Sending files to mastering: to convert from 48kHz to 44.1kHz or not

[Rodgre]

I had never really thought about it before, but something made me ask my favorite mastering engineer a few questions yesterday. One of which is whether it makes sense for me to convert my mixes from 48kHz to 44.1kHz in the bounce process. He confirmed my suspicion that I shouldn't and that I should leave the conversion to mastering, as their conversion is "far superior to ProTools". I've been doing this conversion for many years, ever since the days of 48kHz ADAT. I was never really unhappy with the quality of the masters I would get back, after doing my own conversion at bounce, but something just made me ask if there might be at least a percentage of better quality if I leave it for them to do. For the interest of getting the most mileage out of my mixes, I think that's going to be my route from here on out.

There are some great mastering engineers on this forum as well and I would love to hear their thoughts about the subject. I'm also curious about people's thoughts about "printing" and exporting a mix, versus "bouncing" a mix (ProTools is my DAW of choice). I'll probably start another thread about that, or search for other threads about it, as to not pollute this thread with two questions.

Take care
Roger

[losthighway]

Also bit and sample rate are both best kept as high as possible while the audio is being edited/affected and changed as a final step. There'd be no benefit to (slightly) lowering the quality and resolution of your file before having it worked on, you'd no sooner bounce down to 16 bit before mastering either.

There's a much more in depth reasoning to this I remember reading in my mastering text book (one of the only parts of the dark arts that stuck with me) that I'm sure someone will jump in with.

[Scodiddly]

Why would you lower the resolution before the processing is completely done?

[Rodgre]

Why would you lower the resolution before the processing is completely done?

You know, it was a habit I formed after being burned by a bad mastering studio many years ago, who took a track I mixed to 48kHz, which was part of a compilation CD. They did NOT convert my mix, and it sounded completely awful and glitchy on the compilation. Luckily this studio is many years out of business, but I "learned the lesson" to never send 48kHz mixes to mastering. I figured there was an option to bounce to 44.1kHz, so I just did that.

I blame PTSD.

Roger

[Nick Sevilla]

Rules of thumb:

1. Always keep your mix files the SAME bit and sample rates as your mix sessions.

2. Try to have your multi tracks be one step ABOVE your expected delivery formats, at least. This helps future proof your multi tracks for your clients. Right now, I usually am doing pro work at 24 bit 96kHz. Even though the consumer will likely never see this, there are formats now that can be produced in that format. Like Blu Ray discs, and a few hardware file players. Otherwise, the mixes end up on vinyl, CD, and compressed online formats (mp3, m4a), all of which are lower resolution than 24/96k.

3. The Mastering house / engineer should have better conversion tools. They also will probably run the mixes through analog hardware, so it is always best practice to give them the highest resolution files possible. But not ABOVE what you were working on, that is just a waste of time.

4. If you happen to be given lower resolution multi tracks from your client, and you expect to do more overdubs etc. before mixing, you might want to up convert all of that stuff ONCE, at the very beginning of your work, BEFORE adding any more tracks to them. Otherwise, if only mixing, just keep it as you got it. No use in wasting time for something that will not improve the end product.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

As others have said, leave the conversion for mastering, it should be the next to last thing (before dithering to 16 bit) that happens.

The truth is, if you have Izotope RX, you have pro mastering level conversion, so if you for some reason did want to convert your stuff prior to mastering, you're not going to ruin anything. But why do this?

I personally think 44.1 is just fine and do all my own stuff at that rate, but that's just, like, my opinion man.

As far as exporting vs bouncing, dear god is it 2002? Do people still record the mix in real time back to 2 tracks?

[losthighway]

As far as exporting vs bouncing, dear god is it 2002? Do people still record the mix in real time back to 2 tracks?

Analog summing, man!

Actually I don't do that, I just use the words interchangeably and therefore imprecisely. Actually I think the verb in my obscure software of choice is 'render'.

[Nick Sevilla]

As far as exporting vs bouncing, dear god is it 2002? Do people still record the mix in real time back to 2 tracks?

1. Yes, I like to listen to the mix being printed, no matter what the final medium for the mix will be. Can you "bounce" onto a tape machine? Inquiring minds wanna know...

2. I have had prints be chewed up by bouncing, by nearly every DAW so far. Why would I ever expose myself to that sort of time wasting computer error?

3. If anyone uses hardware in their mix, of any kind, you cannot "bounce", as the audio needs to go to hardware compressor inserts etc.

So, in a few ways, yer, it still is 1995, not 2002.