Would it be true to say that 24bit is more effective in capturing dynamic instruments such as drums and vocals and say acoustic guitars. Orchestral instruments would benefit more from this increased dynamic range would they not?
Most commercial music is mastered extremely loud and thus is not very dynamic in fact to me it can sound muddied and distorted, especially in the low end when you push the volume up. It seems to have a sweet spot with the volume but it never seems to be able to reduce in volume enough to allow conversation unless it is music that is more dynamic such as Jazz or classical.
I have used 16bit for many years as it suited my gear and was less data to manage, recently I started to record drums and acoustic more often and so I moved to 24bit, this has also meant a change in my capture and mixing method, I'm always learning and will hopefully always travel that path. Bottom line this is a great deal away from the quality of when I started with a twin tape deck recording whilst playing to a recording from the other deck and each time quality dropped. Even my first 4 track although a beautiful device if kept to just 4 tracks, pales compared to what we can do now. people hate MP3 and such but really it has allowed music to be very portable and has great quality compared to what we had many years back.
No matter what the sample rate you choose it wont improve the capture method you use, that is the key to a good recording and the biggest factor will always be the skill of the musician how they play and how they understand their instrument. A good drummer is always leveling whilst playing, they monitor the dynamic of their performance and adjust to the music. No amount of tricks after the capture will be able to remedy that if not done right.
Sample rate convention is important in a studio so as when you take your project from studio to studio you can expect the project to work the same. The same even more so for on line collaboration, you wouldn't need sync marker if we all agreed on a convention, unfortunately that is not so easy to agree on it seems. Some will swear that 16bit is all that is needed others will say 24bit is best, then there is the question of which frequency.
On another separate point, it would also help to have a track naming convention, this would assist a mixer greatly, if you named your tracks consistently (I'm guilty of this too) then the mixer can just drop them in and start, imagine having to line up and sort 11 drum tracks, bass, vocals, guitars and keys. If the tracks were numbered first say ; 01. Kick, 02. Snare top and so on then they would line up in the correct order in the DAW. If all tracks started from the left pane of your DAW then it would save the mixer a great deal of time as they would all line up. Also a project would be better to start from 4 bars in to allow any new intros for drums or such to be done and a tempo map with markers would also help.
All to consider and as my better half just said, "it's like herding cats"
Most commercial music is mastered extremely loud and thus is not very dynamic in fact to me it can sound muddied and distorted, especially in the low end when you push the volume up. It seems to have a sweet spot with the volume but it never seems to be able to reduce in volume enough to allow conversation unless it is music that is more dynamic such as Jazz or classical.
I have used 16bit for many years as it suited my gear and was less data to manage, recently I started to record drums and acoustic more often and so I moved to 24bit, this has also meant a change in my capture and mixing method, I'm always learning and will hopefully always travel that path. Bottom line this is a great deal away from the quality of when I started with a twin tape deck recording whilst playing to a recording from the other deck and each time quality dropped. Even my first 4 track although a beautiful device if kept to just 4 tracks, pales compared to what we can do now. people hate MP3 and such but really it has allowed music to be very portable and has great quality compared to what we had many years back.
No matter what the sample rate you choose it wont improve the capture method you use, that is the key to a good recording and the biggest factor will always be the skill of the musician how they play and how they understand their instrument. A good drummer is always leveling whilst playing, they monitor the dynamic of their performance and adjust to the music. No amount of tricks after the capture will be able to remedy that if not done right.
Sample rate convention is important in a studio so as when you take your project from studio to studio you can expect the project to work the same. The same even more so for on line collaboration, you wouldn't need sync marker if we all agreed on a convention, unfortunately that is not so easy to agree on it seems. Some will swear that 16bit is all that is needed others will say 24bit is best, then there is the question of which frequency.
On another separate point, it would also help to have a track naming convention, this would assist a mixer greatly, if you named your tracks consistently (I'm guilty of this too) then the mixer can just drop them in and start, imagine having to line up and sort 11 drum tracks, bass, vocals, guitars and keys. If the tracks were numbered first say ; 01. Kick, 02. Snare top and so on then they would line up in the correct order in the DAW. If all tracks started from the left pane of your DAW then it would save the mixer a great deal of time as they would all line up. Also a project would be better to start from 4 bars in to allow any new intros for drums or such to be done and a tempo map with markers would also help.
