go above 1, you will clip when you convert back to 16 or 24bit fixed point (for instance through a sound card or writing to a file).

But the maximum value you can represent under 32 bit floating point is on the order of 340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!


So, the fact that they are actually touting increased headroom/less chance of clipping as "benefits" of 64bit tells you all you need to know. 

I never signed up for the mailing list but I get all of them. I think buying and registering a product is the only way to get on the list. Go figure.

Lee.... 

I can understand your desire to give the best tracks possible to clients and other studios....

But I have an observation.   

You may gain a small, unhearable difference between the exporting formats by exporting at a higher sampling resolution and bit rate. I have to wonder about the rest of the chain "so to speak". 

You're using MC6 (considering X2essentials) either of  which, while they are good basic DAWs, are not the DAW most studio's would choose to use for clients. In addition to that, and probably much more important to the quality of the sound would be the studio room & it's related acoustics, the mics, the sound treatment, etc.... as opposed to the export numbers. 

I work across the internet with a few people who do have really nice professional grade studios. We swap tracks in wave 16/44.1 all day long and there is never any issue about the quality.  The more important thing to us is that the file sounds professionally recorded on the other end. 

The most recent one done this way is "Come & Go (Rose version)" where the vocal was recorded in a different studio and sent as a simple raw wave  16/44.1 to me. 

I do understand that some libraries and end users do want the higher resolution files and so if that is the ultimate reason, certainly you want to provide what they ask for. 

just my 2 cents