24-bit sound to CD

[JaRu]

What is the best to get that 24-bit sound quality from Pro Tools onto CD? If I go through the computer to Windows Media, of course the quality drops even with a Dither.

[ondruspat]

If your making a CD bounce your music down to 16-bit, 44.1 wav files, dithering appropriately. Windows Media files are compressed so the sound gets degraded.

[JaRu]

So there is no way to avoid this?

[ondruspat]

I guess I don't see where your coming from on this. An audio CD is a 16-bit 44.1 format, hence a wav that is 16-bit 44.1 should sound exactly the same as the file burned to an audio CD.
Yes, you have to downsample from 24-bit to 16-bit, but if you don't do this step your burning software will do it anyway (...if it has the ability to do this, if it doesn't it probably won't even recognize a 24-bit file).
If your not already familiar with file formats you should do some research into them. Wav's are uncompressed, wma and mp3's are compressed (fidelity degraded).

[albee1952]

Well said above. Plus, consider how you are listening. If you are playing thru MediaPlayer, that's one strike, if you are going out of your computer sound card, that's 2 strikes. If MediaPlayer is converting your WAVE files to WMA or any other compressed audio, strike 3. FWIW, I always bounce at 24 bit. I take that stereo interleaved file and import it to WaveLab or a PT session I have setup for mastering. That is where I will trim the head and tail, add a fadeout if needed and use a dither plugin to go to 16 bits for audio CD burning. Once I burn the CD, I immediately try it in another playback system.

[JaRu]

I think I understand. Basically I should hold off on bouncing files to be heard in WMP until they are cleaned and mastered?

[Dr.Marv]

If I can just jump in here...

I think what they are saying is that that if you want to put your mix on CD then you must have a .wav file which is 44.1kHz and 16bit. This is the only file format that can be burned to create an audio CD.

If you want to take your 24bit mix to another computer or to another engineer - that is you want to physically transfer you mix from one computer to another - then you can burn a 24bit .wav file as a data CD (but this cannot be played in a standard audio CD player).

I think windows media player will in fact play a 24bit file but you have to change this function in the options menu... but don't quote me on that... And WMP is fine for listening to music if you are just listening casually - and you do not have to convert files to MP3 or WMA - WMP supports the .wav format as long as it is at CD quality (44.1/16)...

I'm not aware of any consumer CD writers that are able to create HDCDs or SACDs (higher quality audio CD formats)...

[JaRu]

So to avoid the sound degradation, I should leave the Master track without plug ins if I take it to a ME? What if I wanted to burn a CD without the degrading, should I leave the track plug-in free?

[xx1messxx]

If you are just looking to move the files to an ME (Mastering Engineer), or to a different computer or whatever, you could burn the 24-bit files to a CD as a Data CD, not as a music CD. You won't be able to play it in a CD player, but that is how you could transfer your 24-bit mixes to a ME.

[JaRu]

Ok. My last question on this topic is are there any commercial devices that can play back 24-bits. Not necessarily like aDAT which is user professionally, but anything music listeners could purchase that could play 24 bit sound without degrading it?

[albee1952]

The Alesis MasterLink records and plays 24 bit.

[Scorpio253]

I noticed when you bounce down to WAV in Pro Tools it
seperates the LEFT and RIGHT to two different tracks.
What do you do to make them one?

[SeedGuy]

Select 'Stereo Interleaved' at the bounce dialog.

Mike

[Scorpio253]

Wow, I dont know how I missed that. Hah.

[JaRu]

Yeah, mono will break it up into two tracks. But even with two tracks, what is the difference in sound between one of the mono tracks and the stereo track? I know it sounds like a dumb question, but I haven't heard too much different when playing them on my computer speakers.

[ondruspat]

....uh...one is the right speaker channel, one is the left speaker channel. If you do any panning the difference should be obvious.