16 bit session converted to 24 bit - what happens?

[Ken P]

what happens when you convert an audio session and all its files via "save session copy in" as a 24 bit 44.1 session that originated at 16 bit 44.1? anything bad? anything good? nothing at all?? i have sessions from a previous engineer who recorded them at 16 bit, i recorded the rest of his project at 24 bit. my thought was to convert the 16 bit sessions to 24 bit just to have them all consistent. i figure there will be just 8 bits of blank space. but will this make a difference when mixing and mastering? any other thoughts? just pure curiosity on my part

[Rail Jon Rogut]

The extra bits of the audio files are padded.. but your mix buss will be reduced to 24 bit and you'll have a better sounding mix.

Rail

[Ken P]

Excellent! thanks Rail. that is great to know!

[cetanorak]

In regards to changing the sessions bit depth: I thought that the mix bus was 32-bit floating point. If it was 24, then wouldn't any gain changes, or other alterations, that lengthen a word be immediately truncated. Even with internal dither I do now see why the system would be set up to run at 24 bits, however not have an internal mix bus of greater than 24 bits. Perhaps I am misunderstanding something or missing some information. What do you mean by the mix bus will be 24 bit?? Thanks

[Rail Jon Rogut]

The mix is reduced to the session bit depth after the Master Fader inserts. I'll edit my original post to be more descriptive.

If you have 16 bit files.. your mix would be reduced to 16 bit.. using 24 bit audio files - your mix will be reduced to 24 bit and you can dither down to 16 bit if you desire.

Rail