All to consider and as my better half just said, "it's like herding cats"
#1131 Posted Fri 15 Jan, 2016 9:17 pm
Agree with you about 24-bit. Good for recording and mixing for headroom and noise floor.
Some serious articles I read about the frequencies...
"Are all the people who claim to be hearing improved quality at 96 kHz and above really hearing what they think they are ? Or are they just hearing intermodulation distortion ?" – Ian Sheperd
Well, for me it still sounds better at 48 Khz anyway during mixing, even if I go down later in 44.1 Khz.
The key is the dither...
I do it too.
read this article...
http://productionadvice.co.uk/when-to-dither/
Some serious articles I read about the frequencies...
"Are all the people who claim to be hearing improved quality at 96 kHz and above really hearing what they think they are ? Or are they just hearing intermodulation distortion ?" – Ian Sheperd
Well, for me it still sounds better at 48 Khz anyway during mixing, even if I go down later in 44.1 Khz.
The key is the dither...
I do it too.
read this article...
http://productionadvice.co.uk/when-to-dither/
#1132 Posted Sat 16 Jan, 2016 1:36 pm
My ears have spent too much time in headphones in recent years, hence 8 bit at 22k (stereo that is) will suffice on most days :/
#1133 Posted Sat 16 Jan, 2016 1:42 pm
I record music at 4 K for my hamster. He (she?) loves it :)
#1135 Posted Sat 16 Jan, 2016 2:00 pm
I dunno, I record at 24 bits, as it DOES make a difference, but as for higher than 44.1... every time you convert something, you loose resolution.. So for online collabs, since the difference is so minute, 44.1 is good enough. Especially since not everyone can actually record at higher resolutions... and the files get pretty heavy too.
But for an album project? As long as all the files are recorded at the same resolution, I'd go 96, and dither the masters. 1 dithering, 1 time. Not many times because the files don't match or something...
IMHO, the only real benefit from recording at 96 is the huuuuuge headroom, and low noise floor. Because you know, noise adds up in big mixes with many tracks.. And yeah, maybe a bit of "air"... But we have so many "air" plugins available these days to compensate for that ;)
Annd yeah, for audio files, things have to be perfctly recorded, in an optimal room, with pristine preamps and D/A converters.. THEN, and only then, the resolution might make a difference. Because a poor recording in a makeshift singing booth through a 200$ USB interface that has a so-so preamp (hey, that sounds a lot like my setup LOL) will not show any improvements wether it's recorded at 44.1, 48, or 96.
But for an album project? As long as all the files are recorded at the same resolution, I'd go 96, and dither the masters. 1 dithering, 1 time. Not many times because the files don't match or something...
IMHO, the only real benefit from recording at 96 is the huuuuuge headroom, and low noise floor. Because you know, noise adds up in big mixes with many tracks.. And yeah, maybe a bit of "air"... But we have so many "air" plugins available these days to compensate for that ;)
Annd yeah, for audio files, things have to be perfctly recorded, in an optimal room, with pristine preamps and D/A converters.. THEN, and only then, the resolution might make a difference. Because a poor recording in a makeshift singing booth through a 200$ USB interface that has a so-so preamp (hey, that sounds a lot like my setup LOL) will not show any improvements wether it's recorded at 44.1, 48, or 96.
#1138 Posted Sat 16 Jan, 2016 7:34 pm
I should even record higher.
You will recognize maybe one or two names...
Mike Shipley = 96khz
Mark 'Spike' Stent = 96khz
Michael Brauer = "i can say without hesitation that 192khz sounds better and i prefer it. I mostly get 48/96. But when i get 192 the sound is so much more open and natural. I wish it were the standard."
CLA (2006) = 96khz
Reading here and there...
"...there will be 30% of degradation of the original source".
"If you start at 44.1 Khz... it will sound like 30 Khz" (so yes my 48 Khz is still *hit).