DJTT Blog Post on Bitrates
If you missed it here: A DJ’s Guide to Audio Files and Bitrates
It’s a nice read until the part where they put down 16 BIT 44.1KHz WAV files.
Really? Now this is unacceptable?
I guess I should re-format my hard drives with hundreds of classic house vinyl rips, because they are all 16 BIT 44.1KHz garbage.
What a joke.
please cut and paste the parts you are talking about and we will discuss…
"It’s important to set your DAW at the right audio quality, otherwise you might realize in the future that you’ve limited yourself by recording the best sample, synth, or vocal session of your life only in 16 bit! If at all possible set your system to 24bit and no lower than 44.1 kHZ. "
and where did they call what you did “garbage”? It was Zach’s opinion on PRODUCTION values. Not encoding vinyl.
next part where they bagged on wav files please…
“only in 16 bit!” … that part Keith. with exclamation point.
So If I give you my master mix in 44.1 KHz 16 BIT WAV, that’s lousy production?
If that’s true, then we have a lot of bad recordings out there.
Isn’t the comment just really about future proofing your lossless files? i don’t think their trying to offend you loverocket.
Actually almost no professional production is mixed and mastered in 44.1 16bit. Most modern recordings are 96k or above and 24bit and then mixed and mastered then dithered down if necessary. I’d say 48k 24bit is the minimum you should use when producing tracks. If you’re talking about ripping your cd collection 44.1 16 bit is fine as it’s a bit for bit copy of the CD but if you’re ripping vinyl, I’d go with 24 bit as you’ll have a better dynamic range.
44.1kHz is just fine, 44.1KHz versus 48kHz, very little difference with dynamic range and maybe it helps with the Nyquist range and some plug-ins but it’s very, very marginal. And some might even talk about transcoding issues to 44.1kHz from 48kHz concerning CD formats.
96kHz is used in some studios and it might help especially with dynamic acoustic music, but for most electronic dance music it’s pretty much overkill as the tracks are compressed and don’t have small nuances such as let’s say recording a female singer singing softly. But 24-bit is a must, the diff between 16 and 24 is quite dramatical.
this image is very misleading:
When you read this:
Bits
There are several ways to describe the precision used for measuring the height of the sound wave.
One common unit in digital audio, and the unit used inside Media Center, is bits. This is where the name bitdepth comes from.
Bitdepth describes the number of 0’s or 1’s (computers are binary) used for each height measurement of the sound wave.
For example, an audio CD is 16bit. This means each measurement of the sound wave will have one of 65536 (2^16) values.
A good DAC is 24bit, meaning each measurement will have one of 16777216 (2^24) values.
what’s misleading about it?
Maybe on the 44.1Kzh versus 96khz 24 bit case, you get the same amount of data, 24 bits is twenty four bits, but just a wider range of values. The graph makes it look like you get more data.
For the 16 BIT image the graph paper would have to be 65,536 squares high not 16.
Each 16 BIT sample (of 44,100 samples per second) can store one of 65,536 levels.
that’s pretty fine for my ear.
After dithering and filtering my ears are fooled.
I’ve never really understood the obsession with 48/96khz 24 bit production values. 24 bit vs 16 bit is a bit of a jump, yes, but in practice, its a bit negligible. Running in 24 bit is a safe bet, since CDJs output in 24 bit, but 16 is by no means useless. What blows my mind is people who sample in 48/96khz and act like they need to. 48khz is a holdover from sampling DAT tapes. 96khz is used for high end condensers, since acoustic instruments can produce so many partials and harmonics; unless youre listening on ribbon monitors, you can’t hear the difference, and even then, it’s only harmonics.
CDJs output in 44.1khz anyway, so… yeahh…
you should always be in 24 bit when possible and dither down if needed, also 96/48khz to 44.1 is not the big deal its the bits. that being said you will not be able to tell the difference until you are on very high end system in an acoustically tuned room. So dont worry loverocket, your rips should be good to go for quite some time. From now on 24 bit is the way to go as CD quality audio (16bit 44.1khz) is no longer industry standard.
i think 16 BIT 44.1 KHz sounds warmer.
Just kidding.
“Industry standard” doesnt mean anything when the lowest common denominator for quality audio is still 16/44.1. Theres nothing to “transition into” its just a negligible quality level.
The only justification I could think of for EDM producers using 96kHz is that some mastering plugins might have better downsampling quality when operating with such huge frequency domains. But to hear that result you need really good studio reference monitors. In real life I doubt anyone could hear the differences.
Totally disagree. When producing and mixing multiple tracks for music you should start with the highest quality recordings you can afford to make. Once you’ve mixed down to your stems and give the mastering person the best quality you can, they do their magic and then you can downsample after your final stereo master is achieved. You’ll get considerably better sonic results.
Except for the fact that sample rate doesn’t affect audible quality beyond 44.1khz…
How can you make a statement so patently false? I think your understanding of sample rate is flawed. You might be extrapolating that at 44.1 16bit it more than covers the range of human hearing from 20hz to 20khz but there is absolutely no doubt that sample rates higher than 44.1 are sampling at a higher rate and therefore more truly reproducing the original. You’re essentially mixing down mulitiple tracks into a final 2 tracks. When distilling anything down you want to start with the most premium grade possible, that is, if you care about the quality of the finished product. If all you’re doing is sampling loops of peoples tracks and mixing them together to make music, then I’d agree with your above statement but if you’re making original music and recording sounds, you should start with the highest sample & bit rate available to you.
