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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Journeyman
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Journeyman
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So I always record in 24 bit in Sonar platinum mixdown to 24 bit, work on the songs in sony sound forge in 24 bit and burn them to CD with cd architect. The people manufacturing my latest project asked me to upload the files as 16 bit. I've always thought that was logical as it's going to wind up that way but mastering houses asked me for 24 bit masters. Oddly enough after I'd saved the songs as 16 bit and burned test discs I found I liked that sound better than doing it from 24. In case anyone's interested.
WSS
Last edited by Westside Steve; 05/09/15 02:02 AM.
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Hi Steve.
Recording in 24 bit gives you a bigger dynamic range than 16 bit. That being said, most pop/rock tracks don't use a quarter of the dynamic range of even 16 bit, so it really doesn't matter which you use in that respect.
However, if you record in 24 bit to burn a CD (16 bit) you introduce an extra process called dithering. Depending on the program and algorithm used for dithering, some people say they can hear the difference. There is a similar conversion process if you record in 16 bit for burning to a DVD (24 bit).
Personally, I like to keep the same bit rate throughout the project, even though I can't really discern any difference - it just feels tidier that way!
I'm sure my pal rharv will wade in on this one, even though I know that discussions about dithering give him headaches.
ROG.
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Yeah.... what ROG said.
I always record in 24 bit and Sonar will render it to 16 for a wave. You can select 24 but in my case, it's really not needed.
Mastering houses want as much dynamic range head room as they can get.
With the popular use of compressors, I would venture to say that headroom gets squashed out quite drastically in some genres.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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even though I know that discussions about dithering give him headaches
Section IV of this PDF puts it in 'simplified terms' (which can still produce headaches): http://downloads.izotope.com/guides/izotope-dithering-with-ozone.pdf.. and here's more detail for actual use: http://help.izotope.com/docs/ozone/pages/modules_dithering.htm Statements like the below are what gives me headaches: "Well, the theoretical maximum signal to noise ratio of a 16-bit recording is about 96 dB. That means, in basic terms, that the noise floor of a 16-bit recording is around -96 dB. The noise floor should not be confused (but often is) with dynamic range, which represents the difference between the loudest and softest signal that you can hear in the recording. You can hear a dynamic range which extends past the noise floor with proper dithering. Even if a signal is "in the noise", you will still hear it with proper dithering. " /confused yet?
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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I knew you wouldn't let me down, rharv.
ROG.
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 Found this recently also, interesting read for those who think they understand it all : http://www.head-fi.org/t/415361/24bit-vs-16bit-the-myth-exploded
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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A simply riveting read.
ROG.
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ROG, For rharv's last link, which of the 229 pages are you thinking of? 
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yeah, at about page 76 I really lost interest <grin>
/Point is, it's really just academic for most users .. if they want 24 bit, send 'em 24 bit
Last edited by rharv; 05/10/15 11:11 AM.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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"Point is, it's really just academic for most users .. if they want 24 bit, send 'em 24 bit"
That sums it up perfectly, rharv. Good thread, though, all the same.
ROG.
Edit - I'm surprised you're not pushing that avatar into the red a bit.
Last edited by ROG; 05/10/15 11:18 AM.
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I had a semester long master's level course in Digital Signal Processing, EE-638, at Purdue University.
There's plenty of mind-bending stuff in that course, but bit depth is one of the easier things to understand.
In a 16 bit A/D, there is 1 of 2^16 possible values the A/D converter stuffs the conversion into. That's 1 of 65,536 shelves to put the data on. When the A/D puts the data on a shelf, it's called quantization in the amplitude domain. Many books visualize this as a stair-step kind of a picture. 65,536 possible steps to be on.
In a 24 bit A/D, there is 1 of 2^24 shelves, or 1 of 16,777,216 possible steps to put the data on, to represent the same possible overall magnitude of the signal.
What this means is that the step height for 24 bit is way smaller than in a 16 bit recording. In fact, there are 256 of the 24 bit steps in a single 16 bit step.
So, why should we care?
Well, when the data is converted back to analog from the digital representation, there is a bit of noise that is generated taking that step value, and then doing the magic back to analog.
The easiest situation to think about is a signal that is nominally zero. The A/D process has to take the zero and decide is it going on the smallest shelf or the next largest shelf. Basically, 0000000000000000 or 0000000000000001 in the binary representation, for a 16 bit signal. For a 24 bit signal, it's 000000000000000000000000 or 000000000000000000000001. (those of you that know signed/little/big endian, etc. work with me here!)
IF the signal happens to be set on the 0....01 shelf in either case, when it's converted back to analog, that actually is something bigger than zero and a tiny bit of noise results in the analog signal.
For a 24 bit recording, this noise, known as quantization noise, is 48 dB quieter than in a 16 bit recording.
So again, why should we home recording types care?
Well, this 'which shelf?' decision happens for every single shelf, not just the lowest two shelves.
With 24 bit, this means you can record with your signal much less 'hot' and still get pristine A/D and ultimately D/A representation. With 16 bit recording, it's more of a concern to maximize the analog signal range to cover as much of the 2^16 values, so that those steps matter less when converting back D/A. With 24 bit recording, one almost has to work hard to make the signal level be so quiet that quantization noise factors into the output story/sound.
That was one takeaway from that class that sunk in. The other was how D/A conversion actually does recreate a smooth analog signal and not a stair-stepped analog signal, through the output anti-aliasing filter impulse responses of each sample. That's a discussion for a different day.
Last edited by rockstar_not; 05/10/15 02:31 PM.
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Thanks rockstar_not. That's starting to delve a little into my Electronics Engineering education from the 80's.
 Steve BIAB/RB 2022, Pro Tools 2020, Korg N5, JBL LSR 4328 Powered Monitors, AKG/Shure Mics.
PC: Win11 PRO, 4 TB M2 SSD, 2 TB HD, 128 GB Memory
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Depending on your daw settings, when a song project is created using both 16 and 24 bit depth material, one or the other will be automatically or manually converted to match the daw setting as audio files are imported into the daw.
Pg Music audio tracks are 16 bit depth. If your audio interface is set to 24 bit depth and your using RealTracks, either your audio or PG Music audio is being converted. As two or more tracks are summed into a single track the daw is most likely using 24 bit, 32 bit, 32 bit floating decimal, 48 bit, 64 bit or 64 bit floating decimal calculations to maintain fidelity of the summed signals.
It use to be the advice was to keep the same bit depth throughout a project until dithering was used during the last step of conversion to 16 bit for CD mastering.
While the advice may be a good ideal to strive for, as a practical matter I think the inherent limitations of home recording such as noisy recording environment or people double tasking as performer and engineer create more quality of sound issues than whatever noise is introduced by multiple conversions.
You go Rockstar_not. I couldn't type that many zeros without loosing count!
I believe the increased headroom 24 bit depth recording provides overshadows any other consideration in a home studio. The additional 12 db of headroom may mean the difference between grabbing the perfect take versus the prefect take ruined because of a passage was recorded too loud.
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I'm surprised you're not pushing that avatar into the red .. It was a timing thing .. when you take the shot you have to anticipate. I was aiming for getting the "0" but figured it was good enough as is. /I don't even remember what I took that shot with, but I took it. I even cropped the 'roundness' from the rest of the image. It exhausted my graphic abilities at the time. <grin> I think that particular preamp has an issue where the meter light doesn't work anymore .. or something. It's still here somewhere though.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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