Sample Rates and Big Projects

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local12
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Sample Rates and Big Projects

Post by local12 » Sun Nov 06, 2016 10:09 am

My group is about to lay down a dozen tunes over several weeks in our basic home studio in Auria on my ipad air2. We plan to then take the raw tracks out for mixing by someone who knows what the hell he or she is doing. We'll mic everything individually one at a time with decent mics - probably 12-16 tracks.

My question is what sample and bit rates should I use? Generally, the bigger the number, the better, right? But, what are the downsides? I don't want to spend all those hours and wind up with something that crashes all the time, etc. Any advice anyone?

Thank you.

Bill
Local 12

Strizbiz
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Re: Sample Rates and Big Projects

Post by Strizbiz » Mon Nov 07, 2016 12:56 pm

You should be good, I use an IPad Air2, most of the time if I plan on keeping a song on my iPad and not exporting to Logic Pro X, I'll just use 44.1k , but for songs I want to mix in Logic, I'll go with 96k. Another reason I'll go with 44.1k is if I'm using Audiobus or iaa with third party apps, I've had issues with apps not working with 96k via Audiobus or iaa. I recently did a 96 k project with 12 audio and 1 midi track. I used the built in pop eq on a few tracks, some gate on a few, and on the master I used pro Q and old timer, and some reverb on an aux track, and my cup meter is around 40, with no tracks frozen. I used an apogee mic 96k on the guitars, bass and vocals, and an apogee Duet for iOS on some keyboard tracks.
If you're planning on recording all audio and not a lot of midi instruments I think you'd be in good shape.
Of course your session is going to be bigger using 96k so hopefully you have space, mines is 128 gigs, as far as what SHOULD you use? That might be opening a can of worms as you'll get a lot of opinions as to why one is better or not better than the other. I went from using an Avid fast track duo to the Apogee Duet and my stuff sounds soooooo much better, but it has a lot to do with the actual converters. I suggest trying a song at 96k and if you don't have issues then keep going.

* ( sorry, had to edit what I said earlier, Lol, I meant I use 44.1k if I keep it on the iPad )
IPad Air 2 128 gb Apogee Duet Ipad/Mac

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richardyot
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Re: Sample Rates and Big Projects

Post by richardyot » Tue Nov 08, 2016 4:24 am

You're not going to get any audible benefits from using a higher sample rate, stick with 44.1. There is no reason to use 96k, other than wasting disk space and resources.

You will get some benefit from using a higher bit rate, but luckily Auria defaults to 24bit so you don't have to do anything special there. Recording at 24bit means you will have a lower noise floor, which in turn makes it easier to record quiet signals without adding too much noise - this can be useful when using budget interfaces and pre-amps because it means you don't have to turn the gain up as much (thereby introducing less noise from the pre-amp).

With digital recording you have a lot more headroom than with analog, especially when recording at 24 bit, so the key thing is to ensure your levels peak at around -18db (which means they will be comparatively quiet). You can always boost particularly quiet signals later with some additional gain, but the key is to minimise noise when recording: by recording more quietly you will get less noise from microphones, pre-amps, electric guitars etc...

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