anyone working at 96k?

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joninc
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anyone working at 96k?

Post by joninc » Sat Jan 21, 2023 2:40 pm

I have recently done some upgrades to my recording rig so that I can start working at higher sample rates (been limited to 48k until now).

I also watched this video today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN1pSy1sWN4

which now has me thinking about the possible benefits of even upsampling lower res projects for mix to see if there is a benefit from a processing point of view...

Curious if any of you work at 96k or higher and what benefits you've heard from doing that.

Thanks!
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Re: anyone working at 96k?

Post by kslight » Sat Jan 21, 2023 4:44 pm

Nearly every session I’ve recorded in the last 15 years. But I’m not going to tell you I did it for any perceived Sonic benefit, but instead just became habit at the request of the primary client that most of my work funneled through.

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Re: anyone working at 96k?

Post by Nick Sevilla » Sat Jan 21, 2023 5:37 pm

I am about to...

As to upsampling... nah don't bother. There is exactly zero benefit from doing that.
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Re: anyone working at 96k?

Post by jimjazzdad » Sun Jan 22, 2023 4:35 am

I do almost exclusively live location recordings, always at 96K unless I'm asked for a different sample rate (e.g. 48K specifically for video). Why would I not? Digital storage is cheap these days. I can't see a downside, other than file size.
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Re: anyone working at 96k?

Post by Phobos » Sun Jan 22, 2023 8:13 am

I've tried it, but normally stick to 44.1 due to smaller file sizes and the old adage that "It has to go down to 44 at some point anyway."

Somebody convince me that I'm wrong and I'll throw the switch.

While we're at it, what about 88?

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Re: anyone working at 96k?

Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Sun Jan 22, 2023 9:02 am

Back in the mid 00s I was all about 88.2, did a few records that way. Then I did a few at 44.1. I didn't feel either was any better than the other and I've just stuck with 44.1 for all my own stuff ever since, no complaints.

I think a built-in low pass filter at 22.05k is a feature not a bug, there's nothing up there that you want anyway.

For mastering I work at whatever sample rate people send me.

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Re: anyone working at 96k?

Post by vvv » Sun Jan 22, 2023 9:26 pm

For me, 44.1, but I think 32 bit float make for better sound.
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Re: anyone working at 96k?

Post by emrr » Mon Jan 23, 2023 5:52 am

Switched to 88 around 2007, sounded very obviously better with my converters. The entire top end sounded pretty trashy in comparison at 44/48.

Moved to 96 for awhile when a whole generation of stuff was only 44/48/96, then back to 88 when it passed.

My converters since 2014 are fine at 48k. I usually do most things at 88 though. My few run-ins with actual labels, they want 96 as their deliverable.

One ongoing session that’s generated zillions of takes of 50ish songs started at 88, and at some point I downsampled the whole thing to 48 when it got to 1/2TB, kept going. No obvious change.

I do a 2 hr broadcast music show over Dante at 48. Yamaha QL series conversion. Sounds fine, and it’s 100GB every time as we record all the rehearsals too.
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Re: anyone working at 96k?

Post by digitaldrummer » Mon Jan 23, 2023 6:35 am

I've been working at 96K for most projects for the last few years (unless someone requests or sends me something lower) and it's mostly all in the box. I do think I've noticed that the end product is slightly better sounding, but I'd be lying if I told you I could hear the difference on a single track - so far I have not had that revelation. btw, I'm using an Apollo 16 (silver/firewire) so not the latest and greatest but I noticed a huge improvement over the old Digi 002 (even after the BLA upgrade)...
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Re: anyone working at 96k?

Post by drumsound » Mon Jan 23, 2023 8:25 am

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:
Sun Jan 22, 2023 9:02 am
Back in the mid 00s I was all about 88.2, did a few records that way. Then I did a few at 44.1. I didn't feel either was any better than the other and I've just stuck with 44.1 for all my own stuff ever since, no complaints.

I think a built-in low pass filter at 22.05k is a feature not a bug, there's nothing up there that you want anyway.

For mastering I work at whatever sample rate people send me.
I had a mastering engineer suggest 88.2 was still the best choice in you want to record hi rez but release on CD :wink:

I am on day 2 of some video audition stuff, so we're using 96K for that, but my house standard is 88.2.

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Re: anyone working at 96k?

Post by alexdingley » Mon Jan 23, 2023 10:32 am

Been working at 88.2 and 96 for the better part of 12yrs. Every set of converters I've had in the last ~15yrs sounded fine at 44.1 / 48, but I genuinely thought I had a better / more open sound-stage at the higher sample rates. But, with all of the internet skepticism I am not super emphatic about how much better my sample-rate is (But I swear that my drums sounded like tape when I tracked at 192 for this recent project)

Storage getting eaten up quickly is a real consideration, so if you're someone who doesn't have oodles of storage (or the drive throughput to blast a bunch of tracks at high-res) then you might make sure to be thoughtful of that.

I like to use this analogy (hopefully I'm not misguided in doing so) — if I put a tiny 1megapixel photo into photoshop and do a bunch of manipulations, it's not going to be as clear as if I'd have started with a 4 or 8 megapixel photo. If you feed the computer more data, (and if it's fast enough to handle it) it will be processing the better-sampled info. So "more detail is better" in my book.

I did consider staying with 192 because of the aforementioned drum-lust... (and because my track counts rarely exceed 24-32, so my mac can handle the sessions just fine) but a bunch of my handy-dandy UAD plug-ins are inoperable above 96Khz, so I'm perfectly happy at 96Khz.

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Re: anyone working at 96k?

Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Mon Jan 23, 2023 1:28 pm

More detail is better, but (assuming good converters) the <24k part of the signal is gonna be the same at 48 as it is at 96 (leaving aside the anti-alias filter at Nyquist). I.E you have the same amount of pixels representing the part of the signal we can hear.

I had one mix come in at 192. Looked at it in RX and there were no freqs over 16k, thought that was funny.

Mostly I think this is an academic argument at this point, any sample rate is going to be just fine.

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Re: anyone working at 96k?

Post by trodden » Mon Jan 23, 2023 1:46 pm

I've been doing 48 for the last ten years. I had too many people screwing up the 44.1 to 48 transfer whenever they'd be moving audio over to the video realm, so 48 it became.

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Re: anyone working at 96k?

Post by losthighway » Mon Jan 23, 2023 5:11 pm

24-bit and 48k for years.

There are a lot of ways I can still improve my mixes. Sample rate isn't one of them.

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Re: anyone working at 96k?

Post by digitaldrummer » Mon Jan 23, 2023 5:27 pm

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:
Mon Jan 23, 2023 1:28 pm
More detail is better, but (assuming good converters) the <24k part of the signal is gonna be the same at 48 as it is at 96 (leaving aside the anti-alias filter at Nyquist).
so what are your thoughts on plugin processing? it seems that the aliasing can be affected (reduced?) but I also understand that this varies greatly from plugin to plugin and many plugins restrict or filter the bandwidth anyway (and I for sure can't hear 24KHz...)
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