I would mix
the project at 48k or 96k
Why 96 KHz? 48 KHz doesn't cause any issues, but already provides best
sound quality.
if that would only be true ...
a) any non-linearity introduces harmonics, some non-linearities
introduce an infinite amount of harmonics, which will cause foldover
distortion. the large the sampling-rate, the lower the foldover.
b) delay-lines have a higher precision at higher sampling-rates
c) the tuning of digital filters is more precise at higher
sampling-rates due to the frequency warping in the blt
iir filters may have a higher quantization noise, but that is the
reason, why a good filter implementation is done in double-precision.
frankly, 48k may be a good enough for distribution, but it is
sub-optimal not for production ... and it is horrible for digital synthesis.
fwiw, for digital synthesis (non-standard or distortion synthesis) i
ended up rendering my compositions at 3mhz ... which was a good
compromise between computation time and sound quality.
best, tim
note on a:
if your signal processor introduces the Nth harmonic, you have to
upsample your signal by a factor of N. or apply a pre-filter on your
signal by nyquist/N.
question for the reader: in order to completely prevent foldover
distortion, how much do you have to upsample for a tanh waveshaper (a
processor that introduces infinite harmonics)?
