Question about sample rates and offline bounce
 

I've got a conundrum of a question :)

I think only AVID can answer this one..

okay so for example if I create a session in 48 Khz with all AAX instrument tracks like east west symphonic orchestra that work with offline bounce and no recorded audio tracks, and I bounce it using the offline bounce set to 192 Khz... will this make a difference in sound quality...

I guess what i'm asking is does the offline bounce bypass the session parameters when bouncing with only samples or does conversion still happen?

I'd like to start oversampling because i'm into making soundtracks and need the dynamic range and I only have an mbox 3 mini so my interface can't go higher than 48Khz but the offline bounce can go over that...
so this is a good question to ask for a lot of people...
plus, it would just be convenient to save the processing power at 48Khz instead of running an entire session in 192.

Thanks in advanced

Re: Question about sample rates and offline bounce
 

Sample rate has nothing to do with dynamic range, so even if the offline bounce upsampled that would gain you nothing in that regard.

And "conversion" (at least D/A-conversion) does not happen during a bounce as it is "in the box" and not through you converters (MBox).

Re: Question about sample rates and offline bounce
 

Simply put, no. It will first bounce it as 48k and then SRC to whatever you want.

You don't need to worry about anything, because you're in the box the whole time. As Peter pointed out, there is no AD or DA conversion happening and I believe the VI is perfectly capable of filling the whole audible spectrum in top quality.

Re: Question about sample rates and offline bounce
 

hold on,

but if the sample rate is higher
than the waveforms will be less blocky and smoother

so wouldn't the lower volumes be cleaner anyways just because of that?

I know the bit rate effects headroom and dynamic range in a different way
but I always thought that smoother more detailed waveforms would improve what I'm looking to improve regardless..

I understand that sample rates are a contentious issues among musicians though so there are probably lots of opinions on it.

either way I still want to use higher sample rates
seeing as a lot of film companies want 192 Khz

so what you guys are saying is
that this won't improve my sound quality if the session is in 48Khz?

just making sure I understood you guys correctly :P

Re: Question about sample rates and offline bounce
 

or is it that it will improve it slighty because of the VI's being capable of filling in the spectrum.. but that running the session in 192 Khz would improve the quality more?

just kind of confused on that one point :)

Re: Question about sample rates and offline bounce
 

yes.

if you bounce a 48kHz session to a 192kHz file, nothing will sound better.
best quality is to bounce at original session Settings - bit and kHz, everything else is conversion.

Re: Question about sample rates and offline bounce
 

no, the VI works with the settings of the session you created, the bounce will be done @48kHz and will be converted afterwards to your bounce settings.

Re: Question about sample rates and offline bounce
 

....btw, some VI´s sounds are based on samples which were recorded @44.1kHz/24bit! The VI then does a sample rate convertion and plays the sounds at the session´s settings.
so if you even create a session @192kHz, the VI´s source may be still a 44.1kHz sample!

Re: Question about sample rates and offline bounce
 

crap i was hoping that wasn't the answer :P

yea you're right it would be pointless to do 192Khz
east west doesn't even go to 48 Khz

which is a huge surprise to me

even Vienna Symphonic Library is only 96kHz and that's $13,000 for the full version!

so wow!

why are some publishers requiring something crazy high like 192Khz when most digital composers have no way of actually getting that high of a sound quality.

I guess everyone is just converting to 192Khz and the film companies and just not aware.

either that or it only applies to real recorded orchestras.

Well, I guess I'll just stick to my good old 48Khz for now
and convert up when people ask for higher sample rates..

The whole thing seems ridiculous to me now.

Maybe I'll just stick to the video game market. they're all asking for 48Khz :p

Re: Question about sample rates and offline bounce
 

IMO you're overblowing the correlation between sample rate and "sound quality". There's a whole host of factors that go into "sound quality" and sample rate is pretty far down the list if you ask me.

Bottom line, if your productions aren't where you want them to be right now, it's likely little to do with the sample rate in which you're working.

Just a thought.