DAW development stopped ?

[DJ Warmonger]

^TL;DR

The world may be advancing, but humans do not. Unlike DAWs, human do not have and will never have 64-bit hearing. If you want to make better music, 64-bit engine won't help you at all.

Probably but it will help with opening large orchestral libraies and the like that need to address more than 4gb of RAM which 32 bit versions of software are limited too.Once you go 64 bit you won't look back.The less i have to think about tech issues when writing music the better.64 bit helps with this tremendously.Have fun and keep pushing

I-have-no-idea-what-I'm-talking-about-but-I-like-big-numbers-in-adverts, is that you?

Do you also think that 12 inches is better format than your current size?

[ShawnG]

I have not missed the point. Moving larger items in and out of ram is a performance hit on the CPU no matter how much memory you have installed, as Phillippe the professional programmer pointed out. There is no free processing lunch. Memory cannot manage itself. Basically this enables some tasks to process better because of not having to constantly do the conversion math (with plugins that can take advantage and less the increased memory bottleneck) while plugins that cannot take advantage will run worse than they would have under 32 bit. And as he notes, if audio cards ever get to 32 bit standard, then precision needs to be increased, which would need 64 bit float point audio then.

My question about why this was done is answered, as I was previously only thinking about the dynamic range depth, so thanks for the link, It makes some sense to me now, but in my opinion we're a few years from really needing it.

Yes you did miss my point initially. CPU processing has a larger priority in audio processing due to the need for real time DSP power. Memory is cheap, plentiful and is not an issue for most modern computers.

The advantages were clearly pointed out and the benefits of 64 bit precision, which equates to less down/up sampling due to bit conversion and truncation. When it comes to mixing with a lot of tracks, inserts and busses with a lot of plugins with different bit rate processing, it can make a difference now in the year 2018.

If it's not for you that's fine, but other people live on the tip of technology and take advantage of all that modern programming and code has to offer.

Look, I asked for more information, and you sent me to a link which eventually provided it, which I thank you for. As I mentioned, I am not a programmer (did a little bit of low grade database language programming in the early 90's, but absolutely nothing hardcore) but I am a very long term IT dude, and I have a bit more than a basic understanding of whats going on.

you keep trying to tell me about how cheap memory is (which isn't strictly true, unless you like buying really slow memory) and how everybody should have tons of it (hell, I do) and then you are trying to give me DAW 101 levels of information about how stuff works at a very basic level, which, while being in generally true, has absolutely nothing to do with what Philippe from Steinberg is talking about. It's not that you are wrong, but you are missing the point.

In some circumstances 64 bit floating will be faster, and in some circumstances 64 bit floating will be slower, and that we all might need to move that way in the future anyway if 32 bit audio cards become a thing.

It's not all rainbows and unicorns, there are tradeoffs being made with this, and probably we won't see the real benefits of this for a while, and that's if some other new development doesn't suck away all the cpu cycles saved doing this.

[enroe]

Cubase 9.5 has a 64 bit floating point mixing engine.

Yes, and in some years every DAW will have a 128-bit floating point
engine.

Nobody will hear a difference, but all the marketing directors of all
DAW-companies ardently claimed for this feature.

Maybe not you but don't cut the rest of the world out.

Haha, nobody can hear that difference!
Even worse: You cannot hear a difference between 16-bit,
32-bit and 64-bit! Never ever!

... He hadn't built his own computer yet and he hadn't met his future business partner. But he made a huge impression on my professor. That guy was Steve Wozniak.

Waaahooo! You personally know one of the most famous men of this
planet!

It's fine if you want to say "Stop the world I want to get off" The world doesn't stop advancing because you've satiated your interest.

No, you didn't get the point! You misunderstood me.

Many companies are driven by spilling over profit-thinking
and boisterous marketing experts. And being under these
influences they propose features and progresses which
are mostly nonsense.

The progress to a 64-bit-audio engine is such a nonsense.

Of course, Steinberg justifies the jump to 64-bit with "less
conversion between 64 and 32-bit", but that is really paltry!
So this is a typical "nonsense" step ahead. It addles the users,
it gives the marketing speakers some new "mottos" and
"verbalizations", but it is not the slightest advancement for any
musician.

... For the last few years I've been using Mixcraft. I don't care if it doesn't have a million and one features another daw has. I do care that it's working for me. Well I did care till it wasn't fulfilling a specific want that wasn't attainable. It was only the other day that I began to look at what's available in Bitwig. I own Ableton Live 9 never took the bait for 10. And to be honest I didn't think to kindly of Bitwig from pre release till the current release. I didn't and don't waste my time searching for the next big thing. But while surfing youtube and thinking about how much I wanted another linnstrument as mine crapped out on me I came across a few videos that kept pointing me to Bitwig.

If you want to create music you need more focus!
Don't jump around from DAW to DAW. Just stick to one DAW and
work with it!

Sure you can call it marketing. However marketing only works if there is something to back it up.

Yeah, you are in danger of falling for the marketing speakers line.

As you are in charge of yourself and responsible for your decisions so too others are in charge of themselves and ultimately responsible for theirs.

