CDs are DEAD, produce music in 24 bit not 16 bit

[waterfall32]

does a sound card allow for a higher quality audio file when rendering or does it only make a difference when your using it for play back on systems?

[alakingjoe]

so what's better when uploading a video to youtube? a 16 bit audio or a 24 bit one?

[RaheemdaplayaO4]

I would agree with this until yesterday, I decided I would burn my old cds onto my laptop because I wanted them in lossless quality. And I know no other way of getting digital music in lossless quality so I still like CDs just for that.

[MrLiberty1972]

well, i'll change everything to 24 bit and see how it goes with cpu etc...I still like to make CDs of my finished tracks, so will it make no difference if i export audio at 24bit and then burn to CD? I'm assuming it will transfer with no problems, and just automatically do so at 16?

[PanCakeMixer101]

Hi I am a student in sound design.I wanna know what is 32bit float.

[ploki2120]

@PanCakeMixer101 It's not a fixed scale like 24bit at which every bit corresponds to a certain dBFS value. I.e.: the resolution of 24bit file at certain level is actually 16bit. 32bitfp is used for internal processing, so if you lower the level your relative resolution stays intact, but level lower. i.e., you lower a 24bit file it doesn't end up 16bit, it just get "shifted" down along the fp scaling. (Dumbed down version). It's rather complicated, but simple answer: 32bit only for processing.

[FrenkDublin]

What about the dj's using cd's to play them at shows! CD are not dead in the DJ world.. 

[ploki2120]

@FrenkDublin It's idiotic... Lossless audio takes up half the space, offers better quality, and the workflow is the same as for CD. Really makes no sense today. DJVespers is completely right.

Vinyl is *different* than CD, but CD is just an inferior digital medium, we have better now. We don't have better analog mediums than vinyls though. :) (Well tape, but we all know how much money and time that takes to service and maintain.)

[paraglidermx]

How come windows media player 11 wont play my 24 bit wav files from reaper it says codec error???Is there a better burning/media player for free that we can down load??? Thanks Tom ;-)

[techandrandom]

I'm a kid and I have an iPod but don't think CDs are dead because the highest downloads I've seen are 320kbps and that is nowhere near cd quality.

[jma111000]

I prefer 8 bit.

[TheCrogotti]

DONT PRODUCE IN 24BIT. one reason only, most ipods/other players do not read 24 bit properly. It is extremely easy to convert the 24bit track in iTunes to a "ACC version" track however if you plan on distributing your music to the masses this is a unnecessary annoyance, also converting 24bit to AAC provides worse quality then originally producing in 16bit. hope this helps. check out my House Saxophone remix of stereo hearts its epic, promise :)

[fragosomusic]

I completely agree with you. Plus if you're doing a production to be used in video commercials and videoclips, you will need 24bits. Or better its expected to use.

[TVperson1]

I'm not going to agree that CDs are dead as I do like how long they last, but I don't understand why people don't use 24-bit more often, it sounds better than vinyl.

[MistaMase102]

i think for hip hop, or similiar genres, it shouldnt reli matter if samples are only 16 bit, it makes it sound a little grittier!

[epicrichey]

Uh...Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't 24bit above the dynamic range of hearing (approx. 120db)? Educate me...if we sample up, how would we be able to hear any difference? Hmmm...Time for a test. Thanks for the vid...something I am going to be checking into.

[archieh70]

@epicrichey Start with this on youtube /watch?v=JLoFDi75N0A

The higher the number of bits, the lower the noise added to the signal when any digital signal processing (reverb, eq etc) is performed. DSP does lots of multiplications and divisions on the signal. If you multiply two 16 bit numbers, you get a 32 bit number. Truncating this to 16 bit introduces more noise than if the sample size for the audio was kept at 32 bits or reduced to 24 bit.

[epicrichey]

@archieh70 Sweet! Thanks for the heads up! When we speak of noise we are speaking of unwanted frequencies that fatigue the hearing of the listeners, right? So when we add effects we are manipulating the signal's purity so to speak, which is why it is necessary to bit-up. Sorry, if I sound like a 'tard...I am a newb to DSP.

