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What basic settings to use for film & game music?

Eirich

New Member
Hello to all of you
I have a bit of an odd question and I hope it doesn't sound dumb.

I want to make music in a more professional way that can be used in smaller movie/game production. And I want to start out in the best way for that.

In Cubase you can choose under the processing precision tab either 32 bit float or 64 bit float. Which should I use if I aim for movie/game production?

In the project set up for sample rate you can choose for example 44.1/48/88.2/ 96 kHz and more. Which is best suited for movie/game production? I have heard that more is better so you later can downsample it in the mastering process and get better quality, but I don't know how true that is.

In the project set up for bit rate you can choose either 16 bit/24 bit/32 bit/ 32 bit float or 64 bit float. Which is best suited for movie/game production?

I have an Audient iD14 MK2 that has a max sound resolution of 24 bit/ 96 kHz, so i guess there is a limit to what I can choose.

I like to work with orchestral sample libraries, but sometimes I make pop music that uses a lot more synthesizers like Massive X.

What advice and tips would you suggest?

Best regards Eirich
 
Hello @Eirich. Plaese never feel bad asking a question. At heart, we are all here to help ( mostly )

To the best of my knowledge, media is still delivered at 48khz/ 24 bit wave files. Some fancy pants around here may record some source sessions at far higher than that, especially orchestra where you can see 96k/24 bit. But mostly it’s 48k/24bit.

For the summing engine in the daw, 64 bit float is good- it’s not much of a cpu hit from 32 bit float. I go 64 bit float. No I can’t hear a difference, really.
 
In Cubase you can choose under the processing precision tab either 32 bit float or 64 bit float. Which should I use if I aim for movie/game production?
i'm using reaper and my setting are 24bit/48000hz. i think if you mostly write game music, 44100/24bit is fine.

for export setting sometimes they want .ogg files. i used audacity to convert from wav to ogg with 16bit and quality 6.
 
Which is best suited for movie/game production?
If you are working on modest budget fare and / or in electronic-only -- samples and synths -- the standard for film and TV is 24 bit 48k. Most media uses those standard delivery specifications for recordings.

For the most expensive / large budget situations, the standard is more often 24bit 96k in order to capture the full detail of the orchestra. So if you're on a major game or an A-level film and are therefore hiring a large orchestra, 96k is more typical.

Regarding the internal calculations, (processing precision) IDK if anyone can really hear the difference between 32 and 64 bit float. I would expect that if the final delivery is 24 48, you are unlikely to hear a difference.

It is not wise to run at 96k unnecessarily. It doesn't automatically make things sound better, especially sample libraries that are recorded at 44.1 or 48k. The only time I use 96k is when recording a big orchestra and when I can afford an engineer with all the gear to run that high.
 
These answers where really fantastic. Thank you all so much. I think I will start out with 48k/24 bit with 64 bit float in processing precision.
 
When a cpu has a 64 bit word size (all of them now), I am pretty sure 32 bit operations are padded to 64 bit before they can be performed, so 32 bit is not faster.
 
To add another expansion on this subject: let's say if the new project setting is 24 bit (not 32 bit float), and in it you are using files that had been exported from another [composition] DAW, then in that original DAW should you export those files at 24 bit if that session had been a 32-bit session?

Note: in doing so, you are trusting that DAW's conversion is good enough from 32 bit down to 24 (re: that SRC website that lists what DAWs do a better conversion). Unless you export at 32 bit then use Izotope to convert them to 24?

So basically you're saying even though 32 bit float is available, just make projects 24 bit regardless? I always used 32 bit and exported in 32 bit, but then took that stereo mix and went down to 24 bit using Ozone or Sample Manager/Myriad.
 
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Video game composer here!
Most devs want 44.1k, as Unity and Unreal seems to handle that better than 48k. Many want it in .ogg, but .wav is also fine. Depends on how big size the total project is.
Even though we want as good quality as possible, it seems that they focus on what is most efficient
 
Just to add a note here, apart from the sample rate and bit depth make sure you leave some headroom when exporting, for the mastering (assuming that you are not delivering a final). I usually export at -6db, but -3 to -6 is usually fine.
 
To add another expansion on this subject: let's say if the new project setting is 24 bit (not 32 bit float), and in it you are using files that had been exported from another [composition] DAW, then in that original DAW should you export those files at 24 bit if that session had been a 32-bit session?

Note: in doing so, you are trusting that DAW's conversion is good enough from 32 bit down to 24 (re: that SRC website that lists what DAWs do a better conversion). Unless you export at 32 bit then use Izotope to convert them to 24?

So basically you're saying even though 32 bit float is available, just make projects 24 bit regardless? I always used 32 bit and exported in 32 bit, but then took that stereo mix and went down to 24 bit using Ozone or Sample Manager/Myriad.
Video game composer here!
Most devs want 44.1k, as Unity and Unreal seems to handle that better than 48k. Many want it in .ogg, but .wav is also fine. Depends on how big size the total project is.
Even though we want as good quality as possible, it seems that they focus on what is most efficient
Just to add a note here, apart from the sample rate and bit depth make sure you leave some headroom when exporting, for the mastering (assuming that you are not delivering a final). I usually export at -6db, but -3 to -6 is usually fine.
Had missed this great information. Thank you very much for it.
Best regards Eirich
 
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