[Jack-Devel] Is there a way to force Jack to use 32-bit audio?

[Chris Caudle]

On Wed, September 25, 2019 11:16 am, lowkeyoutlaw wrote:
> Cakewalk can record in 16, 24 and 32 bit.

That may not be a direct comparison, many programs which record in 32 bit
actually record 32 bit floating point, which at the point of conversion is
the same as 24 bit integer.  Could possibly be 32 bit integer, but that
would be rare.

The online documentation for Cakewalk still has this note:
"The choices for the recording bit depth setting are 16, 24, 32, and 64.
At present, no devices can record at 32-bit or 64-bit resolution, so you
don’t need to choose these options yet."

> My audio interface defaults to 32 bit.

What interface do you have which delivers audio as 32 bits? Which driver
interfaces are supported?  I found a copy of the ASIO 2.2 specification,
that only supports up to 24 bit sample values, although those can be
stored in 32 bit words (only 24 bits of sample data, just longer word
length for easier handling on most archictectures), or 32 bit float.

Most DAW software will convert 24 bit integer values coming in and save as
a 32 bit float file  (which is just equivalent to  24 bit values, plus an
exponent so that large gain ranges can be handled).  I would be surprised
if any hardware natively provided 32 bit float values, but I guess it is
possible.
I also saw a reference to an ASIO driver which did provide 32 bit integer
data, but I have reason to doubt that is the case.

-- 
Chris Caudle