[archieh70]

@epicrichey The noise is caused by continually truncating the bits from 32 bits back to 16 bits. That is, it's noise introduced by rounding the signal up or down to fit back into 16 bits.

Don't worry about asking the question - that's how you find things out! DSP requires at least 2 years of maths at University level before you can start to understand it (to do the Fourier and Z-plane analysis). For a good overview that won't melt your brain, you should read Mastering Audio by Bob Katz.

[TheSupaninja420]

Love your videos but completely disagree with you on this. People like me still still require CD's for many things like sending/receiving new content, ripping/burning CD's, DJing with CDJ's, promos/demos, sample packs, etc, etc, etc.

Though it is better to produce in 24bit I don't think CD's are dead at all. They're still one of the most convenient ways to give or receive demos to people. Mixtapes. And like I said DJing regularly on Pioneer CDJ's. I can't imagine life without CD's right now..

[KongOfficial]

You call yourself a dj, but you obviously don't know that much about it since you say cds are dead! Well yea, the high end dj gear supports sdcards and usb, but the fact is that many clubs still use gear that only support cds, maybe their dying, but they are far from dead since djs still use it. I use cds myself.

[theKOOLSKULL]

eh, who cares. its kind of irrelevant for me, seeing that i produce 8bit music. in the end, its better to use the best quality of anything that your studio is capable of. if you have the means to do everything in 24 bit, then by all means, do so, if not, its a moodpoint. listeners don't care, and you can still write some timeless music no matter what you got.

[172Break]

You should be using 32 bit internally for all projects as this is how the processor does the DSP calculations.

24 bits is an old format and was the maximum bit depth for linking digital equipment using spdif or aes/ebu connectors which is why it was used.

Today, everything should be kept at 32 bit internally to minimise noise caused by the numerical rounding which occurs during the audio processing.

A track should only be dithered down to 16-bit or 24-bit at the mastering stage.

[lifeisjust1shotaway]

"CDs are fucking dead"

I heard anger in that statement, haha.

Caught me off guard.

[DJMartijnKuilema]

You're probably quite right, but probably it is a little too early for most people.

[danyy1831]

yeh but what about sending your music of for mastering they like it in 16 bit =)

[jonnyweston]

Other than that I agree with most of what you have said! Very good video

[jonnyweston]

Hi there. Actually I am the UK product trainer and Product support engineer for Denon and for Marantz. I partially agree with what you are saying, but am extremely surprised that you did not address the fact that YES whilst software may support playback of 24/96 files- are you aware that most software "transcodes" down to 16/48. I.e. iTunes. It may be also worth noting that leading people to believe that iPods / iPads and iPhones having 24 bit playback is also incorrect. The DAC in appl

[jonnyweston]

Hey there,

[Rich7714]

Thanks for the upload! I'm trying to record SFX to use professionally in film productions and have been recording in 48 kHz, 24 bit. Does anyone know if this is correct and the industry standard or not? I can go up to 96 kHz on my Edirol R-09HR but I don't think there's the need to. Thank you

[devmiles]

Robert Henke gave a nice masterclass on this and showed that going 24 bit and up may also seriously fuck up your sound. Also when analysing your sounds with a spectral analyser you would see noise and you can even make this audible. There might be advantages but seriously and with all respect, most of the music we grew up with, hip hop, house whatever monumental groundbreaking pop michael jackson track were just recorded on tape via good analog equipment, no 24, 64 bit or completely smashed

[GalaxyMachine1]

Dman right!

[tweakiepop]

Will YouTube uploads be better with 24 bit? cheers

[Stratocastermark]

man, you are the bollocks... screw Ikea, use your old CDs as coasters, save a tree and vinyl....? that's for poofs, quite clearly...! Forget mixing with 24 bits - I've been mixing with a wooden spoon... sounds crap but tastes fab ;-)

[skorpi0wut]

No matter what advancements there are, people will always want physical copies of music. Vinyl's are far from dead, and I don't see why people think CD's are. If everything went digital, what would happen to album booklets?

