Project bitrate

[Hrabe EM]

Hi. Is it posible to convert  the whole Project to 44.1 32 bit instead of 44.1 16bit  which I have now? If yes, how to do that. Thanks for tips. (I found out now that I had some projects in 16bit, not in 32)

[John Vere]

Yes you can change the bit Depth As it is not the Bit or clock Rate which is harder to change. 
Bit depth just adds more blank zeros to the existing audio files. The quality doesn’t change. So no point in converting them.

But if you are going to be adding more tracks then just change the setting to 24 or 32 and then carry on. The new recording will be higher quality. 24 is really all that is needed. 

[Hrabe EM]

I am recording in 32 bits for years, but in my last several projects in Cakewalk, I forgott to see and some files was recorded in 16bit only, because my project was created for recording in 16bit.  I know, that if I change it now, the quality of the existing files will be the same. But I want to change project to be 32bit for the recording in future. And maybe it could have been efect for mixing. I have a lot of files and settings in each project and I would like to avoid to draging all files manualy to the new project and settings all again. I saved my project as template, after I created the new one with 32bit option and files from template. But after saving, there is 16bit again. See at screen .

[scook]

The transport shows the project sample rate and the record bit depth

The record bit depth is a global setting and is not stored in the project or project templates.

[Kalle Rantaaho]

Does this mean there are now audio interfaces that record 32 bits?  2-3 year ago such did not exist, IIRC.

I've thought that still today 32 bits (floating point)  exists only internally in the projects.

[scook]

It's not due to the interface hardware, sometimes drivers are communicating between a software mixer and the DAW, these may have an audio driver bit depth higher than 24.

[Hrabe EM]

Thanks. I am recording at 32 since I used to Cool Edit Pro 2, which hasd 16 or 32 bit option only.  But I had in cakewalk glabal set recording at 32bit, but probably when I created the new projects when I had option 16bit, the files was recorded in 16 bit.  But now I see that I can record at 32 bit anyway in session which was created with 16 bit option.. Interesting.

[scook]

All the clips in a project must be the same sample rate but the bit depth does not have to be the same.

The default record bit depth is 16.

I set the record bit depth to agree with the audio driver bit depth.

[John Vere]

I think your on to something ,,  This is my Office desktop with a Realtech on board audio card.. You can see here that even though I selected 24 and APPLY, the project is still showing 16 I checked and my sound card is set to 24 as well. I opened a new template and it shows 16??  

. 

But here is my Motu interface and you can see it only will record at 24 bit being it's only choice.  It's greyed out?  But it seems just fine. 

I then opened Cakewalk on my Laptop with my Scarlette 6i6 interface and it is the same as my Motu with 24 greyed out and Windows setting at 24 as well but the new template opens showing 16 as the project sample rate??? 

Edited May 1, 2021 by John Vere

[scook]

Different machines with different record bit depth settings.

Once again:

• The bit depth in the transport is not the audio driver bit depth; it is record bit depth.
• ASIO drivers typically support one bit depth. When a driver only supports one bit depth the audio driver bit depth drop down is disabled.
• The record bit depth shown in the transport is what will be used when audio recording is enabled. It has nothing to do with the clips already recorded in the project.
• Both audio driver bit depth and record bit depth are global settings. They are not stored in the project.

[John Vere]

Ok but then check this out, I turned off my Motu and plugged the Scarlet 6i6 into my main DAW and it does go to 24 bit?? Same interface, same settings.  And these are all blank projects using a 4 track template. 

 

 

Edited May 1, 2021 by John Vere

[scook]

The first image

has no record timing master set.  My guess is this causes CbB to fallback to the default record bit depth. The value does not matter. The DAW is not setup to record.

The other two have a record timing master selected so they show the record bit depth from preferences.

[John Vere]

Yes I understand, but I think the OP's mystery is why in the past they managed a higher bit depth and now they can't change it. I think it must be system related. As I just tried a few times to confirm. On my main DAW no problem recording 24 bit.. Same interface on my Laptop records at 16 bit. I confirmed this behavior by recording a short clip and then checked the bit depth.  I also opened some older recordings and everything on my laptop is 16 bit and this was using both my Tascam and Scarlett interfaces.  Everything,, thank goodness, on my main DAW is 24 bit and that's with 3 different interfaces.  

