Why Do My Softsynths Sound Different 44.1 Khz > 88.2 Khz ?

https://youtu.be/weqI6K0YAKk

Also check out my Sonar techniques article in the September 2016 Sound on Sound. Bottom line is Nyquist theory & foldover distortion. Sometimes people like the foldover distortion that occurs at lower sample rates, sometimes not.

Render the part to audio at 44.1 kHz.

Anderton
Render the part to audio at 44.1 kHz.

well I am not done with the part yet, but would like to hear the sound the way it was in 44.1.
 
Should I be recording softsynths in a seperate 44.1 project and then importing into my 88.2 project?  I want the 88.2 project for my FX plugins when it comes time for mixing.

Thank You,
Adam
 

It is possible that some of your synths are not designed to produce the same sound at different sample rates. The elimination of foldover distortion (aliasing) at a higher sample rate is one possibility, but depending on the design of the application, the filters and other algorithms may produce different results at different sample rates. If you are feeding data to a synth for which it is not designed, the best practice would be to have it throw an error and not work at all, but that may not always be the case. Arguing over which sound is the true or correct result is a philosophical excursion unless you have more documentation than most plugins will provide, but if you have a statement that the plugin is designed for a certain sample rate then using it at another rate may well result in something the designer did not intend.
 
In the end, it is the sound you like that is the guide, and deliberate distortions like overdrive, decimation, resonance etc. are part of the palette, so some of the results of exceeding the design sample rate may be useful. Most of us program synths pretty much by ear without completely understanding the specific math that makes the sounds. As others have said, you can export the low sample rate results as audio and import them into a high sample rate project, and the sound should be pretty much the same when re-sampled, even though the synth running at the higher rate is giving you something less than optimal.