[DJVespers]

@skorpi0wut If everything went digital, more trees would be alive and less fossil fuels would be burnt by shipping around breakable and inferior media that winds up in our landfills. That's what would happen.

[rawstarmusic]

@DJVespers CD's are so dead without anyone crying cause it's an incredible slow technique. A scratch somewhere and your album is dead too. Why make a song, "burn it to CD" which you never use? More important, how does artists get their albums sold when they are so available? That's the nightmare of it

[georgefall5]

@DJVespers And millions of people are put out of work only to be replaced by a computer and a server.

[himl994]

@DJVespers

I don't know about you, but I really enjoy going out to the store and buying the cd and holding it in my hands, when you download it, it's just like "ehh, one more song, whatever"

I encourage downloads, but some albums you just have to buy the physical copy.

[Zebra902]

@DJVespers And moonbeams will twinkle 'round your head, fairies will dance at your feet, and the trees sway to the lovely music of the wind......and my CDs will be a tangible object to pass down to my children.......just like the platters for my crank up Victrola. I certainly hope you don't own a car or use toilet paper!

[Neojhun]

Oh those who want to straight convert 24bit to 16bit with out remastering is awefull. It will cause many wierd issues with out alot of work. And not many consumer mp3 support 24bit, ipod and phones don't (Sep 2011).

[DJVespers]

@Neojhun Any decent audio program can easily dither 24 bit down to 16 bit. iTunes can. Oh and iTunes is capable of 24 bit playback BTW. It'll convert to 16 bit for your iPhone or iPod from what I understand. I meant this more for playback by DJs at shows though where audio quality is more important on larger systems. You don't want to produce to the lowest common denominator with your music if you're concerned about quality at all.

[fragosomusic]

@Neojhun Dither it! Solved

[Neojhun]

Dead is relative, hell vinyls are coming back because the "relativeness". It has all do with what is on offer. IN the entertainment market the best and greatest is always what people get or sell. Yes i have a 24bit 96Khz sysmtem which cost me many grands. But my portable music is still my phone. When mp3 is most people music. CD is far better quality. So CD just got a new lease on life.

[axlhm]

so what if 24 bit files are bigger than 100 mb...for quallity freaks like me who like flac and ape rips, it doesen't matter how much space it requires...it's the quallity that is important...listening to music with headphones on makes a difference...don't know how big...but it is a difference

[stripes5150]

Seriously, Pal, I don't see why everything doesn't go 96kHz and 64bit

[DJVespers]

@stripes5150 64 bit audio playback doesn't exist. And 96kHz captures frequencies beyond the range of human hearing. Not really relevant.

[ownageDan]

@DJVespers but what about dogs, they want to be entertained too! can't have them missing out on those sweet high frequencies ;)

[MrThoughtsfortoday]

@DJVespers 96kHz won't only get frequencies that are beyond human hearing, they will also catch more samples in the extremely high frequencies of human hearing, making them more detailed. A sample rate of 44.1 will only catch 3 samples in a cycle of a 16 Khz frequency

[172Break]

@stripes5150 The future is 1-bit encoding at 5.6MHz (or higher) sampling rate. This is the format which is appearing on the very high end digital mixers and editors. Like everything, it will move down the line eventually.

[stripes5150]

@172Break really? when will we be able to get that analog warmth? No matter the resolution, if you zoom in on the ADA sine waveform, it is has steps.

[172Break]

@stripes5150 What has analogue warmth got to do with this? You want to capture the signal as close to a continuous time signal as possible. 1 bit encoding at very high sample rates does this better than PCM. Quantization noise is much much lower and aliasing is not an issue in the audio spectrum.

If a signal is sampled properly and the A-D converter has a good interpolating filter, you shouldn't see any steps in the output for a sinewave. Ever wondered why Apogee are good?

[stripes5150]

@172Break analog warmth IS a continuous time signal.

[172Break]

@stripes5150 And your point is?

[stripes5150]

@172Break My point is, no matter the resolution they will never capture the same warmth as tape. I've even tried tape saturation simulator plug ins...nadda!....Do you think they will ever come close?