I just find it odd that you actually don't really have true control over such a basic function. Even my Yamaha 0v1 from 1996 uses 20 bit. I guess I'm guilty of not paying close attention to that setting. When it's greyed out I assumed it was still 24. 

The OP's claim of 32 bit is a bit of a mystery as I was unaware any interfaces have ever supported that. 

Edited May 1, 2021 by John Vere

[scook]

The record bit depth has nothing to do with the OS, hardware, interface driver or driver settings in the DAW.

It is a separate setting in the DAW preferences.

It does appear that if the DAW is not configured to record, the record bit depth setting reverts to its default value.

[John Vere]

OK I feel stupid. There's 2 places and I should know these things but I totally forgot about this preference dialog. Problem solved. 

@Hrabe EM @scook

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by John Vere

[msmcleod]

20 hours ago, John Vere said:

I just find it odd that you actually don't really have true control over such a basic function. Even my Yamaha 0v1 from 1996 uses 20 bit. I guess I'm guilty of not paying close attention to that setting. When it's greyed out I assumed it was still 24. 

The OP's claim of 32 bit is a bit of a mystery as I was unaware any interfaces have ever supported that. 

 

20 hours ago, scook said:

The record bit depth has nothing to do with the OS, hardware, interface driver or driver settings in the DAW.

It is a separate setting in the DAW preferences.

It does appear that if the DAW is not configured to record, the record bit depth setting reverts to its default value.

@John Vere  - @scook is correct here.  The Record Bit depth is the bit depth the WAV files will be recorded at, which is totally separate from the Audio Bit Depth in your driver settings. 

You can set your audio bit depth to 16 bit, and still record a 24 bit file - it'll only be 16 bit quality though.

The audio bit depth of interfaces (for recording) is slightly misleading in any case.... AFAIK... and maybe this has changed... but, most AD converters are pretty much 20 bit in any case simply due to the limitations of the hardware. They use 64 x, 128 x, or 256 x oversampling to mitigate this to some extent.  The DA converters in most modern interfaces are pretty spot on though.

When audio interfaces say they're 32 bit, that usually means they're sending/expecting audio data as 32 bit words. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're actually sampling incoming audio at 32 bit accuracy.
 

[John Vere]

@msmcleod  My confusion, as I posted above,,   I was setting the bit depth in the wrong location in preferences.  It's one of those things I never touch and it was probably set 6 years ago and as I do believe Cakewalk copies these setting from upgrade to upgrade it has always stayed put..  It probably doesn't matter which interface I use etc. Reading the OP's last post I think they are aware of this location too. 

My desktop and my Laptop were set to 16 and I now fixed this. The desktop I never record on, just editing,  but I have been using the Laptop for live recordings. No loss there as they are not for making a hit records. Actually 44.1/16 is the perfect setting for that type of stuff. 

[Hrabe EM]

13 hours ago, msmcleod said:

 

@John Vere  - @scook is correct here.  The Record Bit depth is the bit depth the WAV files will be recorded at, which is totally separate from the Audio Bit Depth in your driver settings. 

You can set your audio bit depth to 16 bit, and still record a 24 bit file - it'll only be 16 bit quality though.

The audio bit depth of interfaces (for recording) is slightly misleading in any case.... AFAIK... and maybe this has changed... but, most AD converters are pretty much 20 bit in any case simply due to the limitations of the hardware. They use 64 x, 128 x, or 256 x oversampling to mitigate this to some extent.  The DA converters in most modern interfaces are pretty spot on though.

When audio interfaces say they're 32 bit, that usually means they're sending/expecting audio data as 32 bit words. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're actually sampling incoming audio at 32 bit accuracy.
 

I think also that the bit rate of the recording in my DAW is setting for the rate of my recorded files, not for my audio interface.  I have Focusrite Clarett 4 Pre and in driver control, theres no setting for bitrate, only for sample rate. I never set the bitrate there.  I hope I am right.

[John Vere]

Yes none of my interfaces have a setting for depth. 
What is a bit confusing is having that setting in the 2 places where the logical place does nothing and the obscure place does. You would assume it would be in the same place as the clock rate.