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There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

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Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#51

Post by xiphmont »

cmer wrote: post #12
Joeboy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Digitally recording a triangle is the best example of why 48kHz is very limiting The article's about distribution, not recording. I don't think anybody disputes the usefulness of higher sampling rates when recording. > In theory, it's true that the human hear can't hear above ~18kHz, but it can hear the influence of the very high pitch harmonics on a lower frequency. ...and 48kHz audio contains those lower frequenc…

Stripping frequencies above 20kHz negates the effect on the lower frequencies since those lower frequencies are not "modified" by the higher ones. The human hear can actually hear the very high harmonics when they're combined with a lower fundamental frequency. For example, the human hear will hear a 30kHz frequency if it's fundamental is 10kHz. If it's played at 44.1kHz, the 30kHz frequency is gone and all you'll he…

> For example, the human hear will hear a 30kHz frequency if it's fundamental is 10kHz.

No. It won't.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#52

Post by moondowner »

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #36

What I would love to have is: independent instrument/vocals tracks along with a default recommended "mix". The default mix would be used for normal playback and independent tracks would be great for custom mix / karaoke etc. Is this too unrealistic to expect? Has something like this been tried before?

Some songs when released as a single have Acapella and Instrumental versions of them as well. There are also compilations with only acapellas and compilations with only instrumental versions of the songs.

And when you have them, just use something in the like of Ableton Live and that will be it. I think that that's what you mean right?

It will be a great idea to have tracks released as several `layers` so that the user can choose which of them to play and which not, for example the bass/beats layer, layer with melodies, layer with the percussions, layer with the vocals of course, but that sounds like semi-studio production.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#53

Post by glassx »

cmer wrote: post #30
tompagenet2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey cmer, thanks for posting I don't think I understand quite what you're saying and wondered if you could explain more. You and the article both say that humans can't hear above about 20kHz. If there are higher frequencies that create a harmonic at a lower frequency (e.g. a 33kHz harmonic that produces a sound at 16.5kHz) then surely that lower harmonic (16.5kHz in this case) will be recorded by the original recordi…

Let's make things super simple. Let's say you record 4 sine waves at a 192kHz sampling rate: 15kHz, 30kHz, 45kHz and 60kHz. All 4 frequencies will be captured and the 15kHz frequency will sound different to your hear because its harmonics. If you take this recording and master it for a CD (44.1kHz), you'll effectively get up to ~20kHz (since they're a low pass filter starting at around 16-18kHz). This means that only…

> Harmonics are never exactly double, triple the fundamental. Those would be mostly inaudible. But you get the idea.

Actually, they are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonics

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#54

Post by k-mcgrady »

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #36

What I would love to have is: independent instrument/vocals tracks along with a default recommended "mix". The default mix would be used for normal playback and independent tracks would be great for custom mix / karaoke etc. Is this too unrealistic to expect? Has something like this been tried before?

There are two reasons I don't think this will happen:

1. People would use the tracks to create custom remixes which they would then distribute. What happens when a remix becomes more popular than the original track? Artists generally have to pay other artists to remix their songs (usually via royalties).

2. Creativity. When an artist creates something they want you to hear it the way it was intended. Allowing you to remix it however you like takes away a lot of the creative control from the artist.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#55

Post by leouznw »

I know a bit of sound engineering, waves and so.. I totally agree with the title and the first 60 lines of article, and I add my POV: 1. Most of the people doesn't care, 2. What apple did is just about marketing, 3. Most of the people who says that care is pretending, 4. Zeppelin still rock the shit in a poor quality mono mp3 recorded by a drunk guy in the audience of a concert in 73.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#56

Post by sjwright »

wickedchicken wrote: post #14

For an article containing a lot of "well, if you knew signal processing..." there are two fairly major oversights: 1) Any well-designed system is going to have headroom. Period. Just because 48kHz can capture the frequencies the human hear theoretically, it's always good to have a little wiggle room. This comes into play even more with interactive situations: humans are particularly sensitive to jitter. Having an "ov…

  > Having an "overkill" sample rate lets you seamlessly
  > sync things easier without anyone noticing.
You can get the same theoretical benefit by oversampling on playback. And a lot of audio equipment does just that.

  > 192kHz ... also means more granular timing for the
  > start and stop of transients.
Not really, for two reasons -- unless you're talking about glitch music, transients are unlikely to ever be so sudden that the difference between 0.03ms and 0.005ms could possibly matter.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#57

Post by barrkel »

Joeboy wrote: post #26
wickedchicken wrote: post #14

For an article containing a lot of "well, if you knew signal processing..." there are two fairly major oversights: 1) Any well-designed system is going to have headroom. Period. Just because 48kHz can capture the frequencies the human hear theoretically, it's always good to have a little wiggle room. This comes into play even more with interactive situations: humans are particularly sensitive to jitter. Having an "ov…

> I don't know if the human ear can discern the difference between 0.03ms and 0.005ms but it's something I don't see mentioned often That's the time it takes sound to travel 8mm. Do you think you could tell if an instrument was positioned differently by 8mm?

The ears distinguish directional audio in part from timing differences in what hits each ear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_localization cites http://web.archive.org/web/20100410235208/http://www.cs.ucc.... that suggests the brain is sensitive to timing differences between ears as low as 10 microseconds, or 0.01ms.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#58

Post by cmer »

hackermom wrote: post #32

There is no point with going over 16 bits, but there is definitely a point with going over 44.1khz, as it allows you to actually reproduce waveforms more accurately than 44.1khz. Try reproducing f.e. a sinewave accurately over 4-5khz with a sample rate of just 44.1khz - it cannot be done, and at this point we haven't even taken into account the issue of varying slew-rate characteristics of the thousands or so differe…

Couldn't agree more with you! 192kHz is overkill as a "final" format.

16 bits is very limiting for music with lots of dynamics (ie: classical). Very quiet sounds sound quite bad at 16 bits, but since most pop music has about 6-12db of dynamic range, it doesn't make much of a difference.

I always thought the sweet spot would be 96-24. But the truth is, the market wants smaller and portable digital files, not higher quality music. Anything MP3 encoded will sound significantly worse than a CD anyways.

Re: There is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format.

#59

Post by Anechoic »

Derbasti wrote: post #7

He raises a lot of valid points. However... 192 kHz is clearly overkill for listening. Not so for further editing of the data. Same goes for 16/24 bit, however, the difference between 16 and 24 bit is actually audible. 44100 is not a bad sampling rate, but it necessitates very sharp aliasing filters, which are audibly bad. A bit more headroom is well needed there. That bit about intermodulation distortion is complete…

44100 is not a bad sampling rate, but it necessitates very sharp aliasing filters,

When you're talking about recording, sure, but in terms of storage and playback, we solved that problem 20 years ago with oversampling.

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