[172Break]

@stripes5150 Right - I now know where you are coming from! I'll send you a reply directly instead of filling up the comments here.

[stripes5150]

@172Break ok...thx



[DJVespers]

@GoingSolar Keep that up and I'm gonna call your mom and get her to wash your mouth out with soap ;) Feel free to comment mate, but dial down the haterade a bit. Keep it amicable around here. Cheers.

[P0cketfull0fsunshine]

Hey Vespers, I'm finding that exporting songs in 24 bit they are turning out to be huge files, like 100MB for a 8 minute song say. Is this normal? I know you say they take up more space but this seems excessive. Am I doing something wrong? Cheers

[DJVespers]

@P0cketfull0fsunshine They're a bit larger yes, but I find the improvement to be worth it. If your tune is being played on crap speakers or compressed or listened to by novices, then GoingSolar's comments are valid. However, the people who listen to my music are other producers, audiophile fans, mix and mastering engineers, and people who run record labels. When I'm playing my tunes in Ableton, on big systems, every bit of improvement helps.

[P0cketfull0fsunshine]

@DJVespers Yeah I agree. Seems like a massive waste of time to spend weeks perfecting a song, only to reduce the quality and lose a lot of the clarity on export. Thanks again for all your vids, I'm learning a huge amount and I take your advice seriously.

[shambles698]

@DJVespers Very true, I think people will notice a difference regardless of their involvement/interest in music. Play 2 or 3 tracks at 24 bit then switch back to 16. I would like to think most people would notice the difference. Goingsolar don't call people retards, people like vespers don't have to upload these vids they do it to share the love :-)

[heartlessjamesxo]

amen, brother........well said.

[86Ivar]

24 bit is 256 times better than 16 bit, but 16 bit is still a very very high bit depth.

The sample rate has much much more impact on music quality.

google for "mother of tone The CD Format" wich is a good explaining article

Anyway 24 bit can make more dynamics. :)

[DJVespers]

@86Ivar Math aside, the industry has made a choice to release sample packs at 44.1 24 bit for a very good reason. Thoughts on why that might be? If you think that 192 khz sounds better, then by all means go ahead and release your music in that format. Less than .02% of the population will be able to listen to it though. Just a heads up.

[86Ivar]

@DJVespers my 16/44100 dac is based on a cheap phillips tda1545a chip from 1993 (search it), used in consumer audio. it has the opportunity to go to 192khz. So why do i have it configured as 44,1 khz? cause some smart ass studio guys dont make higher sample rates, and upsampling does not add anything but noise.

[DJVespers]

@86Ivar You know a lot more about audio than an average listener. When I write music I cater it to deliver the best possible sound quality for the equipment and skills of the end user to listen to it. Besides, even if we wanted to produce at higher sample rates than 44.1, it's very rare to find samples in rates higher than that. As producers we rely heavily on pre-recorded sounds.

[liquidsord23]

Ipods only can play back 16@48k max and upsampling in not true 24bit depth it adds an algorithum to make the 16bit think it is 24bit.

[finsoto]

"Cds are Fking DEAD!" LOL!!

[mozthe3rd]

so helpful, thank you x

[Tainted126]

How and where can I get known songs in 24 bit sorry all new to this.

[ilovegibsons1]

electronics take the soul out of it...for me at least

[iammarkjess3]

8 bit rule!!!!!!!!!

[Mendel1788]

At 0:28 I was like wow, didn't knew he would/could say the F word :D

[etcher111]

I know this is a highly debated subject, but here is an interesting article discussing another view point.

head-fi.org/forum/thread/41536­1/24bit-vs-16bit-the-myth-expl­oded

Essentiallly I think what the author is saying is to produce and mix with 24 bit, but export to 16 bit because with exporting to 24 bit all you are doing is increasing the dynamic range of the noise floor.

[SRangelDE]

I have to disagree with you on this one - I think CDs make fine coasters!

[DJVespers]

@SRangelDE LOL. To each his own ;)

[foreverGraceby]

I think ton of people I know

Do not know why you mix/master a

Song so trying to explain this

And can't figure out what to say

I know mix is shaping your mix

So every thing works together

but mastering so can you plz do

a video or send message am working

On learning how to be sound engineer

[DJVespers]

@foreverGraceby For sure, just did a video on mastering. Also check out my Ozone ones. Cheers!

