96khz Is it necessary?

[Sharritan]

For recording basic "rock" tunes, is it necessary to start the session running 96khz? Would it save CPU usage to lower that at the start and would there be a noticable difference? Also, is it possible to convert an already recorded session to a lower setting?

[albee1952]

96K is absolutely NOT needed to make good sounding rock/pop recordings. 96K audio files take up twice the room on your hard drive. Latency is something I'm not sure about. I highly recommend you use 24 bits though as the headroom is much better. I can't answer about converting although you could experiment by importing 96K audio into a 48K session and see if it converts correctly. You will know if its wrong as the pitch will be off. Hopefully someone else with more expertice will chime in. Don't forget you need to dither to 16 bits eventually. I like to bounce to disk in 24 bit, then import the mix tracks to a new session(24 bit) and (after I trim head and tail and add a fadeout if required) place a dither plugin in the last insert slot and bounce to a 16 bit/44.1K stereo-interleaved wave which I can then burn onto a CD with any of several programs(Nero, WaveLab, CD Architect to name a few).

[Sharritan]

Cool. Thanks for the info. I get the occasional H/W buffer error that we are all familiar with. Do you think tracking at 48khz would help with this?

[IntelDoc]

If anything, I would use 88/24 as the math is proven to be more accurate at dither. For 96K though and rock... Definitely NOT needed. I use 48/24 all the time, and have had great results with it.

The only time I would ever consider 96K is if you were recording classical or a solo artist with say guitar only and vocals. That is all. Otherwise, I think that it is a waster of space and a serious task on your system unless you are using an HD rig.

good luck,
- Doc

[div32]

If anything, I would use 88/24 as the math is proven to be more accurate at dither.
- Doc

I'm not so sure about that...

[SimpleNatureSpirit]

88/96 also gives you a little higher quality in your processing.
I like 96 for the smoother high resolution FX processing.
Maybe it's just me, but this thinking is supported by the math.

IMHO

[IntelDoc]

Hmmmmm....

Really


DITHERING

DITHERING 1 ON 1

DITHER SOUNDS

LAVRY WHITE PAPER - GREAT READ!

Enjoy,

- Doc

[SimpleNatureSpirit]

YUCK! Homework
J/K thanx Intel...

[SimpleNatureSpirit]

Now that I become educated (yea right) I, of course, have more questions than when I started.

In the sampling theory document you so kindly linked above, IntelDoc, it states that 192Khz is likely overkill to the max (by 3x). I'm okay with this since my Digi002 is 96Khz max

What I did find interesting is filtering at the A/D~D/A stages which does support higher sampling rates to move frequencies above the audio range into a area easier to filter out.

This, of course begs the question of the quality of the filtering within our Digi hardware and is this the reason for the 'lame converter' stigma for this 'cheap' audio equipment we get with out PTLE software.

Okay, so with all that out of the way, the question is what do we need in the digital domain for processing. I think every PTLE user wants more plugins without running into the dreaded "your CPU is sucking fumes" error. I can see by the arguments in this article that with quality plugins (ones that do not generate freq's above 20Khz) converting my captured audio at 96Khz could be digitally sampled back down to 48Khz for further processing and even run in&out of the box to outboard gear with S/PDif.

Now as far as A/D~A/D==>>A/D~D/A==>>(and back)A/D~D/A's I might want to get back up in that 96Khz framework when and where it is available. According to the article, 44.1Khz is the minimum required, but if you are not taxing your system, you should not have an accuracy problem. "...192KHz is about 3 times faster than the optimal rate." Making 96KHz 1-1/2 times and 88.2KHz 1-3/8 times optimal rate. It also implies that 64Khz is optimal

IMH<newly educated>O

[donkerce]

Worked yesterday and today for the first time at 96khz.
Had to overdub bass tracks to an entire record.
Sort of an indie thrash Strokes-type record.
Recorded my direct sound thru my Neve 1073 and a Tube Tech
and my amp thru an AKG D112, API 312 and a DBX 160.
My observations are I heard no difference in tone.
The lowest latency you could set was 128 (as opposed to 64 at 48khz).
That was slightly annoying.
And when un-doing a pass, got quite a few spinning-multicolored-beachballs-of-death.
Had no choice 'cause that was what was on the guys firewire drive,
but I think I'm gonna stick to 24/48 for all my stuff.
Just one guy's opinion.