Old 03-18-2021, 12:30 PM   #1
oceanographer
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Default Working with 192kHz sample rate

I've recently put a Steinberg UR22C to work in the studio. It's my first interface that can run up to 192kHz. I've read a few articles, but what's the Reaper consensus? Other than disk/CPU usage, are there any real reasons I should stick with 96kHz rather than going to the max?
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Old 03-18-2021, 02:50 PM   #2
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Just have a try and monitor your hard disk usage.
You should be surprised! File managing is a chore with 192khz.
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Old 03-19-2021, 10:30 AM   #3
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The only time I've found it useful is when digitizing old reel-to-reel tapes recorded at 30 ips, using a machine that can only do 15 ips, then using Cooledit to rewrite the file at 96k (thus correcting the speed).

Note that some interfaces have significantly worse noise floor at high sample rates.
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Old 03-21-2021, 07:56 AM   #4
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Default hey i have the same interface

so its actually 32bit at 196

can anyone hear the difference between 24 and 32 yet?

seems great for the price
no noise,..good noise floor,..i dont even push the pre amp past 50%
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Old 03-21-2021, 08:37 AM   #5
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There may be a case for 192 in classical and perhaps some jazz, but other than that I would never use it for regular song mixing
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Old 03-21-2021, 08:59 AM   #6
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Originally Posted by oceanographer View Post
I've recently put a Steinberg UR22C to work in the studio. It's my first interface that can run up to 192kHz. I've read a few articles, but what's the Reaper consensus? Other than disk/CPU usage, are there any real reasons I should stick with 96kHz rather than going to the max?
96k (or 88.2k) pushes the sample rate frequency very far away from the audio band to begin with. This is the aim of HD sample rates BTW. The comments that talk about preserving data above the range of hearing and then shoot that down as silly are strawman arguments. This is all around making a wide margin for the audio band and avoiding the need for a difficult low pass filter right next to the audio band.

If you get more expensive AD and DA converters, their SD performance will pretty much match the HD performance.

Right, so 192k?
Allegedly there are some plugins that perform better (purely for math/processing reasons) at extreme HD. I don't know if anyone has a convincing example of that.

I can tell you that 96k (24 bit goes without saying) can contain audio to the highest level with zero loss no matter how that audio was created and no matter what generational mutilation it may have been subjected to before. (I mention generational because this is how some of the weird edge cases come about.)

I tested it myself a long time ago with the SOX converter. If you're looking to see barely perceptible damage, run 100 iterations of something to really exaggerate it. Following that, I made 100 lossy sample rate conversions with a piece of audio recorded at 192k originally. 100 iterations of back and forth between 192k and 96k. You've seen this kind of experiment with uploading over and over to youtube. Converting audio between 44.1k and 48k will snowball into loss and artifacts if you do this.

The first conversion to 96k and then back to 192k nulled down to over -90db. Nothing audible in an A/B. Silence even at dangerous monitor levels. Just that little wiggle on the bottom of the meter. This first lossy 192k resample nulled with number 100. After the initial loss of some decimal dust on the first downsample/upsample, the results were bit for bit identical after 100 rounds of conversion back and forth.

That tells me that 96k contains audio completely no matter what is in that audio. This digital container is literally perfect.

There's an aside of sound manipulation where people are pitching extreme HD audio down to put the harmonics/data above the range of hearing into focus. This is a very different thing.

As mentioned, the issue with budget converters running at SD sample rates is already a kind of snobby 5% conversation! Anyway, have fun with that!
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Old 03-21-2021, 10:46 AM   #7
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That's really useful, serr. This approaches the subject slightly differently but seems reliable I think and the null tests are really interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs1On87Ixe4
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Old 04-15-2021, 08:16 AM   #8
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…unless you know anyone who can hear up 48k.
The point of higher sampling rate is exactly not to hear up to 48 kHz.
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Old 04-15-2021, 08:40 AM   #9
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He means that the point of the extended data margin is not there to capture data above the audio band. It is a wide margin between the audio data and the sampling frequency to avoid a difficult low pass filter circuit.

Any artifact above the range of hearing (ie above 20kHz) preserved is a moot point. The point is we can't hear or perceive these frequencies above 20kHz and thus it's just fine to leave some garbage in those margins. We build a better machine using HD sample rates. We're still only using it for the audio band.
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Old 04-15-2021, 12:23 PM   #10
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I use 48khz. Gives me all the channels of my ADAT and a smoother filter right up top.

Sounds great to me.