[DJVespers]

@TiMasTV I'm not sure if Beatport even allows 24 bit .wavs. I think they're only 16 bit, so I'm sure you're fine. I'm talking about 24 bit mainly for your own use in Live for performance, rather than CDs.

[DJVespers]

@MrTrollski LOL. I was waiting for someone to pick up on that.  Exporting a project that a friend created so I can edit the .wav files in Live.

[THEREALtrappajohn]

Great info. I subbed

[myfaceispurple]

@TiMasTV he could convert it himself, and i think you can make a CD a file CD for the CDJs anyways....so they can actually access the files on there instead of just the audio if that makes any sense at all......the short answer is yes, dont worry about it

[PaulSuedeTwin]

good vid.. i'm pro CD however, i prefer the tangible side of what i buy, but i cannot live without my ipod, the device is a blessing, however anytime i export a song from ableton in 24bit it won't play on my ipod, on itunes yes, but not the ipod,any ideas mate?

[keyportaccess]

First of all Thank you for your videos , They are really cool and informative.

I have a question:

Can the human ear listen the difference between both 16 and24 bits?

And you export to mp3 24 bits or another compression?

[lordtoranaga]

ipod does not support 24bit.  at least the two i have do not

[foreverGraceby]

Cd come in wav but if you buy off iTunes it no longer a wav file so it compress and loses

quality to make space on peoples iPod to buy more songs

[UrpleEeple]

I would agree with you from the perspective of live performance, but I think there's a number of issues with sharing music that is 24 bit depth on a variety of streaming sites. For instance: Soundcloud's transcoder is awful, and it even has issues transcoding 16bit wavs. A lot of streaming programs like soundcloud stream in mp3, so It's useful to convert tracks to mp3 prior to uploading the tracks for maximum streaming quality.

[DJVespers]

@Funkmastabuzz Hey mate. If you care about sound quality, never use mp3s. Like ever. Unless you're only playing music for non-producers on home systems. As soon as you get on a big system, you can hear it. Brittle as fuck. Converting a .mp3 to a .wav is pointless as the quality has already been lost. Basically an mp3 removed audio data from the .wav to compress it. It's supposed to be "inaudible" at higher bitrates, but IMO you can hear it on big systems. Cheers!

[Funkmastabuzz]

@DJVespers Thanks for the reply thats what i thought I dont use it was just I only had an .mp3 could not find a .wav of a song I wanted a Small sample from just wondered if it was worth converting it to .wav or would that in fact make it worse

Cheers

[remi2611]

cd are fuckin dead : best call ever

[soulgoodmusictube]

Thx again

[DanielGrozier]

good one vespers,thanks mate

[tziirkq]

CDs always sucked.

[helpmetony]

great video. thanks DJV!

[curtisstearn]

"CD's are fucking dead!" favorite quote from Vespers ive ever heard!

[mobin11]

you said a bad word! it's okay that shows that cds blow

[sketchyj]

To demonstrate the difference in quality I would say listen to a track like Sheep Crusher (zimo remix) as it sounds on Soundcloud and then listen to it as you hear it reuploaded to youtube by someone else. The difference in quality is dramatic.

[djbarxxx1000]

nice, but what's with mp3?

its the badest shit ever, and in comparison with mp3, cds (in WAV) are way better...1411kbit/sec

[DJVespers]

@djbarxxx1000 Oh, for the love of god, please never use mp3s in your production...EVER. mp3s are compressed files where bits of audio has been removed. Even at 320 kbps they're still shite. They're okay for consumer use on iPods and stuff like that, but I'd never want to produce with them or play them at a gig if I had a choice to use a .wav file.

[djbarxxx1000]

@DJVespers that was what i meant :)

but you mean this download stuff of digital music is better than cds.. i cant agree with that, cause the chance, thatt you get a wav in the internet is small..

[TranceForTheFuture]

Like Vespers said; CD:s are fucking dead anyway.

