44.1k or 88.1k? ....again

[daveotero]

I know this has benn covered to death but things change and I'm curious what people are doing these days. Are all you PTHD people tracking at 88.1k or 96k?

I'm told my Spider should be shipping in the next 4 to 6 weeks and I'm thinking about trying higher sample rates for a while. As far as I can see the main drawback being it pretty much cuts your CPU headroom in half. On some projects I pretty much run my computer to the max. It would kinda suck to run out of juice before I even finish the drum setup for a mix.

 

[006]

There's really not anything wrong with tracking at 24/48. Unless you have a true dual cpu PC or a hefty Mac (the quad G5 comes to mind), you're really just wasting resources. Yes, the difference between 48 and say...96 or even 192 (pristine) is very noticeable to engineers that focus on the quality of the captured sounds. However, to your average listener, it's all the same. Unless you're working on significant commercial projects, I wouldn't even bother with 88/96/192.

~006

 

[daveotero]

Well my systems no slouch. Dual Opteron 270s so its running 4 cores. I'm actually not too concerned with CPU performance just wondering if it makes a difference while mixing.

 

[Ermz]

I've always favoured 88.2khz because it's an even division back down into 44.1khz. However, with the system I have here, I'm actually limited to 48khz, and that's the only rate I can mix at, which blows majorly.

 

[KeithRT99]

i can hear a difference with the hole 88.2 and i would use it more if i could, but my setup is limited to 44.1. it's got this extra clarity even after downsampling, and it feels like there's extra room in the mix.

 

[Amadeus79]

I use 24/44.1 Going from 16 to 24bit is a lot more important than going from 44.1 to 88.2 or 96Khz. I`ve tried 24/96 on a HD3-system, and to me it didn`t justify the fewer available voices etc.

 

[Nitronium Blood]

Andy and James find no hassles with 44.1/24

 

[006]

Exactly Nitro. That's my point, if you think about it...in the end when it goes on a cd it's 44.1 anyways...so even if you tracked in 192...it still has to be dithered down to 44.1...yeah, it sounds amazing when you're tracking and mixing...on the cd it'll sound pretty much the same as if you had it at 48 or 44.1 the whole time. It's just not that big of a deal/worth it IMO. The highest I prefer to track in is 48, my boss tries to get me to go higher, but really I see no major advantages.

~006

 

[metalkingdom]

I'll tell you right now that tracking at higher sample rates makes a noticable difference in sound quality - especially with low end and upper highs. There's more depth at the higher sample rates, too. You really notice at 96 and up. Bouncing down to 44.1 for cd doesn't justify tracking at the same rate because it's your whole 2-mix instead of the individual tracks. It's true that the average consumer wouldn't know the difference, but they can feel it subconsciously - even though they don't know what is going on. With that being said, nearly everything put out there was/is recorded at 44.1 or 48. If you know what you're doing (and I know that you do) it's not a problem. I think that a really good clock is probably more important than recording past 48k.

 

[Mutant]

One word: aliasing uke:

 

[Kazrog]

44.1 here. If it's good enough for Andy and James, it's good enough for me!