Freddie H

Loptec

best possibl

Freddie H


Okay boys and girls are you all ready for the truth?



Okay I use 24 bit, 32bit, 64bit 48kHz or 96kHz and all kinds of dithering and hoghend AD DA converters too etc......but can we hear the difference...?
You can't hear any dithering go on at all , infact you can't even hear the difference between 12-14 bit or 16 bit whatever...
Still we should always use the best possible quality we have..but you should be aware of the facts why and what's real or not..



Watch this Video and you will learn alot of all kinds AUDIO myths floating around out there...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ

Sorry I can’t agree with this.
You hear a huge difference just by changing from 16bit 44..1kHz to 24bit 48kHz!
And it’s not just what you hear in the basic recording it’s what you can do with the sound afterwards..
It’s like editing an image..

Let’s say you have a HUGE photo of a flower with a fly sitting on it.

* If you have great resolution you can zoom in and draw a hat on the fly.

* With low resolution all you can do is putting a blob in the fly’s head and say.. “well.. it kind of looks like a hat”

In other words you get SO MUCH more control over the sound when working with higher resolution. And even if you compress the audio to mp3 or whatever after, the final product sounds SO much better if it wasn’t all blurry from the start

My friend... I'm with you.. I'm not saing that...
Its Sunday take your time watching the VIDEO I posted.. I think you will like it. It it will take one hour to watch the Video.

Haha.. Yeah, I'll do that ..but later :)
First I think I'll get out in the sun for a bit.. :) ..If I'm not mistaking you're from sweden too, yes? Then you know that if you
want to get any sun before winter you'd better be fast! :)

Also, I didn't see the line "We should always urge and use the best possible quality we have..but you should be aware of the facts why and what's real or not.." in your message before. I couldn't agree more with this! :)

Hi all.
I have found that a higher bit rate makes a noticeable difference in audio quality so I always record in 24 bit.

I do any editing, rendering, fx, looping etc., in a higher bit rate often either 32 or 64bit and I use the double precision 64bit audio engine in SONAR.

This does require dithering at export. I use powr 3 mostly, with powr 1&2 used also when appropriate.

Using the default triangle preset is an older method that is not used in professional studios any longer because it has been improved upon by Powr, Radius, Apogee (UV22HD) and others.

I feel that I can hear a clear difference between files recorded at 16 and 24bit, and files recorded at 24bit then dithered to 16bit. The latter still retain an improvement over 16bit recorded files.

Differences in sampling rate are more subtle. Yet there is a known qualitative difference the higher you go in sampling rate. This has been documented by many experts and well known audio engineers.

44.1khz and it's multiples, 88.2, and 176.4khz, are used for music which will mostly have final distribution to the public in CD form. The Higher multiples of 88.2 & 176.4khz are used rather than other sample rates because of their ease of sample rate conversion to the final sample rate of 44.1khz.

Most other audio media distribution, including video and internet, are typically finished at 48khz. Often higher sample rate multiples (96 and 192khz) are used to record with for these formats, and are then down converted to the 48khz sample rate.

By the way the idea that 48khz is better than 44.1khz, and the reason these frequencies are used in digital audio is because of the Nyquest theory. Google it, or look it  up somewhere. It's important !!

My friend... I'm with you.. I'm not saing that... I use 32bit floating 48kHz mostly myself..
Its Sunday take your time watching the VIDEO I posted.. I think you will like it. It it will take one hour to watch the Video.

i watched it, wicked, i want that power cord to reduce ear fatigue, and the pebbles lol

Loptec

You hear a huge difference just by changing from 16bit 44..1kHz to 24bit 48kHz!

Then you need some new converters. ;-)

It’s like editing an image..

Actually no it is not. Comparing audio to images (or video) is always flawed because they work so differently.

UnderTow

UnderTow

Loptec

You hear a huge difference just by changing from 16bit 44..1kHz to 24bit 48kHz!

Then you need some new converters. ;-)

It’s like editing an image..

Actually no it is not. Comparing audio to images (or video) is always flawed because they work so differently.

UnderTow

But pleeeease... Are you serious??
I didn't mean that editing audio actually IS like editing an image!
All I meant was, the better material you have from the start, the better the final product will be!

And I'd say that the better audio converters you have, the more difference you will hear with different resolutions.
With good converters you hear clairity and detail in the sound. With crappy ones it all sounds the same.. 