[canecreek00]

The Source quality rule: Always start out with the highest resolution source and maintain that resolution for as long as possible into the processing "Bob Katz"

[DJVespers]

@canecreek00 I suppose, but within reason. If you had a 32 bit, 196k file it would take WAY more space on your hard drive and would not be perceptibly better than a 24 bit, 44.1k file. I do agree with the garbage in garbage out philosophy though, just not extreme sample rates.

[ColdAsBalls]

are there any 24bit sample packs the you use/recommend?

also, is there any place in the ableton preferences to set the 24bit depth for the session? i only see a bit rate in the record area? is this right?

thanks for the insight

[DJVespers]

@ColdAsBalls Check out samples by Voltage Disciple and Wave Alchemy. As for the session, you're correct, the record area is where you do it. That governs all recording, consolidation, and resampling in the session.

[TheExplodingBit]

I agree 100% that CDs are essentially obsolete. However, I didn't know iPods worked at 24bit now. I thought that iTunes, though able to work at higher word length, converted the files on the iPod to 16bit when synced...using inferior dither or interpolation. I could be wrong.

[DJVespers]

@TheExplodingBit Hmmmm, you could be right. I know iTunes can for sure, but I forgot about their damn conversions. Have you found any research on this?

[TheExplodingBit]

@DJVespers This information seems scarce. Apple doesn't mention it directly in it's spec. However, various results from Arstechnica, Stereophile Magazine, Gearslutz and a few others indeed say that iPods cannot natively play 24bit PCM files. I'm not sure if this is a limitation of the DAC or the firmware. Some sites went as far as saying it simply truncates the LSBs, with no dither. One theory is that you can playback 24bit files encoded as Apple Lossless. I'm not sure how true that is though.

[hershism]

Good stuff, I'm def gonna start doing this!

[AeonFlexMusic]

thank you vesp!

[urilycon]

Goos stuff Vespers

[xGUNNERBASSx]

i agree with your statements, though CD's and CDJ's are going to be around for a long LOOOOONG time. one thing to note in your video is that changing the "Record" bit depth in Ableton only effects files that are consolidated, re-sampled, or recorded within that set. Existing files remain the same bit depth/sample rate until exported. Also Ableton basically admits that their sample rate conversion sucks and recommends using third party software when quality is of importance.

[DJVespers]

@xGUNNERBASSx Can't say I agree about the CDs thing. CJDs perhaps, because all new CDJs come with direct USB ports for thumb drives. As for the record bit depth comment, very true, which is why I mentioned using 24 bit sample packs. Keep in mind though, sample rate is not bit depth, two very different things. I don't recommend upsampling beyond 44.1 k in most cases.

[xGUNNERBASSx]

@DJVespers I haven't seen one DJ yet using the thumb drives tbh, even if they're there. I think it's a comfort/trust thing for many 'pros'. They know A) What song/songs are on the CD that they've usually marked by hand, and B) if ONE CD is scratched, the show goes on. If a USB drive goes bad, they'd better have a backup. I DJ using Ableton and an APC40 btw. Thinking of switching =) CDJ envy? Ableton does recommend that both sample rate and bit depth are identical for every file in your set

[DJVespers]

@xGUNNERBASSx Difference of preference I suppose. Last time I used a CDJ was before I got Ableton. So limiting. Anyways, using samples of different bit depths in a set doesn't matter. Higher bit depths just add zeros. Sample rates are another story. If you upsample in realtime in Live, it'll bite you. Cheers!

[xGUNNERBASSx]

@DJVespers agreed on all fronts. i like to refer to the sound of realtime upsampling in Ableton as 'metal shards' in your high end. since we're on the topic, if you DJ using realtime effects in Live (and 3rd party plugs) do you set your sample rate based on the source material? In other words, lets say your DJ set consists of wav files @ 44.1k. Your sound card maxes out @ 96k. CPU performance aside, would you set your card to the highest rate possible, or do you try match the source material?

[DJVespers]

@xGUNNERBASSx Always match your sample rate of your source material. You don't want Live doing any sample rate conversion on the fly for you. Typically everything I have is in 44.1k.

