Vienna Symphonic Library Forum
Forum Statistics

180,809 users have contributed to 42,142 threads and 254,365 posts.

In the past 24 hours, we have 2 new thread(s), 8 new post(s) and 70 new user(s).

  • 44,1kHz or 96kHz Samplingfrequency? and the Bits? >>> Here a small theory

    Hello all

    I produced a small tutorial about the theme for the Forum "Cubase".

    Maybe there are some of you who are interestet in to know more about these terms as well

    Here is the link: http://www.beat-kaufmann.com/vitutorials/vi-tips--tricks-3/index.php  and click on No. 28 

    As a proposal which can be helpful here:

    44,1kHz/24Bit  or  96kHz/24Bit  are good preconditions for VSL-Sampling projects. 

    Of cours, if it is a very important project you can go even higher... but it depends then also on your possibilities

    Have fun

    Beat Kaufmann


    - Tips & Tricks while using Samples of VSL.. see at: https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/vitutorials/ - Tutorial "Mixing an Orchestra": https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/mixing-an-orchestra/
  • I think the most important thing is missing: The decision should always depend on the target medium for the final production!

    If you produce for a CD release, the samplerate should be 44.1, or 88.2KHz (not 96KHz). If you do the downsampling from 88.2 to 44.1 for the final mixdown to CD format, the software - put simple -  just has to skip every 2nd sample. If you chose 48 or 96 KHz much more complex calculation is needed which naturally will cause errors.

    If you produce for movie or television, the standard is 48KHz, so here you could use 96KHz for a higher resulution, but do not use 44.1 or 96KHz for similar reasons as above.

     And, after thinking a while ...

    As the VSL samples are recorded in 44.1 the only advantage in a higher samplerate setting would be, that the effect plug ins of the DAW now work at higher precision, the samples themselves won’t get better. So, if working for the movies, a conversion has to be made anyway at some place. Either the VI does this while playing (which should be a CPU issue), or the DAW handles this in the final mixdown.

    So, if working exclusively with samples, it should ALWAYS be 44.1 or 88.2KHz during the production process. If working for movies AND using not only samples, but also recording real instruments, at least the recording should be done in 48 or 96KHz, so at least the audiofiles won’t have to undergo complex up- or downscaling processes in the end.


  • last edited
    last edited

    @Beat Kaufmann said:

    Of cours, if it is a very important project you can go even higher... but it depends then also on your possibilities

    This is actually not correct. Going to samplerates above 96khz will impact audio fidely in a negative way. Without getting into the complexities of converter designs I'll just say that it makes the most sense sticking to 48khz, 88.2 or 96khz if you want the conversion process to work with the highest precision. This is most important in the AD process though, while for samplebased projects it only makes sense to have the session's samplerate similar to the rate of the samples. With this in mind it makes little sense having a VSL session at 96khz, since no VSL samples in the libraries are delivered at 96khz.


  • last edited
    last edited

    @MassMover said:

    .. If you do the downsampling from 88.2 to 44.1 for the final mixdown to CD format, the software - put simple -  just has to skip every 2nd sample.

    Sorry my dear, so in other words this means: You can also record your projects directly with 44.1kHz... [:S]

    And about "the most important thing is missing"...

    My proposal was:

    A practical rule could be:
    Choose the preconditions a possible step higher than you finally use it.
    >>> 96kHz/24Bit for a CD 44.1kHz/16Bit <<<

    I agree with you that it also could be 88,2kHz/24Bit.

    So I have changed my proposal to...

    http://www.beat-kaufmann.com/vitutorials/vi-tips--tricks-3/index.php (No28)

    I hope that everybody can "survive" this suggestion. [;)]

    Best

    Beat


    - Tips & Tricks while using Samples of VSL.. see at: https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/vitutorials/ - Tutorial "Mixing an Orchestra": https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/mixing-an-orchestra/
  • last edited
    last edited

    @Beat Kaufmann said:

    Of cours, if it is a very important project you can go even higher... but it depends then also on your possibilities

    This is actually not correct. Going to samplerates above 96khz will impact audio fidely in a negative way.

    Hello Vagn Luv

    I suggest that you should write RME and all other companies of high-tech audio interfaces:

    Please don't integrate the 192kHz Samplerate-Possibility any more. It impacts the audio fidelity.

    ...?

    If it make sense to use 192kHz is maybe another question...

    BTW: As we got the first railway in Switzerland in 1847 one could read in the newspaper: ...Speeds above 30km/h are unhealthy...

    Beat


    - Tips & Tricks while using Samples of VSL.. see at: https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/vitutorials/ - Tutorial "Mixing an Orchestra": https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/mixing-an-orchestra/
  • last edited
    last edited

    @Beat Kaufmann said:

    Sorry my dear, so in other words this means: You can also record your projects directly with 44.1kHz...

    No, this means, that if you record at a higher samplerate you have better material to deal with during the production process. A recorded audiofile might get treated in many way, for example time-stretching, pitch-shifting, EQing. The higher the quality of the original material, the better the results of those processes. If you then convert the samplerate to the lower standard at the end, you have the loss in resolution just once.

    [quote=Beat Kaufmann]

    I agree with you that it also could be 88,2kHz/24Bit.

    So I have changed my proposal to...

    You still have 88.2 or 96KHz in the tutorium, although you mention that the rate should be doubled.

    For a CD recording it should not be 96KHz.

    Maybe you should first explain the difference between 44.1 (CD) and 48KHz (film) and then the possibility of raising the samplerate to 88.2 for CD or 96KHz for film.


  • Hello MassMover

    I don't know whether a shall prefer a 96kHz sampled signal - downsampled by inerpretation or a 88,2kHz sampled signal - downsampled by throwing away every second sample.

