Back in the middle ages (about 17 years ago) there was a lot of topics about bit depth and sample rate on this forum.
Could be fun to do a little poll to see what sample rate most people are using. (Bit depth is not as interesting to me, so I didn’t include that in the poll.)
I’ve been on 48.000kHz since pretty much forever, thinking I should do a proper “do I hear any difference” test sometime and perhaps go up to 96.000kHz since it’s theoretically is better and folk lore says that some VSTi plug-ins sound better.
If you are using multiple rates (for some reason) select the one you’re using the most.
96k and synhts is clearly audible improvement with less aliasing, depending on material a bit - so use Metaplugin and load synths into that and run at 96k.
Otherwise 48k is project rate.
I use 96 or 192 when I use samplers and synths. Though i can’t hear much difference between 44 and 96 when listening to audio, it certainly makes a difference with software instruments and reverbs. I don’t know why this is, but it’s a clear effect.
Yep 44.1 for audio as it is the major destination, I would really more worry about bitdepth, preserving 24bit where possible.
Vstis sound different because of the soundcard filters and plugin oversampling, it has nothing to do with hearing more harmonics or beating Nyquist, just a different outcome. We’re humans, not bats
Nothing to do with soundcard anything - I rendered wav files and listened to those oversampled synths and compared - less harsch artifacts and less harmonic beating as well. Harmonic beating was supressed some dB’s - and more obvious on higher octaves - and that was included as well in tests I did.
It’s in the same range as when using warmifier or tape or tube emulating plugins - used properly. It’s subtle but audible.
And not audible on any sound, at least I was not able to hear simple stuff like regular simplest synth sounds - but more complex like from samplers - clearly worth the effort.
And this adds up when having lot’s of synths in a project - the total of it all make all the difference.
That why bigger venue studios pay $2000 each preamp - for that just tiny bit improvement - it adds up for the full mix later, all those tiny bits.
I did tests on string in Cakewalk Dimension Pro - and will put links to those again(seems I cleared my disks of those wave files).
I actually looked up my test project for this yesterday - and will render - and anybody can compare.
Sonar has this built in - ability to oversample(or whatever is the correct term) - oversample always or just on render.
When using a bunch of synths you clearly hear major difference in openness of sound in the mix.
Really, it’s just plugin filters and oversampling. And many soundcards sound more bright/metalic on 96kHz it’s a very common experience. But do what feels/sounds best to you. There is no tangeable advantage when going 44.1 as destination
44.1 all day, everyday unless it’s for multimedia then 48. Never had any worthwhile reason to change. I once had a client a few years ago (when 88.2 was the perceived Holy Grail) who asked for 88.2 so I sent them a tracking example using both 44.1 and 88.2 and asked them to pick which one they preferred the sound of. We did the session in 44.1.
I think it is due to jitter - and interface or system is not up to the challenge.
And am suprised how much soundcards claim to do over usb these days - the same usb root hub for so many things.
15 years ago I ran a M-Audio Audophile usb on a laptop - at least they were honest in saying you could not do both in and outs at the same time then if doing 96k.
But now you read specs and they claim to do 96k on many channels - and we can only suspect how well that is going - not so good.
I mentioned in some other thread about modifying my own dac according to a project I found online.
I could actually hear a difference when my Sony DVD spdif out to this DAC and RME card out to the same DAC - same material.
And was puzzled over that for some time - until I found that chosen components in PLL lock time were 10 times larger than manufacturors generic test circuits. So I change this to be same time constant as manufacturor suggested - and you got 4ms instead of 40ms jitter lock.
I could no longer hear a difference.
There is no tangeable advantage when going 44.1 as destination
But there is.
This oversampling of one plugin within the project, it obviously downsample to project sample rate again on output - it is audible, even just this instance.
And just that notch better sounding.
But also depend on complexity of sound how audible.
So nice to just overampling on stuff that matters more - and not do full projects in 96k.
I’ll see if I can put up my test files the next couple of days.
Guitar amp modeling can sound very different depending on sample rate.
As if you are using a different patch.
Then there is higher sample rate equals lower latency but higher load.
I’m happy at 44.1