I would have said "The chain is never stronger than the weakest link". But since you seem to have problems
with metaphors it'd probably be a bad idea, since this thread isn’t about chains..

see the with sampling rate as well, if your recording at say 44.1 and then record the same source at 88.2, is the 2 snapshots per sec with 88.2 compared to 44.1, is that not going to better define what you are recording ??

what am saying is 88.2 is double the amount of snap shots compared to 44.1

wilqen


Hi all.
I have found that a higher bit rate makes a noticeable difference in audio quality so I always record in 24 bit.

Yes, recording at 24 bits is a good idea.

Using the default triangle preset is an older method that is not used in professional studios any longer because it has been improved upon by Powr, Radius, Apogee (UV22HD) and others.

This is not true. You have to listen to each case individually and decide which dither works best. If you can't hear a difference at all, you might as well use triangular. All these fancy noise shaped dithers trade lower noise levels in the more sensitive frequencies of our hearing for a higher noise floor in other frequencies. On some material this can become obvious. (Increased sharpness for instance).

That said, for most pop or rock music, the type of dither you choose will make as much difference to the music as the colour of socks you wear while mixing. ;-) On more dynamic material, use your ears.

I feel that I can hear a clear difference between files recorded at 16 and 24bit, and files recorded at 24bit then dithered to 16bit. The latter still retain an improvement over 16bit recorded files.

For recording, yes. On a finished track of any modern pop rock music it shouldn't make any difference. In other words, 16 bits is fine as a delivery format but not as a recording format.

Differences in sampling rate are more subtle. Yet there is a known qualitative difference the higher you go in sampling rate. This has been documented by many experts and well known audio engineers.

Actually it has not. There is no proper test done with any converters made in the last decade that indicates anyone can hear a difference. At least none that have been published. This of course does not include all the anecdotal evidence and wild claims that people make. Once these people are properly tested, the differences they thought they perceived tend to vanish...

44.1khz and it's multiples, 88.2, and 176.4khz, are used for music which will mostly have final distribution to the public in CD form. The Higher multiples of 88.2 & 176.4khz are used rather than other sample rates because of their ease of sample rate conversion to the final sample rate of 44.1khz.

Again this is not true any more. The way modern sample rate converters work, the sample rates do not need to have an integer releationship between them. A good SRC will do as good a job going from 96Khz to 44.1Khz as going from 88.2Khz to 44.1Khz.

My personal favorite SRCs are the iZotope one available in iZotope RX (and a few other places) and the free SoX one.

Most other audio media distribution, including video and internet, are typically finished at 48khz. Often higher sample rate multiples (96 and 192khz) are used to record with for these formats, and are then down converted to the 48khz sample rate.

And often they are not. ;-) (I mean not recorded at 96Khz).

By the way the idea that 48khz is better than 44.1khz, and the reason these frequencies are used in digital audio is because of the Nyquest theory. Google it, or look it  up somewhere. It's important !!

Actually no. The Shanon-Nyquist theorem says you only need twice the audible bandwidth to perfectly reproduce any audible signal. In other words, 44.1Khz is sufficient. So don't just google it. Read it too! ;-)

UnderTow

Loptec

All I meant was, the better material you have from the start, the better the final product will be!

Absolutely. But please don't compare to working with images, it just confuses things.

And I'd say that the better audio converters you have, the more difference you will hear with different resolutions.
With good converters you hear clairity and detail in the sound. With crappy ones it all sounds the same.. 

Actually it should be the opposite. The better the converters, the less the difference as they have better filters.

I would have said "The chain is never stronger than the weakest link". But since you seem to have problems
with metaphors it'd probably be a bad idea, since this thread isn’t about chains..

I don't have problems with metaphors. I have problems with the wrong metaphors that just cloud the issue! :-)

UnderTow

Chregg


see the with sampling rate as well, if your recording at say 44.1 and then record the same source at 88.2, is the 2 snapshots per sec with 88.2 compared to 44.1, is that not going to better define what you are recording ??

No. Not at all. You only need two points to fully define a circle. (The centre and any point on the diameter). Adding more points does not in anyway define the circle better. The same thing goes for sampling. Remember that  a sine wave is just a circle drawn out over time. With two points, that sine is perfectly defined.  This is an oversimplification but it should give you a hint as to why adding sampling points does not add any more definition to the signal being sampled.

If you want to learn more about how sampling works, I suggest you read this paper from Dan Lavry: http://www.lavryengineeri...ts/Sampling_Theory.pdf

UnderTow