Reducing the Bit Depth of your Sampler - Is it Possible? Analysis with the Ensoniq EPS

Using the Ensoniq EPS, without any plugins or effects, we'll see if it's possible to reduce the bit depth of a sampler or digital audio recorders native bit resolution.


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Bit Depth Basic Definition:

In digital audio, bit depth describes the number of bits of information recorded for each sample. Bit depth directly corresponds to the resolution of each sample in a set of digital audio data. Common examples of bit depth include CD quality audio, which is recorded at 16 bits, and DVD-Audio, which can support up to 24-bit audio.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• digital
• audio
• recorder
• sample
• rate
• bit
• sampler
• eps
• ensoniq
• rackmount
• vynil
• led
• zepplin
• 8bit
• asr
• 10

[staedtler23]

1 bit recorder : Korg MR 1000

1-bit / 5.6 MHz sample rate

[TheDaydreamSound]

@staedtler23 Hey what's up man! You almost scared me for a second lol.

The Korg MR 1000 is a Direct Stream Digital recorder. It quantizes by streaming in 1 bit increments. The DSD format digitizes audio differently than PCM. The MR 1000 also records in PCM but it's lowest PCM bit depth is 16bit with a sample rate of 44.1K.

The average high resolution PCM recorder will have a sample rate of 24Bit at 96khz sample rate. The MR 1000 has a sample rate of 5644.8khz. almost 60 times more.

[nuemerik]

To get my ish grimey I just do the old sp1200 trick. Record at 45 instead of 33 and then pitch down in the machine to reduce the kilohertz. Thanks for your tip, it should come in handy. I've always wondered if there was a sampler that had adjustable bit rates, but still haven't found one.

[TheDaydreamSound]

@nuemerik What's up man! Hope everythings good! The sped up record trick is great. The ASR X and the Pro have a bit reduction function on them.

Peace,

TDS

[MissingLinkMIDI]

Great explanation and video! I'd love to see a follow-up on how normalizing the sample affects signal-to-noise ratio.

[TheDaydreamSound]

@MissingLinkMIDI Thanks man!

[PHAEDRIDER]

thanks so much , i have an eps, and this is going to open it up a little for me !

[wholearmorrecordings]

This was the best description of sample rate and bit depth I have found on the internet. Great job brah! I don't think you proved your point though. I think way the sample sound lower bit is because the sampler was sampling artifacts from the record.

[sjukgymnast]

@nuemerik the akai s2000. It does only sample in 16 bit, but you can resample to 8 bit, i tell you its a good machine with killer sound!

[sweeterthananything]

it seems the problem is you had so much more hiss/hum once you normalized them and that is overwhelming any theoretical difference in the bit depth. very cool experiment though. i had the akai S612 for a while and i ended up giving it away because it was just not very useful, especially without the disk drive. maybe one day i'll get a mirage. the best vintage sampler i've used was a sequential prophet 2002 - 12 bit with gorgeous filters.

[nuemerik]

@octohelpme thanks man, I'm curious to hear the sound difference. I still got my eye on the look out for an older rack mount or desktop sampler. Maybe the EPS rack, Akai s612, casio rz1 or a roland ms1. Garage sale season is coming up too so maybe I can snag a sk1 or sk5... wishful thinking!

[octohelpme]

@nuemerik word, i would actually like to clarify though that it doesn't "actually" convert the bit depth of the sample. the sample will still be the same size, & will be composed of the same information... if you look into it, there's a forum post out there that has a lot of information on this--- one guy posted a site that has examples of a sample recorded with an mpc & converted, which he contrasted with the same sample recorded through an s950 at varying sample rates. really cool.

[THETRUTH529]

your as lame as ur big ass football head.. ur straight wack.. ur a poor excuse of a human being..

[neopandorex2]

it will work... but the noise floor is closer when u record signals very low amplitudewise... so what sum gritt lovin noob may think is related to bitrate, might rather be related to noise... (partly)

but great tut anyhow :) been doing that for a long time and its always a great help to c someone actually putting it into application building from theory and stuff.. subscribed!

[nuemerik]

@octohelpme that's funny that you bring that up. My friend just gave me a MPC1k with a paid for jjos1. When I was going thru the trim menus last week I came across the ability to change bit rate and sample rate. I was one happy camper! Thanks for the heads up tho cuz I'm sure other cats would like to know this info too, Kinda ironic that after I asked the question I found out a few days later :P