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Sampling Rates for Orchestral Mockups: 48kHz vs 96kHz

I had Tidal whenever The Life of Pablo was exclusive to it (as did everyone), but as soon as it was available on Apple Music I deleted it and never looked back
A streaming service promoted via celebrities and hi-res support does seem to lack a coherent strategy.
Although, I'd almost rather cut off both my ears than listen to the Life of Pablo. :rofl:
 
To put my few cents in:
I'd rather carry 1 Gallon of Water in a 2 Gallon Bucket
than in a 1 Gallon Bucket. I'll spill it all over. Yes, SR
and WB work the same way the higher the better, maybe
not noticeable but when you start throwing things at it
at the ends is better, especially in mixing. And no, where
the consumers listens to it it does not matter nor it makes
any difference at all while producing.
 
VSL is recorded and processed in 96 kHz, but is delivered in 44.1 for the simple reason of much lower data quantity.

Apart from that: Mixing music has been my main profession for 35 years. Not once has a mix of mine been discussed because its SR was lower than 96 kHz. I personally prefer 48 kHz as a production format for many reasons. 96 might be useful for archival purposes, though.

And before anyone asks, yes, I hear marginal differences between 48 and 96, but even changing a single EQ band has more impact on the overall sound than that. 8-)
I think most people can't hear the difference anyway because they don't have an optimal listening room. All of these small loudspeaker boxes in unoptimized rooms are lying to the ears! ;)
 
I think most people can't hear the difference anyway because they don't have an optimal listening room. All of these small loudspeaker boxes in unoptimized rooms are lying to the ears! ;)
Any wired headset should be more than enough for anyone to hear the difference, especially when it comes to the inharmonic components of sounds (transients.) Here's the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA):
Although the higher sampling rates encode audio outside of the human hearing range, the net effect of higher sampling rate and conversion technology improves the audio quality within the ideal range of human hearing.
 
Any wired headset should be more than enough for anyone to hear the difference, especially when it comes to the inharmonic components of sounds (transients.)
Yes, of course. But the real question is whether this minimal difference (... I'd even hesitate to call it an "advantage") is worth the trouble in a typical music _production_ (as opposed to a raw recording), where each of the thousands of processing interventions has much more effect on the final result.
 
Yes, of course. But the real question is whether this minimal difference (... I'd even hesitate to call it an "advantage") is worth the trouble in a typical music _production_ (as opposed to a raw recording), where each of the thousands of processing interventions has much more effect on the final result.
That's the reason I asked for orchestral mockups specifically, and not as a general matter. As an example of this, I think most rock music is best served by 44.1/48kHZ (it's part of the color of rock.)
 
Yeah I know, I just didn’t mention them since I don’t know a single person that actually uses them haha, I’ve met one person in my entire life that has Tidal, and I’ve never met a single person that uses Amazon Music
Never heard of Tidal until I had to subscribe for a few Online Berklee classes I took. The audio does sound good. I cancelled as soon as the last class was over because I don't need another subscription in my life, lol.
 
Hi,

Are there any advantages to producing and mixing ensemble tracks in 96kHz (32-bit depth) instead of 48kHz (idem)?

Any hints or insights on this issue would be much appreciated.

All the best,
António
In my simpler thinking, as long as you output the final file at 48KHz it shouldn't matter.

This isn't a direct answer to your question, but I watched the whole 30 minutes of the FabFilter presentation the other night, and it has to be one of the better sample rate explanations I've seen. Of course they eventually tie it to their excellent plugins (of which I am now a total fanboy), but the bulk of it talks all about the subject from several angles including the effect of higher order harmonics, really great info that we all should know:

 
Never heard of Tidal until I had to subscribe for a few Online Berklee classes I took. The audio does sound good. I cancelled as soon as the last class was over because I don't need another subscription in my life, lol.
Given the pricing differences between Tidal and Apple Music, I don't know why anyone would opt into a Tidal subscription.

This isn't a direct answer to your question, but I watched the whole 30 minutes of the FabFilter presentation the other night, and it has to be one of the better sample rate explanations I've seen.
Yeah, Dan Worrall's video is great... A major a caveat to his whole argument is the "temporal resolution" of the sounds being recorded and/or processed. I have posted this earlier, but here's what the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) has to say about it:

Although the higher sampling rates encode audio outside of the human hearing range, the net effect of higher sampling rate and conversion technology improves the audio quality within the ideal range of human hearing.
 
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Never heard of Tidal until I had to subscribe for a few Online Berklee classes I took. The audio does sound good. I cancelled as soon as the last class was over because I don't need another subscription in my life, lol.

It does sound good but for $24(?) a month it’s not worth it at all, Apple Music just integrated full lossless and that’s only $10 a month, much bigger catalog of music and all of it is lossless, they really put the nail in the coffin for Tidal
 
If you're recording something fragile, exposed and LIVE -- a string quartet plus guitar plus vocalist, maybe -- then I would opt for 96k.

Unless, however, you're working with live recordings, there is only the tiniest, potentially inaudible benefit of using a sampling rate higher than the original samples (which typically are 44.1 or 48, though of course some are 96).

I've heard arguments about benefits of 96k for reverb and some other FX but I wonder how audible that really is? Certainly if you're writing for TV / movies / games where the music is not the only thing you hear, I doubt any but the most bat-eared will be able to detect such marginal differences.

And if there is dialogue / background / SFX on top of music, probably not even the bats.
48K masters for Film/TV is more than enough, especially because cinemas do not meet the "audiophile-level" requirement (nor should it). To record at 96Khz and downsample to 48Khz during the mastering session, one has to be very careful to avoid cancelling whatever purpose was to record at 96Khz in the first place. It's often best to record at 48khz and never have to up or downsample anything.

For recordings aimed to be listened in an acoustically-treated environment with audiophile-level gear, yes -- brutal difference.

I have some masters natively recorded at 96khz, 192khz and DSD, and if the criteria above is met, most of us will be able to spot the differences in a heartbeat, most pronouncedly in the top end.
 
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For recordings aimed to be listened in an acoustically-treated environment with audiophile-level gear, yes -- brutal difference.
Wired headphones (and a DAC) will do the trick... We're not exactly talking about Auro-3D or Dolby Atmos.
 
Wired headphones (and a DAC) will do the trick... We're not exactly talking about Auro-3D or Dolby Atmos.
I wrote about digital audio, not spatial audio. Apples and oranges in theory and practice. In other words: Spatial audio has nothing to do with the quality of the audio in the digital realm.

DAC (Digital to Analog Converters) are just converters, not source material.
Headphones also don't upsample or downsample the amount of shots per second taken.
 
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