Converting from 24 bit to 16

[shultzee13]

I Have recorded a session in 24 bit but now that I am going out to a CD burner how do I convert to 16 bit like the manual says I should? Go to preferences? Has anyone stayed in 24 bit and gotten some weird popping sounds on their mastered recorded CD? I am coming out of the Firewire 410 channel 1 & 2 for a stereo mixdown.

Thanks guys.

[DigiTechSupt]

Typically you would just bounce to disk and, in the BTD options, choose 16 bit for the output bit depth.

[shultzee13]

Then why would you ever want to record in 24 bit if it is going to end up in 16 bit on a CD? Just wondering.

[spkguitar]

Because of the headroom 24bit will give you when recording/mixing.

[shultzee13]

But it will end up in 16 bit anyway right? On a CD.
Maybe I am missing something here.

[spkguitar]

Recordings at 16-bit resolution have a theoretical dynamic range of 98dB, whereas 24-bit have a dynamic range of 120 dB. The significance is that the greater your dynamic range is, the lower the noise floor is and the higher your maximums are.

That's a track-by-track, significant difference. So even if your target medium is 16-bit(CD) for your final two-track stereo mix, your overall audio is going to sound better if it is recorded at 24-bit.

[tash]

Maybe you need to put dither plug-in when you get 16 bit files from 24 bit ones? That could be the cause of funny noise.

It is sort of popular practice to record everything @24 bit 44.1k and lowered the resolution at the end.