The 16 bit wonder

dav nagle

A very good engineer once tols me he records everything in 16 bit and 44.1 but anyhow since I wanted to look at bit rates again I found this little peach of an article..

http://www.tweakheadz.com/16_vs_24_bit_audio.htm


For my last 2 sessions I recorded a vocalist at 16bit and I am convinced I am hearing ssssssssssssssssss much more. The sibilance is more pronounced so I am going back to 24 bit but it was an intresting experiment and no harm was caused. Am I right in thinking that 16 bit would have been causing this ssssssssssssssssss. I had to stick a desser which I rarely ever use unless the client has a gap in their two front teeth! Shazzam!

PaulBrewer

dav nagle wrote: »

A very good engineer once tols me he records everything in 16 bit and 44.1 but anyhow since I wanted to look at bit rates again I found this little peach of an article..

http://www.tweakheadz.com/16_vs_24_bit_audio.htm


For my last 2 sessions I recorded a vocalist at 16bit and I am convinced I am hearing ssssssssssssssssss much more. The sibilance is more pronounced so I am going back to 24 bit but it was an intresting experiment and no harm was caused. Am I right in thinking that 16 bit would have been causing this ssssssssssssssssss. I had to stick a desser which I rarely ever use unless the client has a gap in their two front teeth! Shazzam!

In our tests we've not really found what you're describing to be related to bit depth. 24 bit is clearly superior but 16 is still good, as a rule.

However I have found that to be the case with less than stellar performing Analogue to Digital conversion.

I remember doing a track when I had an Akai DR16 and was using the in built conversion with good front end (AKG C12 + Demeter pre). The singer's ssses would mow a lawn at 100 paces!

However when I did get a standalone converter and was working with the same singer with the same front end the issue didn't exist.

Neurojazz

I've noticed that reverbs and the air band retain the smoothness when dithering down & processing from 48 > 44.

A good experiment is to make a one hit sound (with some high frequencies in it) with a huge hall/church reverb - processing in 48k and then dither - then do one with no dither (both down to 44k) - you'll start to hear the artifacts in the air band upwards.

Neurojazz

Oh, Dav - go change your facebook and msn passwords - you've been hacked again ;P

There's a bot on your net machine sending out disgusting stuff lol

jtsuited

Neurojazz wrote: »

Oh, Dav - go change your facebook and msn passwords - you've been hacked again ;P

There's a bot on your net machine sending out disgusting stuff lol

haha, sure it's not him?

Neurojazz

jtsuited wrote: »

haha, sure it's not him?

Well, unless davs big into goats - then no

dav nagle

Neurojazz wrote: »

Oh, Dav - go change your facebook and msn passwords - you've been hacked again ;P

There's a bot on your net machine sending out disgusting stuff lol

I know I just got a message from a girlfriend saying that she got a sick message and NO it wasn't me!!!!

Dang who is hacking my mainframe!!!


Back topic!!!

I defo have noticed ssssssssss at 16bit and I am going back to 24 bit, I will update yee next week when I have a good A/B.