So a while back I posted a thread about making the switch to 24/96, and honestly i’m just having to much trouble doing so with my interface (and the fact that it is very cpu intensive). As a result, i’ve decided 24/48 is the next best thing. However, since the eventual product will most likely be in 16/44.1, will it sound better recording in 24/48 or 24/44.1 since i’ll have to change the sample rate. I’ve read lots of posts on the internet and all say that 24 bit is much better than 16 bit, and will improve the sound of your 16 bit product, so I’m going to stay with 24 bit recording, but how about the marginal increase in sample rate from 44.1 to 48? Is it worth recording in this format (assuming hard drive space is not an issue)?
If your final product will be 44.1k (based), don’t bother recording at 48k. The sample rate conversion artifacts will outweigh the slight improvement of the higher sample rate.
Arjan’s advice is good enough for the start. But if we take a close (nitpicking) approach, well have to consider:
Pros for 48k
- If your A/D is NOT oversampled one (which it should be like any modern one … but we don’t know because you’re not telling which A/D converter you use … and even if you told, it may ot be public information) 48k will give you better result, because of either nicer anti-alias filer or more artifacts of the anti-alias filter being in inaudible range.
- If you’re using plugins which are not behaving well around Nyquist frequency, more of their il-behaviour artifacts are moved into inaudible range.
Cons of 48k - You’ll have to use sample rate conversion (SRC) to get your final product, and this always implements some artifacts to your sound.
So it all depends on your A/D conversion hardware, the plugins you’re using and the SRC you use to get your final product. As you can see there are lot of variables there.
My recommendation: If you just want to “go for it” … follow Arjan’s advice. It’s the safest one, since SRC artifacts will definitely be more audible than the others combined, if you just pick up random A/D converter + collection of random plugins + random SR converter.
Then … if you want to aim for best result: use 48k to minimize artifacts of A/D (if any … as I said, there shouldn’t be with modern converters) and plugins … and find the best SRC tool for your needs:
http://src.infinitewave.ca/
I honestly have no idea what an A/D is. However, the interface I will eventually buy (since my firewire interface isn’t working well with my computer) will be this USB interface: http://www.focusrite.com/products/audio_interfaces/scarlett_2i2
The plugins I mainly use are guitar rig 5 and kontakt 4 from native instruments.
Could you point me towards a good SRC to use?
A/D = Analog to Digital converter.
I already provided you a link on site, which has made detailed comparisons on dozens of SRCs. But if you’re too lazy to do your own research (even when giving you result graphs of someone else’s research) Split’s suggestion (r8brain) is a really good one, onether excelent free one is SoX. (I’m not providing you a direct link, because I hope you are capable of using Google.)
What is that Google thing everyone is talking about can you please elaborate…?
Yes:
- Go to: http://www.google.com/
- Type SoX SRC into the text box shown there and click the Google Search button. Now … depending on your ISP’s location and whatever Google has collected on your usage profile, you should receive a link into SoX frontpage in few first links displayed on your browser … or first few pages, if Google has determined the word “sox” is meaning something completely different for you
thinkingcap - Ha! Jarno is too serious today. 