48/24 vs. 44.1/24 sampling - performance vs. quality

[Sven]

A friend suggested I start new projects using 48/24 sampling rates instead of 44.1/24 which I had been using.  It seems like Bandlab feels sluggish with the new settings.  I do my usual tricks with my old PC machine of freezing synths and archiving unused tracks but something feels different.   It could just be because of the elements of the new song project.  Sonar also seems to crash more which I usually associate with memory problems.  

I'm looking for anything thoughts on whether I should being using 48/24 and upgrade my hardware or go back to 44.1 because the sound quality difference doesn't really matter.   

[azslow3]

What you mean by "/24"  ? Normally "<frequency>/24" means ASIO buffer size is 24 samples. But I am not sure in your case (24 is very small buffer, supported by some relatively expensive interfaces with top computers). All current interfaces can work in 24bit mode and 32bit mode is hardware-wise not possible. DAWs process in 64bit FP (at least 32bit FP). So the "sample size" 24bit is normally assumed as the only option and so omitted.

48/<n samples> has less latency then 44.1/<n samples>. Less latency in addition to more samples per second is more system demanding. In case the system is on limit with 44.1 it can not handle 48, at least not with the same buffer setting.

Sonic difference is small and CbB supports upsampling for plug-ins. That is audible for many plug-ins, it make them run on double frequency.

So (IMHO): to be on the "safe side" in all audiophile discussions you need 96kHz, on powerful system with top interface it can be possible to have less latency with 48 then with 44.1 (on a weak system with low/mid interface it make sense upgrade the interface first, in case latency matters ) , has no difference otherwise.

 

[Gswitz]

I think Sven means 44.1 khz at 24 bit vs 48 khz at 24 bit.

Sven, i can't tell a difference in cakewalk between any of these, including double and quad rates like 96 and 192 except for the size of the wave files and speeds of fast bounce.

If you are freezing synths often (effectively a bounce) you may notice they take slightly longer at 48.

Synths are one of the things that benefit the most from higher sample rates.

Edited December 4, 2019 by Gswitz

[Alan Tubbs]

I could feel  some difference in those rates 20 years ago.  There should be no difference today.  And no appreciable difference in sound.  Switch back to 44.1 at 24 bits.  Many pros use that, esp. if they don’t usually transfer files.  Synths and  FX mostly up sample internally these days.

[Sven]

I'm sorry if I caused any confusion with my 48/24 sampling rate information.  I do indeed mean 48 khz with 24 being the setting for the audio driver bit depth.  My AudioBox USB 96 installation defaulted to ASIO in Bandlab.  Should I even be considering changing that?

 

 

 

Everything was working fine as could be expect until I changed the sampling rate to 48.  I've changed the project setting back to 44.1 for future projects (see above screen shots).

I don't see an easy way to switch this project back to 44.1:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/Changing-the-sample-rate-for-an-existing-project-m3334664.aspx

It's almost finished so it's not a big problem.

Thanks for all your help.

[TheMaartian]

One place where I've seen the sluggishness you described is when Windows audio is set for one sample rate (say: 44.1 KHz) and another app (using the SAME sound card) is set for a different sample rate (say: 48 KHz). That's one of the reasons I leave my motherboard audio enabled (for Windows audio), and run ASIO exclusively on my AudioBox 44 VSL for my music apps.

[Gswitz]

Changing sample rate for a project is a bit of a pain/risk imho.

[bvideo]

4 hours ago, Gswitz said:

...

...

Synths are one of the things that benefit the most from higher sample rates.

True

1 hour ago, Alan Tubbs said:

...

Synths and  FX mostly up sample internally these days.

If you have a synth or FX that needs upsample but doesn't do it, Cakewalk offers a pre-upsample, post downsample (Upsample on Render and/or Upsample on Playback in the upper left  icon in the plugin window). So from the synth perspective, having your projects at 44.1 is OK.

[Gswitz]

1 hour ago, bvideo said:

True

If you have a synth or FX that needs upsample but doesn't do it, Cakewalk offers a pre-upsample, post downsample (Upsample on Render and/or Upsample on Playback in the upper left  icon in the plugin window). So from the synth perspective, having your projects at 44.1 is OK.

Not all synths upsample by default in cakewalk. You have to specify in a list.

[Rod L. Short]

John Maar - How do you set that up?

[bvideo]

Gswitz,

The icon in the plugin window I referred to is meant to globally set / unset upsampling individually for the particular plugin. It does indeed modify AUD.ini (the list) automatically.

From Sonar's Help:

To globally enable/disable upsampling for a plug-in, click the FX icon in the upper left corner of a plug-in window, and select Upsample on Render or Upsample on Playback on the drop-down menu. These options globally persists for all instances of the plug-in in all projects, so it only needs to be set once per plug-in.

[Zaquria]

2 hours ago, Rod L. Short said:

John Maar - How do you set that up?

Go into Windows Sound Settings, choose the motherboard device (For your system sounds) and set your Cakewalk Driver Settings to your ASIO device for your DAW.

[dcumpian]

On a single track, you are not going to hear a discernible difference between 44/16, 48/24 or even 96/24. Some soft synths will render better at higher sample rates, but it greatly depends on the source material the synth uses (samples, for example), and how the synth generates audio. Where you will hear a difference is when mixing your tracks together.  At higher sample rates you will have more headroom, which can help to keep the mix from sounding closed in.  With good mixing skills and proper gain staging, this won't matter much, if at all, but it can certainly help open up a dense mix.

Dan

[Sven]

This song is almost finished but has gotten slower and slower to work with because of the sampling rate problem.    I thought of starting a new project with a 44.1 sampling rate and bringing in each individual track just to work within a faster environment.   I don't suppose there's an easy way to export every audio track to a .wav file quickly instead of doing each one individually?   Then I could import each of them pretty quickly into the new 44.1 project and finish.