> What settings would you recommend then? I'm using 24/44.1, but I'm not su=
re of the value of 24 vs 16 bits.
Peter,
I did some tests. On MP3 I could hear slight gravel at 192 bps on an A-B
test but on wildlife stuff I couldn't tell the difference at 320 MP3 from
WAV. For anything critical I use WAV but I run long recordings from my long=
cables down my woods, often all night, and I need the recording length.
I'm always banging on about recording low to get good headroom for
unexpected peaks, so I tested it at 16 bits. On a silent input and WAV,
looking at the lowest bits, there was dither as expected on the lowest two=
bits at 16 bits width. I checked this by amplifying in stages using
Audacity.
Even at my lowish recording level, the dither was well swamped by acoustic=
HF noise, so I concluded an extra 8 bits wouldn't contribute anything. With=
quiet studio stuff, I would use 24 bits, but the lower 8 bits start at
-90dB and wildlife recording easily swamps that. The wild world mostly has=
a
very limited dynamic range.
To test the sampling rate, I've played back 44.1 at a quarter speed so that=
any top end garbage is much more audible. I've stuck to the CD standard rat=
e
of 44.1 on the grounds that resampling from 48 to 44.1 could possibly sound=
worse than prime 44.1. My recommendation as ever is to test it out by
listening.
This is a purely pragmatic approach and if I was recording professionally,=
I'd go higher and wider, but I'm now an amateur with a limited budget and
limited storage, and wildlife isn't HI-FI anyway. It is moody and wild and=
much more real than the music we hear nowadays which is largely synthetic,=
compressed, phase distorted and moving all about the place with no true
sense of distance - and I include the BBC's best live music output like the=
Proms. Nothing like you hear in the Albert Hall. Even wonderful old scratch=
y
recordings are "doctored" before we are allowed to hear them. Rant over. :-=
)
I've got plenty of wildlife sounds to choose from when planes aren't
overhead, the wind isn't roaring and hissing and the farmer next door isn't=
on his tractor. May not be Hi-Fi but they are real.
Dave Brinicombe
"While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause.
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