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Dear iOS synth developers, let's make 48K - 24/32bit the new standard.
Recently I've decided to do all my music production (mostly ITB Electronic) at 48K - 24 or 32bit. After some research and discussions I think this sample rate and bit depth gives the most bang for the the CPU and HD space. The idea being that most music is bought and downloaded in either MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC, etc. All digital distribution and vinyl will accept masters at higher than 44.1K. For iOS synths I think a 48K sample rate and 24 or 32bit output standard would be quite usable and offer better sound. iVCS3 already offers 48K output.
Comments
Interesting but I'm not sure people agree about this subject. It's the source of countless debates. Who else offers 48K except iVCS3?
No other that I know of. In the past the issue with 48K for just audio was that it didn't down-sample that well to 44.1K. for CD distribution. That's much less an issue these days with modern SRC and the fact that CD sales are the decline as digital distribution is on the rise.
I use 24 bit 44.1khz mostly. 48k for movie related things. But the iPad CPU's would melt down maybe with higher sample rates too
The question is if 48k really sounds better or is it purely subjective
Always wondered if you use a 24 bit project, do apps also supports this or are most apps only 16bit?
Many are capable of 32bit, I don't have the breakdown but the only one that I know of that is not is recording in Auria which is 24bit (industry standard) and in-app recording for the Korg stuff (apparently you get 32bit via AudioShare though) and a few other synths that will record audio as well but in 16bit. For my iPad air i can run iVCS3 in 48K no issue. Note too we are considering mixing in a DAW at 48K giving more room for effects plugins.
Most apps/synths using 32bit intern but if your DAW just record and/or render in 16 bit you will loose quality.
Has the original poster thought about the architectural build of the iPad? Can it handle higher sample rates solidly?
I'd have thought this was more appropriate for the desktop side of things,particularly considering how much precious storage space these files would take up.
It's all very moot as to fidelity and 'sound quality' as well. Irony is, streaming is on the rise with even worse audio quality than high-res downloads.
You can make great 16 bit recordings, you can make great 24 bit recordings. 24 bit already has more dynamic range than any human can hear and process. If you know how to gain stage it will all work.
I'm not so sure 48k offers a huge advantage over 44.1, but if someone wants to work at 48k go for it. Auria does 24/48 (and 24/96) if your interface supports it.
24/44.1 works well for me, I'd rather write a great song with a great arrangement than worry about 44.1 vs 48 to be honest.
I AM sure that 48 k does not offer a huge advantage of 44.1, but it doesn't increase file sizes by all that much either.
You nailed it.
Even most of the expensive sample libraries come in 24bit 44.1khz. For creating impulse responses i would use higher sample rates maybe. But even a lot of these are common in 44.1khz
Definitely agree to this request. Why should the reason for working on a PC in a DAW at minimum 48/24 or /32 not be the same for iOS? Also if you want to record sounds from iOS straight into you DAW on PC. A reason for me not use IAA in this context is the limitation to 44.1.
Not everyone works at those settings in desktop DAW's, though.
24bit might make a big difference for people recording live instruments. I don't know if it would be that big for synths.
Now, I can see 48K being useful for people who are planning to work with videos.
Even if developers are giving you 48k, 24-bit, you can't be sure of how they are satisfying your request. If they have a tight engine that is making good sound at 44.1k, they might do a sloppy conversion from 44.1 16 to 48 24. There are always tradeoffs. High polyphony would be one of the first things to go.
I want my ipad to run as fast as it gets. So I would not care about 24/32bit...Even for recording live you need high end equipment and more than descent treated environment & clever mic placement. Most of people here (including me) will not find the difference between 16 and 32 bit engine. DAW's is another story, where you need the internal engine go beyond 24bit for mixing . Performance ratio is critical to me (just an opinion)
Not to forget some synths/effects do internal oversampling before the 44.1Khz output...
If I don't recall it all that wrong CoreAudio/IAA do realtime conversion of sample rate and resolution to match what the target app requests.
And that nailed the other part. Although 16 vs 24 recording live instruments is a bug difference because you have more dynamic range, so you can aim your peaks for -18dbfs, leave lots of room for transients to hit and still have a healthy signal level.
But, gain staging is the part of recording that I think is most often ignored but also the most important. If you slam the level into a plugin (unintentionally) it may suck, no matter what the internal bit depth is.
