should i resample a 16 bit file for mastering?

[eugene]

thanks Peel!
that was what i was looking for.

[greendoor]

I mixdown to 16bit... it really does not matter. All this technical crap is fine and dandy in the geeks realm, but the musicians? The artists?

Meh... dicussions over 16 or 24bit files are the reason shit music exists. Too much focus on doing it the "right" way and not enough focus on doing it the RIGHT way.

That is just so ignorant and so wrong and so unhelpful. I would be fairly certain that this person doesn't have good monitors in a good room, and doesn't produce release quality music that will sound good on an audiophile hifi system. If you like to listen to mp3's on PC speakers, you won't be able to tell the difference. That much is true.

In simple terms - mixing and mastering should be two seperate processes. Ideally (for release quality) they should not be done in the same room or on the same speakers. Your mix file should be as high resolution as possible - I use 32 bits because Cubase SX (and all VST's) use 32 bits internal. 24bits in theory should be the same if you don't clip. In theory.

Never use any Master bus effects on your mix file. Not even a limiter. I didn't know this for a long time, but the logic is simple. The mastering engineer can Only do Master bus effects, and he doesn't want to have to undo something you've done. Or simply, his gear might be better than yours - so give him just a full resolution file to work with.

A major part of mastering is final compression and limiting. If you give him a 16 bit file, the only way to compress is to throw away bits. The make up gain will bring it up to 16 bits again, but the detail or resolution is lost forever.

If your file is 24 bit or more, he can compress the file a lot without losing significant resolution when resampling down to 16 bits.

If you respect your music, you won't mutilate it unnecessarily. You can always degrade your mastered wave file with mp3 or whatever, but if your music is worth keeping it's worth keeping in full resolution for when 24 bit audio becomes the standard.