Idiotic Question from a Technophobe

Well not a total technophobe, but once you get into systems stuff, you lose me.

Not sure that this is the right forum, but here goes ...

Sonar 5 supports 64 bit computing, whatever that means. We have two studio DAWs which I presume are 32 bit (whatever that means). So here is my situation:

1. DAW #1 is used for recording only. With its gear, it's relatively lightweight and gets carted around on location a fair bit.

2. DAW #2 is the big beastie used mainly for Post Production. It never moves.

My questions are, if anybody can help:

1. If I upgrade #2 The Big Beastie to 64 bit, would I get any benefit, bearing in mind that most recording is done on #1 which is still 32 bit?

2. Am I right in suspecting that this 64/32 bit processing issue is absolutely unrelated to the 16/24 bit depth recording issue (which, believe it or not, I think I do understand).

Any replies in English would be much appreciated. Thanks!

No, that's not it. The bit processing for computer terms has nothing to do with the audio bit depth of audio files. All 64bit means is that the computer (in theory) could do more work then a 32bit system of the same speed. More plugins, samplers, etc. And it also means that the computer could have more memory installed if you could afford it. For example 128 gig of RAM (dream on). That way programs like samplers or even Sonar could keep more things in memory so they wouldn't have to read from the hard drive very often again, making things run faster and smoother. For example Sonar would have the option of keeping all the wavform display data in memory to make things faster, etc. Samplers could keep huge samples in memory for playback with less delay and so on. The CPU would also get more of that data from memory in each "chuck". But your tracks might still be 16bit / 44.1 and that would be ok, it could just handle a lot more of them.

This is based on the assumption you have a 64bit version of Windows (not XP), a 64bit version of your sound cards driver (not many out yet), the 64bit version of Sonar (Sonar 5), and a 64bit PC motherboard, CPU, etc. It's a bit soon to start dreaming about this stuff and it will cost money to get a new hardware system, so don't worry about it right now. I'm just wondering how many gig or RAM I'll be able to afford. RAM seems to stay almost $100 a gig for the latest stuff.. do the math. Even 32 gig of ram would cost more then my entire system.

Thanks Guys!

So to spell it out for me, just to make sure I've got you, it would make perfect sense to record on the 32 bit machine, then mix and master on the 64 bit one, right?

Thanks again!

Best, Geoff

ORIGINAL: ohhey
This is based on the assumption you have a 64bit version of Windows (not XP), a 64bit version of your sound cards driver (not many out yet), the 64bit version of Sonar (Sonar 5), and a 64bit PC motherboard, CPU, etc. It's a bit soon to start dreaming about this stuff and it will cost money to get a new hardware system, so don't worry about it right now. I'm just wondering how many gig or RAM I'll be able to afford. RAM seems to stay almost $100 a gig for the latest stuff.. do the math. Even 32 gig of ram would cost more then my entire system.

Thanks Frank. That's exactly what I needed to know.

without all those components running at 64 bit I highly doubt you would see much difference over your 32 bit DAW.

Thanks RAiN0707 - you guys have been a real help ... so it's a fair way down the track for me then. Darned if I'll be upgrading the whole DAW this soon!

Best, Geoff

ORIGINAL: RAiN0707

Frank, I think you misread my post. We are in agreement. He asked not to get technical so I just gave him the straightforward answer.

Sorry, my bad.. got carried away..