I do think bit rate, bit depth, and bit math often get confused. 128kbs (data rate) is not the same as 16 bit/24 bit (dynamic range available) which is not the same as 32/64 bit computing (how the computer addresses memory and does math).
16 vs 24 bit doesn't speak to sound quality, which is subjective anyway, just to the room you have between the softest and loudest sounds you can capture. Great mics in a grat room in a great song are going to sound great at 16,24, or 32 bit (although I don't know of an interface that captures at 32 bit, nor do I know that 32 bit input would be useful, as 24 but can capture a mouse and a jet engine within its range without clipping).
Anyway, I don't want to get in an argument with anyone, this info is all over the place so check it out and see if it makes sense to you. If you like what you hear out of your music, then you're doing it right. If you have to give it to someone else and there are technical issues, then you find out you may have to find out how to do it right another way. At one time distorted guitar was considered "wrong" too, but it seems to have caught on... The only thing that's NEVER right is robot auto tune...;-)
In the end, to quote Ray Charles in "The language of music," "I don't care if it's mono, 8 track, 48 track, digital...how does it sound baby?"
I don't see...Let's say 48K/24bit, as being that much more of a strain on an iPad's CPU than 44.1K/16bit. The difference of course comes between older iPads and newer ones as well as how many apps you intend on running simultaneously. What I am suggesting is the OPTION of 48K/32bit. As iVCS3 has the option to run either 44.1K or 48K. That way those who want the extra fidelity are welcomed to it and those who don't can stay where they are. I'd love to work at 88.2K or 96K (and the difference in quality at the mix stage has been proven) but that requires a high end Mac or PC with at least 8Gig RAM and probably quad core (to work comfortably without spikes) I decided 48K offers best performance for CPU and file size.
Drum samples have very little information so you can get away with 44.1K 16bit drum samples (mind you a TR-8 at 96K output sounds much, much better as I'm sure real analog drum machines sound as good or better than that), but even a bass...If I'm recording and mixing, I want a better resolution than that. I work primarily in a Mac DAW, an iPad is much like an external plugin with it's own DSP to me. I'd like the option to go 48K across the board, from iPad to DAW. Again though, I'm not talking of shutting out those who would like to stay at 44.1K on their iOS apps, merely the option for higher resolution. The difference is one can get a happy medium between iOS synths, AU/VST synths and Analog.
Auria could work at 96K 24bit I believe even before the iPad Air so again I don't think 48K will break the iPad. Worst case you might have to freeze or render a track or export out to an external DAW sooner. At any rate, I guess I started in analog so I'm use to a certain depth of sound, I'm sure I'm not the only one.
It depends on the code. There are SIMD instructions that can make 16 bits much much faster than 24 bits.
An option is fine, but it's more work to write and test. And every new feature has to be written and tested with it in mind.
Makes sense for the developer to do if a certain percentage of users wants it enough that extra sales and goodwill would make it a better option than other features.
I'd be more likely to support 88.2 than 48k since I'm often double or quadruple sampling internally.
48k isn't much faster than 44.1k. That puts Nyquist at 24k instead of 22050. I can't even hear above 18k anymore (damn you Joe Walsh).
I certainly believe in high rates and deep depth for mixing, but it's harder to make the case for instruments coming into that mixer to have that extra work applied to them.
Case in point. I just was working on a 4x oversampling multimode diode-ladder zero delay filter. Suppose I get the nonlinearities just the way I want them at 44.1k. How do I go to 48k? Do I keep everything on a 176.4k sampling rate and use a resampling library? Simple interpolation? Or do I retune everything for a 192k or 96k sampling rate and have two different filters around? Seems like almost (but not quite) twice the amount of work to me. DSP is discrete, not continuous. And I don't have to test just the frequency response, but also how it sounds with rapid changes due to envelopes and lfos. It's a fair amount more work to make things general-purpose.
(I know all this is common in Windows and OSX, and maybe the iOS market has to go there. I'm just wondering if it's time.)
I vote: not time for generators. Selfishly. Seeing as there are only so many hours in a day and small teams working in 95% of the apps I use... There are many other features I'd rather see in my favorite generator apps.
Capture is a slightly different story for me but 16/44 is fine.
Well, it will be supply and demand of course. Note that iOS doesn't support 88.2K. Me personally I'd rather have quality over quantity. I figured 48K was the safest jump up in quality for iOS synths.