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Re: 24 bit vs 16 bit recordings

Subject: Re: 24 bit vs 16 bit recordings
From: "Dan Dugan" dandugan_1999
Date: Sat May 19, 2007 10:37 am ((PDT))
Kyle Keegan, you wrote:

>I recently purchased a Nagra Ares bb+ and I am currently using it with
>a Telinga Pro 6 Stereo Dat mic. The subject of the majority of my
>recordings are birds. I am in the process of recording common species
>of Northern Ca to produce (hopefully) a CD to help raise money for a
>local rural, private one room school house as well as promoting
>awareness of the conservation and appreciation of the local birds in
>our area. Last year I spent a week at a recording workshop put on by
>Cornell/ Macualay Library of Natural Sounds and they rated the Nagra
>as their absolute #1 choice in recorders. I am very pleased with the
>Nagra/ Telinga mic combo.
>
>Last week I contacted Nagra and asked them questions regarding 24 bit
>recordings vs 16 bit as well as 44khz sampling frequency vs 48 khz.I
>was surprised to be informed by Nagra that a 24bit recording will not
>play on a Cd player.

That's right, the CD standard is 16 bits deep. But you've been doing 
the right thing by making your master recordings at 24-bit depth!

>They also informed me that consumer grade CD's
>are recorded at 44.1 khz and I should stick to that.

The difference between 44.1 and 48 KHz is small; if you're going to 
CD and 44 or 48 are your choices, I'd use 44.1. If you want to record 
at a higher sampling rate for conservatism, 96K seems to be the 
preference.

>As soon as i
>finished reading the email response, I hooked the Nagra up the my PC
>and downloaded some 24 bit recordings, compressed them into MP3 format
>and burned them onto a CD and it worked.

Compressing to MP3 format does reduce quality. The higher rates are 
well-nigh indistinguishable by ear, but instruments will show 
degradation. Conversion to MP3 should only be done for distribution 
in that format, and you never want to use an MP3 for anything except 
playback, i.e., don't re-convert it to wav.

>I am wondering if anyone has advice in regards to this? I have spent
>an enormous amount of time recording in 24 bit/ 44khz setting and I am
>hoping that I didn't blow it. The quality of the sound is especially
>important to me in order to represent the species of focus clearly and
>with richness.

You have been doing exactly the right thing, so don't worry!

Burn a CD-ROM of your original 24-bit files for an archive. Import 
your 24-bit files to your digital audio workstation software. Convert 
48K masters to 44.1K using the highest quality process available 
(good ones are very good now) at this point. Edit your material, 
raising conservative recording levels to better listening levels (do 
not normalize!). When you "bounce" out your CD track files, bounce 
them at 16-bit depth with 16-bit dither turned on. Burn CDs from the 
resulting track files.

The above is brief, if you don't understand I'd be happy to explain 
the workflow in more detail.

-Dan Dugan




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