[LAU] Record at 44.1 or at 48 kHz?

[Sampo Savolainen]

Quoting Victor Roetman <victory747 at gmail.com>:

> The question I have is whether I should be recording 24 bit audio at
> 44.1 kHz or at 48 kHz if the end result will be Compact Disk audio.  It
> seems that some pro-audio equipment tends to prefer 48 kHz, and many
> people do their recording at 48 kHz.  The heart of the question is this:
> Will the slight slight increase in quality of recording and mixing at 48
> kHz outweigh the slight reduction in quality from re-sampling 48 kHz to
> 44.1 kHz?

All resampling is bad for the signal. The slight benefit achieved from the
higher frequency anti-alias filter at 48k compared to 44.1k is nothing
compared to the issues caused by resampling.

And to be honest, i'm not that sure that most sound cards even have
different anti-alias filters for 44.1k and 48k.

> How about if the project was also using loops recorded at 44.1 kHz?  If
> the Ardour project is at 48 kHz, the loops would need to be up-sampled,
> and then the whole thing down-sampled again to 44.1 on export.  Would
> that up-down sampling offset any benefit of using 48 kHz in the first
> place?

Even more reason to record at 44.1k. I always use 44.1k because CDs are the
target media. Less fuss, less processing on the signal.


  Sampo