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RealBand
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Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 451
Journeyman
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OP
Journeyman
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 451 |
Hi!
Can anyone tell me, is there any point in changing the audio preference settings to 24 Bit (96/48/44.1, assuming soundard can handle it, for playback, if the Realtracks are below this sample rate?
Is it just for adding higher quality samples, midi instruments & recording, as I'm assuming any resampling that RealBand does would not effect the quality of the Realtracks.
If you are just using Realtracks, I'm assuming that 16 Bit 44.1 would be the best option.
Also, would this be the case if you had the Audiophile edition?
Thanks
Col
iMac, 3.7 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i5, BIAB MAC2024 (802), Audient iD4
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RealBand
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Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 100
PG Music Staff
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PG Music Staff
Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 100 |
I am sure many people will want to weigh in on this interesting question.
Re-sampling will not directly affect the quality of the RealTracks on their own.
In my opinion 24bit Audio is great especially if you are using heavy duty plugins where the algorithms will tend to work better on 24bit audio, which will give you a bit of a better result.
Or if you are heading from another program to RealBand or a recorder it makes sense to keep everything 24bit 48Khz in some cases.
some sequencers and many of the multi track recorders will render audio temporarily in a 32 bit floating point format. Before the file is output it will go through the 24 bit converters on whatever interface you might have this all allows for better multi channel mix summing and plugin operation before it gets sent to the 24bit converters in the card. Many people like to take their 24bit final mix and then use a dithering plugin as they do a final conversion to 16bit.
If plugins are not a big consideration then I would tend to suggest keeping everything in 16bit.
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RealBand
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Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 791
PG Music Staff
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PG Music Staff
Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 791 |
Quote:
Also, would this be the case if you had the Audiophile edition?
The Audiophile's audio files are 16 bit, 44.1 kHz. So setting the sound card to 24 bit would not be a benefit, unless you are using plugins as Rob has explained.
As for the sampling rate, changing to 48 kHz would cause the 44.1 audio to be resampled. This would cause a tiny amount of information loss. If resampled back down to 44.1, once again a tiny amount of information would be lost.
Resampling the bit depth from 16 to 24 does not cause any information loss. This is also true when going back from 24 to 16, only if NOTHING happened to the audio while it was at 24 (no plugins applied, no gain change, etc.). So if you must change your sound card's bit depth to 24 because you are mixing some 24 bit recordings with RealTracks, it won't hurt the quality of the RealTracks.
Blake
PG Music Inc.
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RealBand
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 7,913
Veteran
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Veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 7,913 |
Cant speak for the realband files, there is a big benefit to recording new audio tracks in24 bit. Quantization signal to noise ratio is 48 dB better than with 16 bit. What this means in practical terms that one can be a little more carefree in setting gain setting on input signals; using less gain but still getting a clean recording.
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RealBand
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 10,199
Veteran
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Joined: Jan 2002
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IN THEORY, I agree with Scott. Recording at 24 bit is preferable. The theoretical noise floor of a 24 bit recording is -144dBFS. You're not going to get that. On a very high end converter, you MAY see -130dBFS, much more than that, you're going to run into electron noise. Mathematical computations don't have to take into consideration hardware, so 32 bit floating will technically give you better sound.
On a M-Audio 2496, which is probably the most recommended PCI card around, your A/D converter has a dynamic range of -100dB, A-Weighted, but they don't give you a whole lot of specifics about how they tested it. The D/A portion gives you about 104dB, again A-Weighted. The A-Weighting is important, because it will give you 2-4dB better specs than no weighting at all. Very few companies that I am aware of use non-weighted numbers. Those are the REAL numbers to look at. Also, how does the company test things like THD+N?
M-Audio makes a decent product, for only $100.
Look at something like the Digi 003 Rack, and you're not going specs that are too much better. Dynamic range of 110dB, which isn't bad, but THD+N of -103. They don't tell you how they read that. At what input level and what frequency?
My point is that most gear that you're going to get is going to use between 18 and 20 bits, the rest is just noise.
By all means, record at 24 bits, it'll give you *something* over 16 bit, but don't expect miracles.
Gary
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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RealBand
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Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 451
Journeyman
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OP
Journeyman
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 451 |
Thanks all, for the very informative replies.
I use an M Audio DELTA-AUDIOPHILE 192 & yes I do use a number of Plugins.
Blake suggested using 24 bit 44.1 (rather than 48kHz)when using PG Audiophile realtracks, I guess when using "regular" PG realtracks they will be resampled anyway.
So what would be the best option: 24bit 44.1, 48, or 96 (for multiple plugins & AP192)?
Col
iMac, 3.7 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i5, BIAB MAC2024 (802), Audient iD4
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RealBand
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Joined: Aug 2006
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What 24 bit gives is a bit better headroom for recording, in a sort of digital way the bits and such "fit" better. It is not dramatic, but it helps when recording a tad hot. The difference between 44,100 and 48,000 is not hearable to me. I thing that 24 bit 44,100 is a perfect place to record. I do however record a 32 bit float a lot, and find that very clean.
HP Win 11 12 gig ram, Mac mini Sonoma with 16 gig of ram, BiaB/RB 2026, Reaper 7, Harrison Mixbus 11 , Presonus Audiobox USB96
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RealBand
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 7,913
Veteran
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Joined: Jan 2002
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Sample rate will not matter for headroom. 24 bit gives an additional 48 dB of quantization signal to noise ratio over 16 bit.
32 dB will offer another 48 dB of quantization signal to noise ratio over 24 bit.
Note: this is not the actual entire signal chain signal to noise ratio - just the noise do to the dithering between the amplitude represented in a single bit - the 'flip' between what the a/d converter considers zero level, and the first blip off of zero level.
The math works out to 6 dB of qsnr increase for every bit.
-Scott
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