[davidgtr]

Thank you this is really helpful!

[DJVespers]

@davidgtr Thanks for watching! 

[richguy77]

LMFAOOOOO!!! "I don't even use them as coasters" (Y)

nice vid. thanks. learned something.

[DJVespers]

@richguy77 ;) Perhaps I'll make them into throwing stars.

[CamJvideo]

u mad bro?

[DJVespers]

@CamJvideo ?

[Bootstrap193]

i like the way you talk about cds with such disgust haha

[DJVespers]

@Bootstrap193 :P I have no patience for stupid formats. I always hated CDs because of how delicate they are. Skip skip skip skip skip.  Booooo.

[eArtrash]

Hey Vespers, great info! Jump on Skype when you get a chance please dude.

[DJVespers]

@eArtrash Will do bro. Cheers!

[Xo1ot1]

I'm looking forward to the vid on soundcards. I just recently had a discussion with friends about standalone DACs vs soundcards and they told me that a good DAC is basically all you need and the soundcard doesn't really matter. My guess is that this might be true for the more expensive DACs, but at a price range of around 100 surely soundcards can compete. What do you think?

[DJVespers]

@Xo1ot1 DAC only gets audio out, you'd need an ADC to record ;) Also, pre-amps, MIDI ins and outs. I feel soundcards are great bang for the buck.

[1ino1eum]

What about the djs that are going to play your tracks in clubs, using CDJs?

[DJVespers]

@1ino1eum When burnt to disc they'd have to be 16 bit, for sure.

[fatalist6o9]

Is it ok to use 32 bit?

[DJVespers]

@fatalist6o9 Good question. 32 bit is pretty much unnecessary unless you're recording and expect to clip the signal. Check out the Tweakheadz article by Googling 16 bit vs 24 bit. Cheers!

[DJVespers]

@fatalist6o9 Not necessary. The only reason you'd want to use 32 bit is if you're recording and you expect to use the extra 8 bits to absorb a signal that could clip the inputs. My mastering engineer produces everything in 24 bit, 44.1 k himself and he knows way more about audio than I do.

[86Ivar]

@DJVespers 16 bit 192000khz would be like many times better than 24 bit 44100, wich is very close to cd quality.

Sample rate is what counts.

[DJVespers]

@86Ivar With respect, that's just not true. If it were you'd see many sample pack companies releasing their stuff in those sample rates. If you look out there in the industry, you'll see everything is 24 bit, 44.1 k. A lot of consumer grade D/A converters are not even capable of playing 96k let alone 192k.

[BillyBatsonMarvel]

@fatalist6o9 lol u guys are soooo yesterday, I use 64 bit!

Hell even windows 7 is 64 bit.

Personally I've been a 64 bit'er since the 90's playing my Nintendo 64.

lmao 24 bit that is so DEAD! like cassette tape dead.

[fatalist6o9]

@BillyBatsonMarvel My music software doesn't have a 64 bit setting. I have never seen 64 bit audio. I think you might be mixing up your processor and graphic bits with your audio bits. I'm sure the highest for digital audio is 32 bit. Most audio hardware that I've seen uses 24 bit and the highest I've seen on music software is 32 bit. If I am wrong, feel free to correct me and explain!

[BillyBatsonMarvel]

@fatalist6o9 I have been mixing 64 bit in Sonar since version 5.

[CaptainFunkyJoce]

@BillyBatsonMarvel Fake ? Tell me ure joking.

[bayou12]

So, my questions is this: I do vocal and piano classes and I put lessons on CD. Would I still use 24 bit for the bounce on the CDs? Love :30 secs to :40 secs... Made me laugh..

[DJVespers]

@bayou12 If you have to burn to CDs and you're not concerned with future proofing your music then I wouldn't bother with 24 bit. Cheers!

[bayou12]

Thanks for the knowledge... I have been recording in 24 bit and bouncing down to 16 bit.

[DJVespers]

@bayou12 Ah, good video for you to watch then :) Enjoy the increased audio quality by processing and rendering in 24 bit!