bitflipperIf you were then able to pick out a mosquito buzzing 10 ft away - while the engine was running - then I'd believe you can hear what's happening at -144 dB and below.

Oh i can't hear the diff between 24 and 32. I struggle with mp3 and 16 bit (remember the golden ears quiz?)... Haha. I was saying least significant bit isn't just noise in a polished master. I think I made a video where I polarity flipped a 24 bit wave import and a flac exported from sonar to show there was a 1 bit difference. That difference normalized made the song recognizable since you had 1 bit plus positive or negative (sign) giving three positions (+1,0,-1).

What Bit, and many of his era (sorry Bit) don't understand is, you're trying to keep the audio at the highest quality throughout the process. And in this day and era, there is no reason not to switch the 64bitfp on and leave it. And furthermore, there isn't any reason not to bounce out a 64bitfp master file that can be used to create 24bit masters - I wouldn't use 16 bit and don't - to create Mp3s that could be considered hi resolution because no dither and because the 64bitfp file hasn't gone through one reduction before being reduced again via Mp3. And Soundcloud accepts 64bit96k files. Mp3 has no bit depth limit. Yes we all listen with 16 but converters, most these days would listen with 24 bit because most new phones have 24bit, but it's all about resolution and not losing resolution. I think what happens is, if again you process audio files heavily or rely on the analogue emulation aesthetic - if say you bounced down to a 16 bit master file and then created an Mp3 or uploaded to SoundCloud - rather than hear the subtle nuances of emulated 2nd and 3rd harmonic distortion...it just becomes distortion. And it's the same at 24bit and whilst not as bad at 32 bit...you still hear distortion. All I can describe it as is, if you listen very carefully and headphones is there's a grainy mid frequency sound that you can't get rid of.

Look. The oldies around this forum, and I'm sorry Bit because I know you're a good guy who had helped many on this forum since I've been around on this forum, but the oldies are living in the past and worse holding western art music back. There is no need for a studio, a band or 1000s of dollars of equipment. And here is where the proof is, in regards to 64 bit fp...everything. I use Notion 6, which is a score editor and orchestral instrument. I used to stick with Bit's rules...or if you like the general rules of 24bit audio. I would bounce out the files as 24bit and then a few years ago 32 bit. I would then sit and add console emulation and some tape sat as well. It's one of the steps you take to make a wooden robotic sampled violin and smooth it over to add back some realism. The issue was, for the life of me I couldn't understand where the mid range tinny distortion was coming from. It ruined my mixed. Last year, and I can't remember why...I started recording those same Notion instruments into Sonar as 64bitfp via rewire. Gone was the distortion. Enough said.

Now yep, we're talking about master files, but think about it? All your processing is done at either 32bitfp or 64bitfp, depending on what switch you've pressed. What happens to all that processing at 64bitfp, when you bounce down to 24bit or 16bit...it gets squashed into the noise floor and dither is added. Now granted, 24 bit wave files should be the defacto format today, but if you're only using this file as your listening master file...then it will be fine. You lose some very subtle nuances of the 64bit file, but until fp DA converters come on line...its the best we can do. Now the problem is, and I said it above, but the problem is if you what to turn that 24bit file into an MP3 or a Soundcloud or indeed the master is going to be used in an MP4 for YouFool. Because you're squashing a file that has already been squashed. I can't remember if it's on Soundclouds do's and don'ts list but I read and only again recently - its recomend when you create a file for Soundcloud that's it's not heavily processed. Why? Because all the verbs, delays and emulation effects sound distorted. I always wondered why my mixes sounded so horrible after I uploaded to Soundcloud. Yes, in the past I might have been a crap mixer, not anymore...but it's because we're only just starting to work out the digital medium and format, and a lot of the ideas Bit and others on this forum are from the bad old days of digital. Where Bit was 100 percent on the money.

For proof, my website is 1331.space. I'm about to put my last AV sonata I completed last week up.

Ben

Cool, Ben. Thanks for kicking in. Regarding midi processing, there is a lot of talk that increased depths and rates help. Craig Anderton has written copiously on it.

As you say, no real reason not to keep files at a higher depth if you want, regardless of whether improvements can be confirmed by others.

I don't hear what you describe, but I still record performers using microphones and preamps. My brother and I noticed that I do not have the equipment with a low enough noise floor to test/assert my ucx performs as rme claims. Everything is noisier than the converters.

Sonar has a feature for increasing the sample rate for certain processing. I don't use this much myself. I work at 96 when I want that. I mention it in case readers didn't know.

Bitflipper, thanks so much for answering my question.

...in this day and era, there is no reason not to switch the 64bitfp on and leave it...

There are 10 kinds of people in the world...

bitflipper

...in this day and era, there is no reason not to switch the 64bitfp on and leave it...

There are 10 kinds of people in the world...

lol

What people who don't understand technical details don't understand is that you can't increase resolution by changing something that isn't limiting resolution in the first place.
 

