The way I understand it is that 24bit gives you the ability to record a'less hot' signal giving you more headroom without the 'noise'.

The way I understand women is just as unclear.

I may have another wine and contemplate.

I don't think my lady would notice the difference between 16 or 24bit, she only cares if its a good song or not.

I'll get my coat.....

Well,... the arguement will go on but I'll say it anyway. 24 bit recordings have more detail in them than 16 bit or MP3's. That's what my ears tell me, and that's what the meters say on the way out. Go ahead, flame me, I can take it. 

wizard71


The way I understand it is that 24bit gives you the ability to record a'less hot' signal giving you more headroom without the 'noise'.

The way I understand women is just as unclear.

I may have another wine and contemplate.

I don't think my lady would notice the difference between 16 or 24bit, she only cares if its a good song or not.

I'll get my coat.....

You're right in thinking noise is less a problem with 24 bits. But headroom is a concept that doesn't apply. Digital zero is zero whether its 16 bits or 24 bits. The difference is in the steps available in level in a 16 bit file versus a 24 bit file from infinity. Infinity being no sound. Think of it starting at the top and how much graduations you have between the loudest sound and the lowest sound. There are a great deal more steps in 24 bit audio. That is what gives us the ability to record not as hot and still have little noise with 24 bits. 

Ah thanks John, that makes perfect sense, always nice to learn something in a not so technical sense, much easier to understand. 
So assuming all this noise 'adds up' over many tracks, is there really a discernible difference between 16/24bit in the average pop song if recorded well, or is this something more noticeable in a more 'naked' production? 
My reason behind this thinking is that for instance a signal path can introduce much more noise ie a guitar amp buzz or maybe a slight ground hum from another piece of equipment than the noise introduced from the average soundcard whether at 16 or 24 bits, so for the average guy recording a song 'at home' does it really matter? 

Bibs

wizard71


Ah thanks John, that makes perfect sense, always nice to learn something in a not so technical sense, much easier to understand. 
So assuming all this noise 'adds up' over many tracks, is there really a discernible difference between 16/24bit in the average pop song if recorded well, or is this something more noticeable in a more 'naked' production? 
My reason behind this thinking is that for instance a signal path can introduce much more noise ie a guitar amp buzz or maybe a slight ground hum from another piece of equipment than the noise introduced from the average soundcard whether at 16 or 24 bits, so for the average guy recording a song 'at home' does it really matter? 

Bibs

Actually that is a great question. I was in fact talking about noise that is inherent in all electronic gear including a sound card.  What you are asking is what about noise added by the environment, faulty gear or people that are perhaps the audience? 24 bits is not going to eliminate any of that. Thats why noise reduction gear is still very popular.  We also have plugins that help in reducing the background sounds that could be objectionable. 

You also need to think about incidental sounds that don't detract from the performance but may add character to it. Ambiance as such. This can be charming or distracting and its up to you to figure out what to do about it.  But as said we do have the tools we need to handle almost any problem.

One big advantage of getting good gear is its most likely going to be low noise. This includes mics, amps and sound cards.

Just to add a ringer into this, distortion is also noise.  One reason some think digital is cold. It has very little distortion. 




   

Wow, I'd never thought about it like that. Deciding if added noise is an artistic decision or a technical no. I have truly never thought about it in the context of ambience.
I may be slightly clueless here but I'm guessing that noise, or at least the right type, adds a warmth that the human ear finds pleasing for whatever reason. Which to me almost makes the whole noise floor argument slightly redundant if it is favourable to add it, although im sure that there are different types of noise that introduce pleasing or not so pleasing harmonics. Was this a big issue in the days of tape? 
Thanks for your posts John, very intriguing and thought provoking, so much to learn, so little time :-)

Bibs

twisted6s

Are you a recording studio for hire whose work, as it is recorded, will be commercially mastered and released? If you're like me and you're a "pro-sumer" (a nut recording in his basement) instead of the aforementioned recording studio than these details will probably not have any affect on whether your final product is artistically and creatively (or even commercially) viable. This is a question I ask myself when I'm trying to finish a song: Am I an artist or an engineer? If I say I'm an engineer (or I get slick and I say both) I ask my self do I have the equipment in my basement the the big recording or mastering houses have in their facility? Their expensive boxes DO make a BIG difference in SOUND quality. If I'm being honest I'll then try to make the best song or song idea I can with the best mix I can with MY realistic circumstances. Sound quality wise I can only go as far as my resources but creatively the skies the limit.

I feel the same way, that's why I'm always looking for the best way to make what I have sound good and run as efficient as I can.

I hope I get an answer to the question I posed to Fast Biker Boy ... this thread has got me wondering if my thinking is wrong on this.

In case anyone else knows a definitive answer, the question again is ...

Does dithering come in to play during playback of the project when we set Sonar to record 32bit?

I was always under the impression that if your system can handle it, it is best to record in 32bit because most FX process in 32bit and dithering doesn't come in to play then.

Bub

FastBikerBoy

Correct, there is definitely confusion here.

If you choose 32 in the record bit depth the rest of the file will be padded out with zeros taking more disk space for no benefit, not that that is much of an issue nowadays.

I was always under the impression that if we set Sonar to record in 32bit, then live dithering of 32bit FX during playback never came in to play?

Seems to me, it would be very beneficial to set Sonar to record in 32bit if that would eliminate dithering during playback, especially with FX such as reverb ... etc.

Am I thinking wrong on this?

 
 
 
Hi Bub

In case anyone else knows a definitive answer, the question again is ...

