delivery resolutions for digital

[joninc]

I am curious if people are moving away from 16b 44k as the final delivery format now that cd's are not the standard and digital distro will accept higher bit and sample rates.

Is there a new standard? What do you do? Do you provide clients with multiple?

24b 48k would seem like a reasonable upgrade to me....

[Recycled_Brains]

I keep it at whatever the tracking settings are the entire time. I don't see any point in even thinking about it at this point since every streaming service can handle whatever you upload and if it's going to a mastering engineer I would keep it there anyway. It's annoying to render at different settings and then keep track of what's what.

[Nick Sevilla]

I'm delivering Broadcast Wave files at 24 bit / 96 kHz resolution, if they will be using that sort of resolution in streaming.

Apple Music demands that, and there are now plenty of online streaming and delivery services that
can handle that format and sample rate.

I also deliver lower bitrate formats, if they will be giving those to other streaming services and / or using them to send via email to promoters / radio / whatnot. I check to ensure those also sound as good as possible.

MP3 / lossy conversion tip: Make sure you leave some headroom, at least -1.0 dBFS Peaks, and no more than -12 dB LUFS. Some CODEC converters just suck ass with the louder files with less or no headroom.

If you are converting to some new format, TEST it first. To see what it is doing to the audio, and adjust accordingly. That is part of the Mastering stuff that MEs do.

For recording, I am sticking to either 24 bit 48 kHz, or 24 bit 96 kHz. Unless a project comes in in some other format, which I then just keep until the end.

[digitaldrummer]

I just delivered a song to a client the other day and gave them a 24/96 WAV (the session resolution, i.e., full resolution), a 16/44.1 WAV in case they plan to put it on CD, and a 320Kbps MP3, which (IME) is what internet radio and some streaming services ask for (but most streaming services want the full-res to make their own mp3).

[drumsound]

I deliver 24bit/88.2k / .wav to More Space Echo and mention to him if I know the artist's plan for streaming only or physical medium. Then he delivers what works for that.

[joninc]

thanks for the responses. I was meaning in terms of FINAL delivery formats from mastering etc.

I've recently started doing everything at 96k so i think for me i will do 24b/96k,

[Nick Sevilla]

thanks for the responses. I was meaning in terms of FINAL delivery formats from mastering etc.

I've recently started doing everything at 96k so i think for me i will do 24b/96k,

You'll be fine if you deliver either in 24/96k or in whatever your final mix format happens to be.

Upsampling is not encouraged, unless some Ass ME demands 24/96k. Most are flexible.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

Yeah there's no point to upsampling, send stuff to your ME at whatever rate the session is at. 24 bit or 32 bit float files.

As for final delivery, I'll give people whatever they want.

Gotta say though, for the final thing, 16 bits is perfectly 100% fine, unless your music has more than 96db of dynamic range, which I assure you it doesn't.

[Nick Sevilla]

Here's a handy guide. Updated to 2021.

https://theproaudiofiles.com/audio-mast ... uide-2014/

[MoreSpaceEcho]

^^^^^ Good article, can't argue with any of that.

[joninc]

apparently cd baby still wants "cd quality" 16bit / 44k

They wouldn't accept the hi res files..

[The Scum]

If they're pressing CDs, then this seems sensible.

Even if you're just using them for access to streaming, 16/44.1 is higher fidelity than a lot of those encoded formats.

[joninc]

this was just for digital (cb baby) - i think they aren't keeping up with the other distributors

[digitaldrummer]

which is kinda ironic (in my best Alanis Morissette voice...) since CDBaby doesn't even distribute CDs anymore.