    Further, if you are looking around in the world of the studios it seems that the sampling rate of 96kHz makes (made) the race.

    So you have to accept that I don''t turn the content of my site to your "only, holy and absolute truth".

    I have mentioned it as one possibility and that's OK.

    If you want to know more about the different "sampling rates":  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_rate

    Beat


    - Tips & Tricks while using Samples of VSL.. see at: https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/vitutorials/ - Tutorial "Mixing an Orchestra": https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/mixing-an-orchestra/
  • last edited
    last edited

    @Beat Kaufmann said:

    Hello Vagn Luv

    I suggest that you should write RME and all other companies of high-tech audio interfaces:

    Please don't integrate the 192kHz Samplerate-Possibility any more. It impacts the audio fidelity.

    ...?

    I have better things to do with my life than policing manufacturers of converters and informing them of the absurdity of their "higher samplerates=better sound" marketing claims, but I will spend a little time trying to disspell fiction from facts here on VSL's great forum. [;)]

    Really, Beat, I'm not trying to bust your balls or anything. It's fantastic that you spend so much time on making tutorials available to others, but I think you will agree with me that making open, technical reccomendations brings with it added responsibility in being factually correct. I'm only trying to help you in this endavour.

    Imo there needs to be a distinction between the recording scenario and the sample playback scenario:

    THE RECORDING SCENARIO

    You will be recording real world instruments or voices. The recordings will go through the AD process and end up at the samplerate the session is created at. Here it makes sense to record in either 48, 88.2 or 96KHz for best precision in the audible range of the converted signal, but any higher (like 176.4 or 192 kHz) is likely to have a negative effect on the precision and fidelity of the low frequency range, or at best there will be no audible difference. No matter what medium the final master is going to there can be advantages to record at a samplerate that optimally suits the mix (classical, hiphop, rock etc) and the way the converter works, even though it may not perfectly divide in 2.

    In the end it all comes down to converters working differently, with some yielding better results 48k and others at another frequency, but in the words of legendary converter designer Dan Lawry there is absolutely no sense in moving above 96KHz. He theorizes about the optimum samplerate being around 56Khz, with enough precision in the mid and upper range of the frequency spectrum to provide for extreme clarity and quality, while not compromising the low frequency response.

    THE SAMPLE PLAYBACK SCENARIO

    You will only be playing back samples, either by having virtual instruments in your session or streaming them from a slave (network stream, digital audio transfer or DA-to-AD analog transfer). In the case of VSL samples, that are all delivered in 44.1KHz, there is nothing to be gained fidelity-wise by running the session in a samplerate higher than the frequency of the original samples. It will only introduce a higher CPU load due to the realtime conversion that has to take place, but one upside that has to be mentioned is that it will lead to less session latency (the hardware buffer is reduced the higher the samplerate is). Quality of audio is not improved, though. Even post-processing like time compression and expansion will not sound better if you bump up the session samplerate higher than the rate of the source samples. It's a matter logic, really.

    Last, don't buy into the "higher is better" marketing hype that most converter companies try to sell us. They project the logic that a higher samplerate will get more of your real world sound into the computer (which in theory is true), but ignores that the conversion process will completely negate this and likely provide an inferior result to a lower rate, on top of heavilly burdening your system with high storage requirements, heavy CPU loads and lower voice counts.


  • I didn’t think that you would take my "throwing away every 2nd sample" literally - of course an interpolation is taking place, but you get much better results when you interpolate your bits pairwise.

    Your wiki-link is saying exactly the same as I do: 88.2 is the format when the destination is a CD.

    I'm under the impression that you feel a little offended, while all I’d like to do is to help you to make the tutorial more useful. At the moment the main message is: "If you choose a higher samplerate and/or a higher bitrate the recording will get better." I think this fact is so obvious that I don’t see any reason to write a tutorium on that. But when you rather explain, when it is useful to choose a specific sample- or bitrate, and when another, this could indeed be helpful for some users.

    MM


  • Maybe my title here missleads a bit. The question in another forum was "What means Sampling Rate?"

    I thought that it is a question for more newbies than just for the one who asked. So I tried to show it with some graphics... within my tips and tricks.

    Of course, the theme "Sampling Rate" includes the question "what sampling rate shall I take".

    I tried to give a very general answer to this question because the theme "resampling" can't be reduced only to "XX to CD".

    Further, I don't know which programs and hardware the reader will use for resampling. And, who knows how WaveLab, Cubase, Logic and other software handle this matter, which methods do they apply. My Wiki-Link also tells that the most used Sampling Rates are 44,1kHz  48kHz  96kHz...

    Taking all these facts into account I made the decision to tell the reader what he will get in general with higher sampling rates and not more...

    (also with regard to the many possible products we have (DVD, Blueray, Film etc.)

    So the more you pointed out "the special case of 88.2kHz" the more I tried to get my article as neutral as possible.

    Finally I took the time for an experiment: Can I make out a difference between a sample recorded and resampled (with WaveLab7) with your 88,2kHz and a 96kHz one?

    I'm either too old for getting a difference or my monitors/headphones are too bad or Wavelab is so good - I couldn't make out any difference...

    Thanks for your help

    Beat


    - Tips & Tricks while using Samples of VSL.. see at: https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/vitutorials/ - Tutorial "Mixing an Orchestra": https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/mixing-an-orchestra/
  • last edited
    last edited

    @MassMover said:

    I think this fact is so obvious that I don’t see any reason to write a tutorium on that

    Well, as I wrote above, that is actually not obvious. It's simplifed logic that doesn't relate to real world results.