Older plugins which don't use oversampling will benefit higher rates (especially old harmonic saturators or virtual synths) but nowadays they're pretty much all designed to fix any aliasing going on with internal oversampling.
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Old 04-15-2021, 12:58 PM   #11
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I don't even know what that means. Are you sure you do?

Doesn't matter. Don't bother explaining, because it comes down to this: Can you hear the difference between 44, 48, and 96. No matter what anyone says, we all know that you can't. (I mean the collective "you". Not singling anyone out, because this absolutely applies to everyone).

So, since we all know that nobody can hear the difference, all the rest of the mumbo-jumbo that people will use to make themselves sound intelligent is completely irrelevant.

But hey man, if you want to use an un-necessarily high sample rate, go ahead. But it's not going to make any good difference. I'll stick to my 44 Khz.
When you are wrong about something on a fundamental level, and you respond to someone who seems to understand what they are talking about, "I don't understand what that means, don't bother explaining" isn't the best look.
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Old 04-15-2021, 02:00 PM   #12
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He means that the point of the extended data margin is not there to capture data above the audio band. It is a wide margin between the audio data and the sampling frequency to avoid a difficult low pass filter circuit.
Which is why THE authority on this subject thinks something like 60khz would be optimal

The difference in aliasing artifacts from things like compressors is another matter, but it needn't in any way be tied to the recording rate
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Old 04-16-2021, 02:55 AM   #13
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Why? Just why do people always feel that urge to work at sample rates above 48KHz?

The PresentDayProduction video linked above is great.

Here another one by SonicScoop whose every word I share:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DJMj_v-i0Y

Also Dan Worrall made one a while back IIRC.

So no need to take my "nobody"-word for it. The advantage of high sample rates for regular music production is so often debunked! You might not really care that much about the CPU/disk waste but ask yourself a different question.. what do you gain that makes even the slightest waste worthwhile??

Sure, aliasing caused by distortion FX can be better taken care of with high sample rates, but usually plugins that benefit from working at higher sample rates have an oversampling option!

I actually have the opposite problem! I have a strong aversion to working at high sample rates, but am one of the niche cases where it would be well worth a consideration. I do sounddesign and very often pitch sounds very low by lowering the speed. As I have many recordings at "low" sample rates to save disk space and work at "low" sample rates to save CPU I often end beating myself up when I have to find a way to compensate for the high frequency loss when pitching down. And I should really consider doing all my recordings for sounddesign purposes at 96KHZ or even 192KHz.

But that is really the only reason where there is any justifiable benefit of working with files at higher sample rates. And most people (especially those who ask the question) just record music and don't mangle sounds in such ways. Other than for that purpose, in my opinion with high sample rates we enter audiophile territory (with the exception of oversampling INSIDE plugins which has actual, perceptible benefits).
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Old 04-16-2021, 03:34 AM   #14
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I do not see or hear any difference reproducing audio at anything significantly above the nyquist frequency.

I do understand there can be reasons for doing so such as to reduce aliasing effects during processing (if not handled by the process) and allowing the anti alias filter to have a less steep curve. Both can be problematic but not necessarily so.

Higher sample rate eases the design of the pre digitising filters. The analogue Anti A filters usually cause phase issues but as the human ear is not frequency related phase sensitive then that is not really a problem.....unless the same signal is passed through two filter with different characteristics and then recombined (mixed) at a later stage when out of phase components might be an issue. That might occur if the same audio is recorded via two different interfaces i.e. with different filter characteristics or at different sample rates. Different mic charactetistics and slightly different positions will probably be more of an issue.

Like intermodulation distortion when analogue overloads occurr, aliasing problems are nasty to our ears. If a digital signal is put through similar non linear processing, unless handled/reduced by, for example, the compression algorithm, there can be aliased products within the audio band. For any given processing a higher sample rate reduces the impact of the aliased products. When not handled by the algorithm filtering can take care of that.

I believe that is a good reason to process digitally above the lowest Nyquist frequency and it therefore helps if the recording is done at that same sample rate. For most work I accept 48kHz to be adequate optimising reduction of the above potential problems versus increased workload (and costs) of higher sample rates. Where costs and workload are not a problem and the highest possible quality is the main or only goal then very high rates come into their own during processing.

Consider though if your audio content has no significant level of high frequencies, does not contain sharp transients, the mic cannot detect them or you always apply top cut (as is sometimes recommended) then you probably will not have any problem! For example if your highest frequency is 15kHz, the Nyquist freq is 30kHz and even 44.1 kHz is well above that.

