[linux-audio-user] sample rate question

Mark Knecht markknecht at gmail.com
Tue Jan 16 22:33:42 EST 2007


Aaron and I are buddies so it's always fun to point out the other POV.
;-) In the end he's probably right though. :-)

At the outset I'll state that mostly I record at 44.1K. My issue in
the past has been that all frequency resamplers seem to cause negative
artifacts to my ears. When I record at 48K I like the sound, but when
I down-sample that material to 44.1K I find I don't like the sound as
much as I do if I just recorded the same material at 44.1K in the
first place.

One thing to keep in mind is that this really is becoming a mute
issue. If I have understood things correctly DVDs are mastered with a
48K sample rate so should you be thinking about releasing both a DVD
and a CD you'll have to resample for one or the other. Might as well
be 48K, 88.2K or 96K. You'll have to switch things around somewhere.

Hope this helps,
Mark

On 1/16/07, Aaron Trumm <aaron at nquit.com> wrote:
> It's a debate.  People have varying opinions.  One opinion is that getting
> something recorded at a higher quality allows you to process more accurate
> information as you mix, and so on and that school likes to record at high
> sampling rates and keep it there until the last minute, and then very
> carefully do conversions for cd product.
>
> another school of thought says just record at 44.1 because it's going to be
> there in the end anyway.
>
> I think the balance has tipped in favor of the former model (recording at
> higher resolutions and bit depths).  that's what I do.  and in the
> commercial recording studios, people do that mostly (or record on analog and
> then dub to really high res protools for mix down)
>
> just a note, too, on the difference between sample rate and bit depth - very
> basically, sample rate determines the highest frequency you can record (half
> of the sample rate) and bit depth determines how much dynamic range
> (loud/soft) you can record.  some people believe that bit depth is WAY more
> important, and don't mind recording at 44.1 as long as the bit depth is high
> (like 24 bit).  In theory this holds because half of 44.1 is 22khz and
> that's higher than we can hear anyway.  contrary to some people's beliefs
> (like mine long ago) higher sampling rates don't add any low end richness,
> just high end accuracy.
>
> I think it's wise to record at high sampling rates and bit depths.
>
> -- Aaron
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "millward" <millward at ms.umanitoba.ca>
> To: <linux-audio-user at music.columbia.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 6:54 PM
> Subject: [linux-audio-user] sample rate question
>
>
> I was wondering, since the CD sample rate is 44100, is there
> any advantage to recording at a higher sample rate?
> My sound card, an Audiophile 24/96, allows much higher
> sample rates and my hard drive is big enough to store the
> resulting files, I think, but what purpose would it serve when
> in the end, an audio CD is only good for 44100 ?
> I'd have to convert down just to be able to burn the final
> product onto CD anyway.
> There must be some advantage to recording at a sample rate
> above 44100.  Could someone tell me what it is?
>
>



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