Does dithering come in to play during playback of the project when we set Sonar to record 32bit?

 
 
The definitive answer to the question is no.
 
Explanation of why follows............
 
This is how I understand it and is correct as far as I'm aware but I'm no DAW programming expert.............
 
Where much of the confusion comes in is the confusion between file bit depth and internal bit depth used for calculations. Then there is the integer and floating point to consider.
 
Integer file size first.
 
The AD converters are converting the audio into digital and presenting Sonar with a mathematical representation of that audio. Currently the highest resolution that will be at is 24 bit. If you then tell Sonar to store it as a 32 bit file it will but it can't invent digital information so once the 24 bits that the AD converter has been stored in the 32 bit file the other bits are padded out with zeros.
 
The files use integer resolution (For want of a better word) and internal bit calculations are floating point, allowing for less than whole numbers when performing the calculations and hence greater accuracy.
 
The audio engine then performs the calculations using floating point notation either 32 or 64 bits on these files (regardless of the file resolution) 
 
Note that the bit depth used at the calculation stage bares no relation and has nothing to do with the file bit depth. Of course if the material is more accurate to start with the calculations will also be more accurate but at file bit depths higher than 16 bits accuracy isn't really an issue anyway. As bitflipper indicated earlier it's only if file bit depth is less than 16 bits that the stored information isn't going to be an accurate representation of the original sound.
 
 
There is no dithering performed on calculations because there is no need for it. Dithering is just the process of smoothing out any truncation of data which only happens when reducing bit depth. Think about it, as I said earlier if 24 bit data is written to a 32 bit file the extra bits are just zeros. If it goes the other way though and a 24 bit data gets written to a 16 bit file then all that happens is that the last 8 bits are truncated, resulting in distortion. Hence the need for dithering when reducing bit depth.
 
At 64 bit or 32 bit floating point resolution there is plenty of "room" to perform the calculations needed without chopping out any important information, hence no dithering required.
 
I guess some may be wondering that if the calculation on the files creates results using more than 24 bits where does the extra data get written? The simple answer is it doesn't, remember that all calculations are in real time performed internally and aren't actually written anywhere until a bounce or export happens, that's where the "Render bit depth" in Preferences-->File--->Audio data comes in. I'd advise that is set to 32 bits or higher. (32 bits is "almost lossless").
 
The only time dithering should be done is when reducing bit depth, and then preferably only once. If you are exporting a project for further post mix processing such as mastering you should leave the export file bit depth at the project's bit depth settings assuming that the program being used for mastering can handle it of course.
 
Only when it's being exported to a format that can't handle the existing project bit depth such as a 32 bit project to CD should the bit depth be reduced and dither applied.
 
Of course if any of the cleverer than me cookies consider any of the above wrong I'm more than happy to be corrected but that's how I understand it.
 
HTH

Can we record a bee sitting on the edge of a flower and hear it drink? And can we record in the same pass 20 elephants running at 20 meters and capture clear rumbling of the earth as they pass?

No we can't. We can with two seperate microphones on different channels. But with a single solution we can't.  There is room for improvement. But as we have a solution to the problem (record with two chains instead of one) it probably is not worth the effort.

If you take a fine 24 bit 48khz recorded signal and you set it to 64 bit processing and now you take a nice (64 bit) reverb and now you use BITMETER you will see the signal gets to be around 34 bits... And that's with only a few channels.. So 64 bits is usefull in the mixing stage. And Sonar does offer that... And Cakewalk has been working on a 64 bit DAW since years... They were the first and with fine recordings it shows...
 
For laughters and giggles. Yamaha made the PM1D digital console 10 years back or so. It converts at 28 bits because it has two 24 bit converters per channel paired. That way it can process at 28 bits. That console was 48khz max. The consensus was with classical music bitrate is more important then khz). Let me translate that. Being able to capture loudness peaks correctly is more important for a good recording then to record a 40 khz transient....
 
Hope this makes sense...

FastBikerBoy

Bub

FastBikerBoy

Correct, there is definitely confusion here.

If you choose 32 in the record bit depth the rest of the file will be padded out with zeros taking more disk space for no benefit, not that that is much of an issue nowadays.

I was always under the impression that if we set Sonar to record in 32bit, then live dithering of 32bit FX during playback never came in to play?

Seems to me, it would be very beneficial to set Sonar to record in 32bit if that would eliminate dithering during playback, especially with FX such as reverb ... etc.

Am I thinking wrong on this?

 
 
 
Hi Bub

In case anyone else knows a definitive answer, the question again is ...

Does dithering come in to play during playback of the project when we set Sonar to record 32bit?

 
 
The definitive answer to the question is no.
 
Explanation of why follows............
 
This is how I understand it and is correct as far as I'm aware but I'm no DAW programming expert.............
 
Where much of the confusion comes in is the confusion between file bit depth and internal bit depth used for calculations. Then there is the integer and floating point to consider.

Yes, this is what I'm talking about. I was always under the impression that if you had a 24bit or lower file you were working with in Sonar, and used a 32bit Float effect, Sonar was converting the file on-the-fly and dithering was applied during playback and you had the option to select which dithering method you wanted to use in the 'Playback and Record' options screen. But it looks like that is not the case.

I was just reading the manual trying to find more info about it and it says the 'Dither' setting in 'Playback and Record' options is for when you bounce, freeze, or apply effects. It says nothing about what goes on during playback like I was thinking.

Thanks for clarifying that.

:-)