Hey,
I tried that Nord G2 demo by clavia the other day, and on the setup screen I had the option to choose A sample rate. the minimum was 44100 but the recommended frequency was alot higher, like 9k or something like that.
It got me thinking: does it really affect the sound quality of VSTIs if you crank up the sample rate of your host program? (mt card is capable of higher frequencies) I thought it was only relevant for recording...

Oh, man. This thread's gonna go mental!

At the risk of sounding banal, I reckon it's different strokes for different folks here. I've never really felt the need to go higher than 44100 myself, though that's mainly because I prefer to have the extra processing power available rather than (what is to my ears) a barely perceptible increase in sound quality. Others will (and are going to ) tell you differently though.

I think that greater bit-depth [24-bit or 32-bit] is far more important than higher sample-rate but if your PC can handle both then why not work in the highest quality you can? That said, I always record/render at 44.1/32-bit.

Agreed!

Disagree here. Higher sample rate will give more accurate recreations, and on some VST's, yes it does make the sound a bit smoother. You're playing connect the dots with 96,000 points or 44,100 points over a one second segment. You tell me which would be more accurate and smoother? Also, 96k is going to prevent some aliasing too, at least for freqeuncies up to 48kHz instead of only 22.1kHz.

Devon

Quite a few synths do profit from an increase in sampling rate as its just like oversampling. I.e. you can get rid of aliasing this way (e.g. try vanguard at 44khz and then at 96).

Markus

even to my mono hearing 96000 sounds a HELL of alot better. it's just that current cpu's cant keep up with a heavy vsti project of 96k. no way.

Well, could the people who did feel a different be more precise? is it a smoother filter? different oscillator sound? I know it sounds better in theory, but DOES IS REALLY SOUND BETTER TO YOU?
How about after your dither it to a 44100 wave?
And I'm talking about strictly VSTIs, not audio.

Download the vanguard demo, try it at 44khz first, then run it at 96khz.

I tend to work at 44k, since 96k just taxes my computer too much.

However, I then render at 96k and then downsample and dither in a separate step.

higher samplerates will always sound a bit better, but if a plugin is well programmed it should be a very minimal increase in quality (due to selective oversampling inside the unit).

Kuniklo: Could you elaborate on the logic behind that procedure?

Work at 44.1k to keep the load on the computer to a minimum, bump it to 96k and render to get the best sound out of the plugs.

If you're using recorded audio rather than everything being generated on the fly, I suspect it would be (perhaps marginally) better to render at 88.2k instead of 96k. The sample rate conversion process, which you would be going through twice assuming you will be converting the final product back to 44.1k, is more straightforward in that case.

No, you're not playing connect the dots; yes, in SOME VSTi there's a huge difference in sound between different sample rates (in my experience Lounge Lizard, Powercore 01, Superwave synths etc.; NOT in Pro53, B4 and some others), but it hasn't anything to do with the dots. Sorry, I'm not the best to explain what's happening exactly.

Below the nyquist frequency (Sample rate / 2) there is no theoretical advantage to the apparently higher resolution of 96k. Any benefit lies in the lower order (potentially more linear) anti-alias filter that can be used with the higher rate.
Whether this can be heard is a moot point.