24-bit recording

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Tiadiad
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24-bit recording

Post by Tiadiad »

Hello, I've been recording everything at 16 bits, and from the looks of it, there is very little difference between 16 and 24 when it comes to quality, all it comes down to is noise floor. However, I've been thinking of upgrading to a 24-bit sound card (MOTU audio express), don't ask why, the future of my hopeless music? If I record everything in 24-bits, will I be able to burn my waves on a CD? The answer is probably NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Still hoping it's a YES?Maaaaaaaaaybe? though. DON'T JUDGE ME!
Tiadiad
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Re: 24-bit recording

Post by Tiadiad »

Nevermind, dumb question...of course NOT!!! Is there an advantage to recording techno musics in anything above 16 bits?
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Joachip
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Re: 24-bit recording

Post by Joachip »

It's a good idea to work in a high resolution (bits and samplerate) through all the steps of the process of making music.

When you're done, you can convert the resulting .wav file to 44100 Hz, 16-bits.
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mantratronic
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Re: 24-bit recording

Post by mantratronic »

Tiadiad wrote:Nevermind, dumb question...of course NOT!!! Is there an advantage to recording techno musics in anything above 16 bits?
joachip wrote something on that here

nm, ninja'd!!
mes
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Re: 24-bit recording

Post by mes »

24-bit is always a good idea, especially if you're recording stuff with a lot of dynamics...but you would need to convert it down to 16-bit before putting it on a CD.

I don't ever use anything above 16-bit due to hard drive space and the fact that most electronic music doesn't have that much dynamics anyway (compared to say, movies or jazz music).
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UNZ
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Re: 24-bit recording

Post by UNZ »

of course you can put it on a cd, just not an audio-cd ;)
Tiadiad
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Re: 24-bit recording

Post by Tiadiad »

Thanks guys, I guess it's not such a bad idea then to get the MOTU.
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Evelon
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Re: 24-bit recording

Post by Evelon »

Tiadiad wrote:Hello, I've been recording everything at 16 bits, and from the looks of it, there is very little difference between 16 and 24 when it comes to quality, all it comes down to is noise floor. However, I've been thinking of upgrading to a 24-bit sound card (MOTU audio express), don't ask why, the future of my hopeless music? If I record everything in 24-bits, will I be able to burn my waves on a CD? The answer is probably NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Still hoping it's a YES?Maaaaaaaaaybe? though. DON'T JUDGE ME!
You are probably confusing "recording" with "exporting, mixdown, render, etc". When recording (as in what comes into your inputs), the difference between 16 and 24 bit is huge. The more tracks you add, the more evident it will be. When summing alot of 16bit tracks the result will be undynamic and "grainy". I too have made these mistakes.

There is quite a bit difference. 16bit is 96dB of dynamics. 24bit is 144dB of dynamics. If you send your "techno musics" (<-I love the plural) 16bit mixdowns to mastering engineers they will plobably laugh for a second and then reply back that they need a 24bit (or higher) mixdown/render.

The process of converting 24bit to Red Book CD 16bit (with or without dithering/aliasing) is as easy as taking a piss.
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UNZ
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Re: 24-bit recording

Post by UNZ »

Evelon wrote:
Tiadiad wrote:. If you send your "techno musics" (<-I love the plural) 16bit mixdowns to mastering engineers they will plobably laugh for a second and then reply back that they need a 24bit (or higher) mixdown/render.
wrong.

many great records have been made / mastered with much less dynamic range than 96db. Its questionable wether you even have a lower noise floor than 96db in your recordings of (for example) a guitar etc (you'd need absolute silence and great gear chain for that, and its not even that crucial really). Have you ever tried listening to a sound that's 96db down ? (hint: you need to turn up your amp a lot, to club volumes essentially) :) And then there's also masking effects at play. Especially with "techno musics" its kind of absurd to talk about 96db dynamic ranges when the average techno master nowadays has a Peak to RMS ratio of about 6db...With classical music recorded in an absolute silent room and with top notch gear, there may be a point.

Graininess is probably more of a samplerate issue btw. Higher bitrates just make recording "more convenient" as you can easily record at like -12db or less and not worry about occasional peaks.

A mixdown to 16bit 44khz can still result in a great master (provided you did everything right!). Plus, the master engineer will work off what he gets, if thats the best you can deliver, so be it. Now, thats no excuse not to use higher bitrates and samplerates nowadays that its so easy and available everywhere. Chances are it will turn out even better.
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Evelon
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Re: 24-bit recording

Post by Evelon »

Yes, there is no right or wrong. I'm not arguing there. I know there have been tracks mastered that have very low dynamic depth (Robert Johnson comes to mind:)). But, let me know a few mastering houses/engineers that accept 16bit mixdowns these days (I'm not talking about 10-15 years ago). When I do mastering work (in the studio I work at) I do hear the difference. Not everyone makes music (or master music) at -6dB average RMS.
As you said, why choose lower bit rate these days? Also the signal processing will benefit from greater dynamics. Simple rule goes along way though: export in the same sample-, and bit rate as your project is.

Like I said, I agree with you fully on the last part.
Last edited by Evelon on Thu Dec 08, 2011 8:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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UNZ
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Re: 24-bit recording

Post by UNZ »

yep, of course, just pointing out that it doesn't always have to be the latest and greatest to make good music :) and that there are a lot of more important factors that go into making a great product in the end than samplerates and bitdepths... don't let technicalities stop you or delete "the perfect take" just because you accidentally recorded it at 16 bits hehe :) In many real world projects, its probably unavoidable to have things that are sampled at different rates and bitdepths. We produce and master at 32bit float / 88.2khz, but i sure wouldn't turn down a great track just because the best recording of it is "only" at cd quality.

and btw, internal processing in plugins always happens at 32 or even 64 bits, no matter what input you use (so its pretty much impossible to keep the bitrate constant troughout a project anyway, not that this matters..). and before anyone asks: 32bit float gives you 24bit dynamic range.
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Joachip
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Re: 24-bit recording

Post by Joachip »

Evelon wrote:But, let me know a few mastering houses/engineers that accept 16bit mixdowns these days (I'm not talking about 10-15 years ago).
I recently saw a few links to some mastering studios that offered pressing on vinyl as well. I was shocked and disgusted to see that they even accepted mp3 files for the purpose. :cry:

You can actually get pretty good sound out of 16-bits sources, if you make sure to follow the same rules as one would do if working with tape or such: Don't leave 20 dB of headroom or such insanity. Stay close to max. All my samples are 16-bit (because i made most of them for the old buzz.exe) but I manage to get pretty clean results anyway.

But of course, 24-bit samples are only 1.5x larger, and noise is simply not an issue at all with those, so it's easier to use 24-bit samples, if you're a bit uncertain about all these things.
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strobotone
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Re: 24-bit recording

Post by strobotone »

When it comes 24 bit audio it is true that you have more possiple values in the resolution.
But in most cases you won´t be able to tell the difference if you do the blind test at 16 and 24 bit on a same file.

It becomes more obvious if you take a live recording at 44.1 Khz and compare that to 96khz samplingrate.

Anyway, it is always good to record at a descent volume level in the the first place for the mastering.
So the available data in your file will not get "stretched" so much if normalized afterwards.
But normalizing a -10db recording to 0db will not change the sound audibly compared to the same file recorded at 0db.
I doubt anyone could tell the difference.
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