I think the rules are different for what happens outside the box compared to what happens inside the box. If you record an acoustic guitar at 44.1 kHz with 24 bits of resolution and play it back, then it will be 24 bits no matter what. And, the sample rate won't matter because nothing can interfere with the clock frequency. But when you start processing, or creating sounds inside the box, that's when sample rates and resolution can become significant factors. 
 
 

Anderton
I think the rules are different for what happens outside the box compared to what happens inside the box. If you record an acoustic guitar at 44.1 kHz with 24 bits of resolution and play it back, then it will be 24 bits no matter what. 

 
Technically speaking, though the recording itself will be 24 bits, the actual resolution will depend on the playback level and the noise from all sources present - including the noise in the signal picked up by the mic when the recording was made. The limits of hearing could also apply if they weren't buried under the noise floor from everything else. IOW 24 bit is the theoretical limit of that particular digital format, not the real world resolution (which is always far less than 24 bits).
 

But when you start processing, or creating sounds inside the box, that's when sample rates and resolution can become significant factors. 

Though in certain conditions they can indeed be very significant factors, in other cases they're completely irrelevant. 
 
Again, you can't increase resolution by changing something that isn't limiting resolution in the first place.
 
The problem for us here is that one needs to know some complicated DSP stuff to know when a given bit depth/sample rate might be really significant, completely irrelevant or somewhere in between.
 
And people often assume that because something can be an issue - in certain cases, it applies to them in their particular case - all the time. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way, so in the real world we end up having to waste money on things like bigger SSD drives so we have enough space for all those 24 bit sample libraries that impress the true believers  but in fact never contain more than 20 bits of resolution (and often far less). Thanks NI! 

drewfx1
What people who don't understand technical details don't understand is that you can't increase resolution by changing something that isn't limiting resolution in the first place.
 

I can read the technical stuff Drew - I had to to pass my first degree, and what you're missing is the notion of rounding errors. It's so boring the technical stuff, and I already do everything - from writing to creating 3d animation - but the issue is pretty simple...as Craig has stated it's about processing audio within the box. To create the same sounds as analog - you have to process the audio heavily. Think of it this way: analogue on the way into the storage medium i.e. tape adds all the things we like in regards to classic recordings, but analog tape is a poor storage medium and prone to being very expensive. Digital on the other hand, when we can perfect things like storing data in synthetic DNA and also synthetic diamonds (off the top of my head), is the perfect storage medium because it adds nothing to the data. The issue is, it's taken if we go back to the original 70s digital recordings almost 45 years to get to the point where we go ah ha and we can fix it - this is the analogue emulation aesthetic, but as we all know it doesn't work if you use only 24bit processing and hence 32bit and finally 64bitfp processing. This is because, I think rounding errors that eventually become sharp mid distortion.
 
I mentioned this in my last post in regards to Notion audio files and processing - I could not fix the mid-distortion until I went to 64bitfp. I'm not saying you can listen to a 64bit file, that would be ridiculous - what I am saying is you need to keep the master at 64bitfp and from there you create a whatever master file. The OP question was about rendering to 32bitfp, and here is where all of you are doing everyone on this board, who doesn't use a studio and expensive museum pieces to create - because I can tell you there is a huge difference in audio quality if you create an MP3 from a 16 bit file instead of a 64bit file, which includes most sites like Soundcloud. Don't ask me why, but I can tell you my ears can hear the difference. It's the same if you create MP4s or AVis or whatever visual standard too...you need to create the final visual product with a 64bit file. Itunes also uses a 32bitfp process to create Ifools files. Now, I only have one piece of evidence in regards to this matter, but why risk any kind of distortion by giving Crapple a 16 bit file for conversion or indeed a 24 bit one, if Crapple are only going to re-wrap the 24bit file in a 32bit container file?...and that's what you're also missing! You, and others keep rattling on about you can't hear a higher bit depth file...you can't! But you can protect the processed file from rounding errors which turn into distortion by sticking with 64bitfp until distribution. By all means, create 24bit audio wave files for audio masters, which is what I do, but make a 64bitfp master too, which is undithered for future proofing. I can tell you that the 24 bit file doesn't sound as good as the MP4 AV file I create from the 64bit master, because for one dither. And think about it, when you're squashing your track into a smaller format - when squashing the file it should be pretty obvious which file should be used. Mp3 encoders and the like aren't that good at picking which date to remove...so why squash a file that has already been squashed?
 
Finally, to say that if you can't hear something means it doesn't exist - and I'm sorry but I'm going to metaphorically kick you here - is stupid. It's like saying that I can't see sound waves or light waves or the ****ing sun - so the sun or sound and light waves don't exist. You might as well join the loony flat earthers. 
 
For anyone wanting proof to my crazy ideas on sound, just go to my website 1331.space and to the music AV page. I can't get that 'pro' sound without my crazy theories, ones that I've taken 18 years to perfect.
 
Peace and Love :)