Sonar 8.5 Audio Data options 16 or 24 bits?

[PsychatoR]

hi guys i have Sonar 8.5!
i dunno if i misunderstood but, i think here, someone told me something strange.

In sonar Options/Global/Audio Data:
he told me to put:
Record Bit Depth: to 32
Render Bit Depth: to 32
Import Bit Depth: to 24

even if my soundcard is SoundBlaster Live Value! 16 bits with Asio4all.

strange... i dunno why but the problem is .. 32 bits Make wav files bigger and take more ram to play all wavs for what?
if its no need ? take more place and more ram for nothing? or is it really useful? ty

IMO i think i should leave all that to 16.

[PsychatoR]

Maybe its for a better quality Freeze options?
i know tho, that when i export at 96000 sample rate wav instead of 44100 theres a difference for sure. even if my card is 44100 max ? not sure tho if its 44100 max.

[PsychatoR]

on Wikipedia i found that article:

"The Sound Blaster Live! featured higher audio quality than previous Sound Blasters, as it processed the sound digitally at every stage, and because of its greater chip integration that reduced the analog signal losses of older, larger cards. Unfortunately, digital processing brought some limitations. The DSP had an internal fixed sample rate of 48 kHz, a standard AC'97 clock, meaning that the EMU10K1 always captured external audio-sources at the 48 kHz, then performed a sample-rate conversion on the 48 kHz waveform to the output the requested target rate (such as 44.1 kHz or 32 kHz). This rate-conversion step introduced IM distortion into the downsampled output. The SB/Live had great difficulty with resampling audio-CD source material (44.1 kHz) without introducing audible distortion. Creative addressed this concern by recommending audio-recording be performed exclusively at 48 kHz, and use third-party software to handle the desired sample-rate conversion, to avoid using the EMU10K1's sample-rate conversion."

is that mean in options/audio/general, that it would better to put Sampling rate at 48000? better sound quality?

sorry my english sucks a lil.. thats why i ask.

[PsychatoR]

anyone?

[PsychatoR]

up last time.

[BertKoor]

Newbie Rule #1: if you don't know what a certain setting does, than leave it as is.

Newbie Rule #2: if your curiousity wins and you try to find what it does nevertheless, but it remains fruitless, then it can't be something important.

I mean, you've tried the 16, 24 and 32 settings. If you cannot tell the difference, then there surely is no difference or it's neglectible. Do you agree?

16bits is what's used on compact disks. It will be fine for most purposes, unless you'll be sending the tracks away for mastering.

NB: this is the Wiki article you should be reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_bit_depth

[TheSteven]

With Sound Blaster Live
- set sample rate 48000 - per Wikipedia this is best setting
- if you audio card supports it ALWAYS set bit depth to 24 bit.

24 bit is best setting for recording and mixing but pointless for playback - which is one of the reasons audio CDs are 16 bit.
32 bit is wasteful overkill.

I'm not going to go into all there reasons why 24bit is best.
If you want more details there is a nice little article on this at:
http://www.homestudiocorner.com/24-bit-vs-16-bit
or spend 5 seconds on Google.

Edit:
Here's a great article on bit depth, came across this after posting.
http://blog.kimlajoie.com/bit-depth/

You might want to make sure that you have the latest Sound Blaster drivers/updates:
http://support.creative.com/Products/Pr ... tails.aspx

...Steven

[Johnny!]

the thing is - if anyone ever will buy your tracks, it's almost certain that he'll buy them in mp3 format. now wav, not flac nor any other fancy lossless format - majority of digital purchases are made in mp3 format. and with all the quirks of mp3 compression, the last thing you should worry about is the bit depth. actually, with the amount of audio information that gets lost during mp3 (and aac and basically all the lossy formats) compression, I dont know if we should even state that those files keep the 16bit dynamics after all. of course bigger bit depth in daw stage can lead to better sounding fxs (like reverbs and such) but from my experience - most of the times neither you nor your audience will be able to tell the difference. so if you're worried that more bits may lead to your machine overhaul - just use lower value. at least unless you can hear the difference.

[PsychatoR]

i know live value! is 16bit but when freezing tracks should i let it to 16 ?

[pwal]

24 bit settings for all the sonar stuff, plus the 48k sample rate (sb will resample to 48k if set to anything else), plus if you're geeky enough consider using the kxproject drivers, which replace the sb ones and expose the whole dsp for you to abuse at will

[Reegs]

Yep, leave 'em at 24-bit. All of Sonar's internal processing is 32-bit float (or 64-bit if you have that box checked) regardless of those bit depths. The 32bit rendering will only make your files impossible to play outside of Sonar and nicely big. As it stands, when you export you'll need to dither* down from 24 to 16-bit WAVs, and then presumably to MP3. Once the bits are in the box all the SB does is handle the playback (digital to analog conversion). Your CPU is responsible for the summing, mixing, and other math. Keeping the whole chain at 48k is fine, and regardless of the end sample rate Sonar's built in SRC is decent.

(*or truncate, if you prefer)