Fascination street recording studios - new promo video

[Aaron Smith]

Alright, my pre/post mastering comparison thread is going up on Thursday or Friday, but I've got a quick question for you guys... Obviously, the raw mix is 24-bit, and Jens' masters are converted down to 16-bit, so should I just render Jens' version back up to 24-bit? No matter what, to compare them side-by-side, one of the two files is going to have to be converted, so I might as well just do that in advance, and it makes a lot more sense to upscale Jens version than it does to downscale my 24-bit mix. Any arguments to the contrary?

 

[Steven Otto]

I think it's better to hear the 16-bit comparison.
If you upscale the 16-bit to a 24-bit soundfile, it will not 'upscale' the sound by any means. Rather render your mix to 26-bit.

It's basicly when you find a 128kbps version of a song on the webz and then rendering it to a 320kbps mp3 and saying "hey, I got a high quality version of this song!"
During the encoding data will get lost and will get retreived back once rendered again.

Right?! I'm not entirely sure, so please, someone back me up

 

[Aaron Smith]

Right, I understand that by upscaling Jens' master from 16 to 24, there will be no quality gained... However, by downscaling my raw mix from 24 to 16, there will be quality lost, and my point is that it would be better to compare the two without any loss of quality, so it makes more sense to upscale Jens' and leave mine at 24. Does that make sense?

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

Yes, I think it makes more sense in upscaling Jens final master to 24bit since the added bits are adding nothing, so the sound should be intact where as if you downscale your mix to 16bit it will alter the sonics

 

[CAlexanderParra]

I'd say keep it 24bit raw vs 16bit mastered, since this is the case for all typical masters. Bit depth conversion for the mastered track is part of the comparison in my opinion.

 

[B36arin]

I agree. And really, with all the stuff going in in the 7H7E stuff I've heard so far, will the difference between 24 and 16 bits really make any difference that will affect our perception of Jens' mastering? I really doubt it.

 

[Aaron Smith]

Yes, I think it makes more sense in upscaling Jens final master to 24bit since the added bits are adding nothing, so the sound should be intact where as if you downscale your mix to 16bit it will alter the sonics

This is my thinking exactly.

I'd say keep it 24bit raw vs 16bit mastered, since this is the case for all typical masters. Bit depth conversion for the mastered track is part of the comparison in my opinion.

Okay, but then how are you going to load them both into the same DAW session in order to match the RMS level and switch back and forth quickly to make a useful comparison? I'm not aware of any DAW that lets you simultaneously have 16-bit files and 24-bit files loaded together in one session...

 

[B36arin]

Just upscale the one to 24 bit if you feel that the quality of your mix will suffer if you convert it to 16 bit.

 

[Aaron Smith]

You're right, my 24-bit mix might not even sound significantly different if I bump it down to 16, but there will be some kind of sonic difference, whereas bumping Jens' up to 24 should impart no sonic difference onto his file...so we might as well opt to go the route of creating no sonic differences. I don't really see where the confusion is, unless of course I'm just wrong in thinking that bringing a 16-bit file up to 24 will add nothing at all to the sound.

 

[B36arin]

Bringing the master up to 24 bits won't alter the sound at all, it will just be a bigger file to download. But I'm pretty sure that everyone on here has pretty decent internet, so that shouldn't be a problem I can't wait to hear it!

 

[CAlexanderParra]

Okay, but then how are you going to load them both into the same DAW session in order to match the RMS level and switch back and forth quickly to make a useful comparison? I'm not aware of any DAW that lets you simultaneously have 16-bit files and 24-bit files loaded together in one session...

Never thought about that. I'll have to test with other DAWs. When I load up wav files of different bit depth in Reaper both playback with no issue. But I'm guessing the 16-bit wav is being converted through the project default of 24-bit wav. So I'm hearing it upscaled automatically??

Upon further investigation, I can't tell between 16-bit audio and 24-bit audio, they even look exactly the same. I would figure it wouldn't really matter then whichever file was upscale or downscale to. Right?

 

[Aaron Smith]

It probably depends on how you set up the session in the first place- if you created a 16-bit session, it will downscale any 24-bit files you import; if you created a 24-bit session, it will upscale any 16-bit files you import.

There is a definite difference between 16-bit and 24-bit audio, but there are other dudes on the forum who could explain the mundane details far better than I could. Bottom line- people track, mix, and master at 24-bit, and the absolute last thing the mastering engineer will do is to downscale to 16-bits, in order to make the files playable via audio CD.

I'm just trying to set up the comparison so that it's as easy and accurate as possible for everyone who wants to partake.

 

[CAlexanderParra]

Gotcha, and totally understand now. Excuse my noobery, I can't wait to hear clips.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

You can have 16 and 24 bits files in a same session, on every DAW that I know. The problem is when you have 44,1 vs 48 kHz files. But bit depth is definitely not a problem. The best comparison is really to post your mix in 24 bits and the mastered version in 16. But as said, converting the 16 bits version to 24 will do nothing but make the file bigger. Unused bits will just remain empty and no change in the sound whatsoever will happen.

 

[Aaron Smith]

Wow, that's interesting. Glad I posted this all, because I just learned something new. So, I guess the entire point of choosing a bit depth when you create a session is only to tell the DAW what bit depth to record at? The idea of simultaneously playing back files with different depths in the same session seems crazy, but I do trust you on this. The more I think about it, it actually makes sense though, because (for example) with the EWQL Symphonic Orchestra instrument, you can buy the 16-bit and the 24-bit sound libraries...and a lot of people will compose it all in 16-bit, then bump up to 24-bit when they're ready to print the tracks. I guess if a session was very strict with bit-depth, then you wouldn't even be able to stream in something different like that.

So, I'll just leave both bit-depths intact!

 

[colynomial]

Anyone know what the sort of electro-rock tune is that comes in after the intro at about 10 seconds?

 

[Behindert]

colynomial: It's a band called Animasola

 

[colynomial]

Thanks Behindert!

This band is great man- love Swedish pop music. Mix is slammin too!