Yes, yes. But here I appeal to everyone:

Don't believe the marketing verses of the companies.
Instead have your own experiences with your DAW - and
notice what you need for your personal advancement.

[enroe]

Unlike DAWs, humans do not have and will never have 64-bit hearing. If you want to make better music, 64-bit engine won't help you at all.

Probably but it will help with opening large orchestral libraies and the like that need to address more than 4gb of RAM which 32 bit versions of software are limited too.Once you go 64 bit you won't look back.The less i have to think about tech issues when writing music the better.64 bit helps with this tremendously.Have fun and keep pushing

No!

You confuse the things here.

You confuse the audio-dynamic-bit-depth with the address-bus-
bit-depths of a computer. Two different things - and they
are not correlated!

Even worse: With a 64-audio-bit-depth you'll get much more
problems when opening bit libraries, because the "read-from
disc"-performance needs much more RAM and CPU.

[learnkeys]

Look, I asked for more information, and you sent me to a link which eventually provided it, which I thank you for. As I mentioned, I am not a programmer (did a little bit of low grade database language programming in the early 90's, but absolutely nothing hardcore) but I am a very long term IT dude, and I have a bit more than a basic understanding of whats going on.

you keep trying to tell me about how cheap memory is (which isn't strictly true, unless you like buying really slow memory) and how everybody should have tons of it (hell, I do) and then you are trying to give me DAW 101 levels of information about how stuff works at a very basic level, which, while being in generally true, has absolutely nothing to do with what Philippe from Steinberg is talking about. It's not that you are wrong, but you are missing the point.

In some circumstances 64 bit floating will be faster, and in some circumstances 64 bit floating will be slower, and that we all might need to move that way in the future anyway if 32 bit audio cards become a thing.

It's not all rainbows and unicorns, there are tradeoffs being made with this, and probably we won't see the real benefits of this for a while, and that's if some other new development doesn't suck away all the cpu cycles saved doing this.

Try not to take it personal, but we don't agree. Finding reasons to argue just isn't my thing. Good luck to you and your search for knowledge on this subject and probably many others.

[Tj Shredder]

The progress to a 64-bit-audio engine is such a nonsense.

If you ever tried to access a long sample/sound file after its 6th minute sample accurate, you would acknoledge, that this sentence is nonsense.
With 64-bit you also would eliminate the problems with denormals, which clould eat processing power like a monster...
I agree, that anything more than 64- bit would be nonsense. The only disadvantage of 64-bit processing might be memory demand, but at the same time you need it desperately if your project requires more than 4 GB, 32-bit apps cannot adress more...
Certainly it solves much more problems than it creates...

[Jace-BeOS]

Agreed with the above.

Also, there appears to be more usable headroom with 64-bit audio mixing routines. I noticed this when Sonar went 64-bit in its engine. I spent less time fussing over levels after it moved to 64-bit. That's not to say it's the only possible reason: I moved to Logic 9 and faced zero problems with its mixing engine and that wasn't 64-bit (Logic X is). Maybe Sonar's 32-bit implementation sucked.

[Tj Shredder]

The latter probably, as 32-bit float already will give you million times more,headroom than you will ever need or use... For CD’s, 16-bit fixed is considered HiFi enough... ; - )

[enroe]

With 64-bit you also would eliminate the problems with denormals, which clould eat processing power like a monster...

The denomalization is independent from bit-depth. You'll have
it at 32-bit and also at 64-bit.

I agree, that anything more than 64- bit would be nonsense. The only disadvantage of 64-bit processing might be memory demand, but at the same time you need it desperately if your project requires more than 4 GB, 32-bit apps cannot adress more...

I quote myself (see above):

You confuse the audio-dynamic-bit-depth with the address-bus-
bit-depths of a computer. Two different things - and they
are not correlated!

Certainly it solves much more problems than it creates...

Advantage:

1. For plugins with 64-bit-depth dynamic the
conversions can be left out.

Disadvantages:

1. For plugins with 32-bit-depth dynamic
additional conversions must be done.
2. It needs twice the storage (RAM and disc)
3. It needs more CPU-power. So less CPU is for
other tasks or additional plugins availabe.

[enroe]

The latter probably, as 32-bit float already will give you million times more,headroom than you will ever need or use... For CD’s, 16-bit fixed is considered HiFi enough... ; - )

32-bit float dynamic has already so much headroom that
you'll never ever exceed it.

[learnkeys]

Advantage:

1. For plugins with 64-bit-depth dynamic the
conversions can be left out.

2. Double precision and accuracy.
3. Elimination of up/down sampling conversions with pure 64 bit plugins.
4. Eliminating truncation, aliasing and other artifacts.
5. Increased speed and efficiency with inserts, busses, plugin chains and mix buss.
6. Resulting in a more transparent sound.

[learnkeys]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3jtkuWAOP4

[enroe]

@learnkey: You're a good example of somebody who is well
consumed by the steinberg marketing campaigns. To each
his own.

[learnkeys]

@learnkey: You're a good example of somebody who is well
consumed by the steinberg marketing campaigns. To each
his own.

No!

You confuse the things here.

[Unaspected]

Everything enroe has written here correlates with my understanding.