Anybody wanting a 'lightweight' mathematical insight there is lots on the web just goggle "alias sample rate digital nonlinearity"...........zzzzzzzz

Last edited by Allybye; 04-16-2021 at 03:41 AM. Reason: minor corrections
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Old 04-17-2021, 12:13 PM   #15
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Other than for that purpose, in my opinion with high sample rates we enter audiophile territory (with the exception of oversampling INSIDE plugins which has actual, perceptible benefits).
Mass amount of sample rate conversions all over a mix isn't free though, fidelity wise. Some people have decent arguments for avoiding it.
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Old 04-18-2021, 01:26 AM   #16
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Originally Posted by Philbo King View Post
The only time I've found it useful is when digitizing old reel-to-reel tapes recorded at 30 ips, using a machine that can only do 15 ips, then using Cooledit to rewrite the file at 96k (thus correcting the speed).

Note that some interfaces have significantly worse noise floor at high sample rates.
Now that's a neat idea! Why didn't I think of that

I use 48 kHz. Just because 48 is standard with video and thus standard for anything on the net.

I use 192 for recording animals that can go up to 125 kHz. 192 is still not high enough, but that's as high as the RME FF400 can go.

I've never found any advantage in higher sample rates for music, but I can see some advantage for some plugins.
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Old 04-18-2021, 02:33 AM   #17
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I use 192 for recording animals that can go up to 125 kHz. 192 is still not high enough, but that's as high as the RME FF400 can go.
Interesting!
Do you do that for a living?
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Old 04-18-2021, 04:21 AM   #18
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Interesting!
Do you do that for a living?
Of course not

I just happen to have two groups of friends, chefs and biologists. I help out the last ones from time to time. It's interesting, from a tech standpoint, at least. I'm also good at finding spots to record some animal sounds, because I've been collecting fungi most of my life.
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Old 04-18-2021, 04:26 AM   #19
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Great! I wish I could capture the murmurs of the fungi and make a song!
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Old 04-18-2021, 05:27 AM   #20
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Great! I wish I could capture the murmurs of the fungi and make a song!
Some fungi move around, some kill their prey and eat meat, some make noise, some are the phone system of tress and other plants. The biggest organism on earth is a fungus.

I've never recorded fungi though.

Now you have me going!
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Old 04-23-2021, 04:42 AM   #21
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192k would be really useful for those who works with samples and like to really pitch/slow down the sample.
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Old 04-23-2021, 12:16 PM   #22
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Just some thoughts: If you don't mind the storage space of the tracks (you can always peak normalize from 32-bit floating-point and use FLAC to compress and store the 24-bit 192kHz original tracks, or use WAVPack to losslessly compress and store 32 floating-point files for extreme over-kill) then go ahead and record at the highest sample rate you can, then back up those tracks just in case there's ever a need for them later (for example, audio design and warping effects might benefit from a higher sample rate depending on what you are doing).

However, when it comes to the mix I would definitely downsample all tracks to 48kHz BEFORE mixing using SSRC (dBPoweramp uses SSRC for sample rate conversion, can peak normalize among other things, and will use up to 64 cores for mass file conversion as long as your hard drive can handle the throughput). The extra CPU of processing everything at 192kHz with today's tech just doesn't seem worth it, and in some cases might actually sound worse depending on plugin design. Of course, some plugins (some reverbs maybe?) might actually sound better/smoother/etc. processing at high sample rates, then downsampling for final delivery.

At the end of the day, it feels like high sample rates are almost always for marketing purposes. So, if for example, you wanted to release a "high resolution" mix and mastered version, with Reaper you should generally just be able to open the project file, substitute in the high-rez files, change the project sample rate, and re-render with all the same plugins and settings. There may be some differences though with certain things like distortion plugins such as FabFilter's Saturn.

Also, don't forget that the school of thought regarding recording in multiples of the final sample rate (so 88.2kHz or 176.4kHz) really doesn't matter with modern sample-rate conversion, so if for example, you are using SSRC to go from 48kHz to 44.1kHz it won't be an issue. I will say that mixing and processing at 48kHz vs 44.1kHz does often, at least to my ears, sound "better" than doing everything at 44.1kHz. I've never does a blind A/B or null test though so it's totally possible it's the placebo effect at work.

Last edited by Lynx_TWO; 04-23-2021 at 12:24 PM. Reason: Spelling, clarification
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Old 04-23-2021, 11:46 PM   #23
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Some fungi move around, some kill their prey and eat meat, some make noise, some are the phone system of tress and other plants. The biggest organism on earth is a fungus.

I've never recorded fungi though.
You should! He sounds like he's a fun guy!
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Old 04-24-2021, 02:33 AM   #24
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You should! He sounds like he's a fun guy!
Next time I get to Tibet, I'll have a go. Shouldn't be too hard, provided you can find him
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