Nord User Forum

[harmonizer]

I am not an expert on this, but I believe the 16 bit vs 24 bit would make a bigger difference when you are recording a live performance, where the volume levels will be uncertain. Clipping during the capture is fatal, so you have to avoid that by leaving some headroom. As the recording engineer for a live performance, you really don't know just how hard will the drummer whack the snare or the cymbal, or how loud the guitarist will get when the high energy moment arrives. So you end up having much of the capture take place well below the level at which clipping begins. In this scenario, I believe the 24 bit vs 16 bit advantage is large. But if you are just sampling something in a controlled environment, where you can precisely control the volume of what is captured, and do it over if you get it wrong, I believe the advantage for 24 bit will be much less.

[WannitBBBad]

I'm curious what the toll on the hardware would be, in the case of your average Nord. To process all those extra bits at a higher rate besides, would they have to increase available memory, and processor speed, by orders of magnitude? Or in terms of processor power only, might they just reduce the available polyphony? Or a little of all the above?

Honest question, because I know just barely enough to be dangerous. (My gut tells me that nothing's free.)

[cgrafx]

Going from 48K to 96K would double the storage requirements and likely double the processing load as you would have to handle twice as many samples over the same amount of processing time.

Going from 16-bit to 24-bit would theoretically increase storage requirements by 50% and may or may not have any significant impact on the processing depending on the architecture of the hardware (which could be 16-bit, 24-bit, 32-bit, 48-bit, 64-bit). My guess is the DSP units currently in use are 32-bit processors, so their likely would be an increase in overhead handling the larger 24-bit sample data. A lot would depend on the specific buss sizes, internal register sizes and internal memory buss transfer methods. For example, can you move and load two 16-bit samples as a 32-bit pair. If so, than that operation would be faster than having to load two separate 24-bit samples (which can't be combined together as a 32-bit pair and would have to handled as two separate move operations).

[Wired]

I actually made a 24 bit Superpad , and , ya it’s better on 24 bit..., still almost the same low megabytes after generated

[friendben]

There will be more detail in a file with a higher sample frequency and deeper bit rate, but most people, nor their equipment can tell the difference. But if you are doing any processing to the file (compression, reverb, EQ, etc) you are losing detail, so if you want to end up with 16 bit, you generally need to start deeper (24 bit and 32 bit at 96Khz are popular choices). Any sample used as an oscillator source in a synth, will typically receive lots of processing, so start with the most detailed files your equipment will support. Then, down-sample to match the synth.

[WannitBBBad]

There will be more detail in a file with a higher sample frequency and deeper bit rate, but most people, nor their equipment can tell the difference. But if you are doing any processing to the file (compression, reverb, EQ, etc) you are losing detail, so if you want to end up with 16 bit, you generally need to start deeper (24 bit and 32 bit at 96Khz are popular choices). Any sample used as an oscillator source in a synth, will typically receive lots of processing, so start with the most detailed files your equipment will support. Then, down-sample to match the synth.

I agree - work with the highest sampling rate and bit size you have available - it will always provide a better starting point for any further processing and editing of the work.

[maxpiano]

On this topic and dynamic range, I was testing my home studio monitors today using the test audio files on https://www.audiocheck.net and ... see in particular their https://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_dynamiccheck.php, try it and then read and the "note" on that page about 16bit vs 24 bit

[mircolord]

I am not an expert on this, but I believe the 16 bit vs 24 bit would make a bigger difference when you are recording a live performance, where the volume levels will be uncertain. Clipping during the capture is fatal, so you have to avoid that by leaving some headroom. As the recording engineer for a live performance, you really don't know just how hard will the drummer whack the snare or the cymbal, or how loud the guitarist will get when the high energy moment arrives. So you end up having much of the capture take place well below the level at which clipping begins. In this scenario, I believe the 24 bit vs 16 bit advantage is large. But if you are just sampling something in a controlled environment, where you can precisely control the volume of what is captured, and do it over if you get it wrong, I believe the advantage for 24 bit will be much less.

I'm almost sure it's not like you are saying. When an analog signal is converted into digital, each voltage value is converted to a digital binary number at a frequency that now is not important. So with 16 bits you have 2^16 (65536) different numbers representing the various voltages of your signal. With 24 bit you can be more detailed because you have 16.777.216 numbers. I think this is like cutting a pizza in 8 or 16 pieces, the pizza is the same area but the slices are smaller. Audio-speaking, you can reconstruct your signal with more detail thanks to the fact you sampled the little differences.

However, if the smallest "slice" of signal is fixed, you are right and my answer can disappear in the void.

[PScooter63]

But wouldn’t that pizza be, like, 50% larger in diameter ?
Because the slices aren’t actually tinier, there’s just more of them.

[analogika]

I am not an expert on this, but I believe the 16 bit vs 24 bit would make a bigger difference when you are recording a live performance, where the volume levels will be uncertain. Clipping during the capture is fatal, so you have to avoid that by leaving some headroom. As the recording engineer for a live performance, you really don't know just how hard will the drummer whack the snare or the cymbal, or how loud the guitarist will get when the high energy moment arrives. So you end up having much of the capture take place well below the level at which clipping begins. In this scenario, I believe the 24 bit vs 16 bit advantage is large. But if you are just sampling something in a controlled environment, where you can precisely control the volume of what is captured, and do it over if you get it wrong, I believe the advantage for 24 bit will be much less.

I'm almost sure it's not like you are saying. When an analog signal is converted into digital, each voltage value is converted to a digital binary number at a frequency that now is not important. So with 16 bits you have 2^16 (65536) different numbers representing the various voltages of your signal. With 24 bit you can be more detailed because you have 16.777.216 numbers. I think this is like cutting a pizza in 8 or 16 pieces, the pizza is the same area but the slices are smaller. Audio-speaking, you can reconstruct your signal with more detail thanks to the fact you sampled the little differences.

That's wrong.

The signal can be constructed with exactly the same amount of detail up to the Nyquist frequency (sampling frequency /2, so 22.05 khz for 44.1 kHz sample rate), because there is only ever one possible waveform that represents the sample points recorded. (That bit of information right there broke my head for a long time.)

What the higher bit depth does is effectively lower the noise floor. It thereby increases the available dynamic range; it does not provide a more detailed dynamic range.

In effect, when you're recording a very dynamic signal in 16 bits, you have to drive it as hot as you can so that the softest parts of the signal don't get lost in bit nirvana below the noise floor. This means that you're at risk of clipping the input unless you limit it beforehand.
In 24 bits, you don't have to turn up the signal nearly as much when recording, because you have all that dynamic range at the bottom. So you virtually never have to risk clipping the signal.