Which Sample rate and bit depth to be selected in Windows?

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prajwalchib

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Capture.JPGHi everyone!Can any producer tell me which Sample rate and bit depth should i use and give me the reason?Please check the attachment to view all the options.By default,it is 16 bit,44100 Hz (CD Quality).I'm using Windows 10.
Thanks.
 
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It depends. I use 44/16, as I am generally going to CD as final master. Many people advocate for using the higher sample and bit rates and then dithering down to 44.1/16 as necessary. If you are working in film, 48/24 is standard. So it all depends on your point of view, which audio theorists you subscribe to, and what medium you are primarily involved in. Most studio work these days is done in as high a sample and bit rate as possible, and then dithered at the last moment (often as high as 192/24). Others suggest that since most people can't hear the difference between any of these, that it really doesn't matter.

Do your due diligence and make a decision based on what's best for you (cue DR's 12-page missive on "the right way")...
 
I doubt 95% of people will notice a difference, and of the remaining 5%, 4% will be imagining any differences they hear due to psychoaccoustics.
 
Although you won't really here the difference, there's a few things to take into account.
I use Asiolink, https://o-deus-audio.com.au/ASIOLinkPro, a program that makes it possible to have more then one program (output) to use your asio drivers. This program allows me to wire youtube into Reason, wire Kontakt into reason and let's me play my wind instrument (EWI), allows me to run my mic in Reason, run outputs to my hifi stereo, to my grotboxes and to my monitor speakers. Wiring it without the use of Rewire. As that only goes one way and has a master and slave kind of setup. A very nifty program. That program requires you to have the same bandwidth set in the program itself as all the other programs (Reason, reaper, kontakt, youtube (windows sound)). It allows me to turn on Reason, hear reason's output through different outputs, turn on a youtube, turn on Kontakt and run sample modelling with my EWI so I can jam with the youtube and control it all through Reason and all through the low latency Asio drivers.

Also, the higher the bandwidth, the lower the latency but the heavier the strain is gonna be on your cpu. If you have a very powerful computer and latency issues, you can solve a lot this way. Latency issues can be caused by different things. By the AI, by the midi controller you're using, by the cables, by the computer itself, by the DAW or faulty settings or a combination of it. In my experience, it's mostly accountable to not having a proper AI, not using Asio drivers (which can be solved by using Asio4all (if your AI doesn't have it's own asio driver) which is a free generic asio driver that works with all AIs. Isn't as vast as asiolink though. Just doesn't do anywhere near what asiolink does, also it differs in it's main functionality). Midi controllers seldomly cause major latency issues unless they're defective (even el cheapo midi controllers), cables, well, generic usb cables over here don't seem to add any latency at all (lengthxquality is something that makes up the equasion for that. As long as you stay within a few meters your fine with generic usb cables), and the computer you run can be an issue. If you have really old hardware or running an older os, outdated, half broken and due to a reinstall or something. It could also be your DAW and the way it's set up.
 
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Sample rate matters for latency and sound quality does differ.
For Reason I use Vb cables & voicemeter banana for spectrasonics & xpand/sonivox & Rack devices.
Back then it was midi ox or Rewire. [I don't hate rewire]
Midi ox was for if you wanted reason to be the host before emi came out.
 
"Sound quality does matter," yes, but do a Google search yourself, read Sound on Sound and EM and all the other mags, check out the latest audio theory material, and listen to 20 engineers and mastering engineers, and you will get different answers as to what's recommended and how much of a difference it makes. Then look at blind studies done and you will find that most people can't hear the difference between expensive audio cable and coat hangar wire used as speaker leads, let alone the difference between 44/16, 48/24, and 192/24.
So it's got to be a decision based on more than just "what's the 'best'," whatever that means. Do what works for you, and be glad you're not trying to make your beat or your record on a 4- or 8-track cassette running at between 1&7/8 to at most 3&3/4 ips.
 
I use 44.1kHz @ 24bit. The headroom provided by 24 bits makes recording a breeze and quality-wise "CD quality" is just fine - some plugins do indeed react differently at different sample rates, but 1) I don't think it's automatically better and 2) f*ck if I'm going to change the entire setup to 96kHz and double the file sizes just because some plugins sound a bit different. There might be a case for high sample rates if you're doing super-critical high-end recording and have the gear for it to matter, but I'd wager that in 99% of "bedroom producer" scenarios it doesn't, at least not enough to justify it. One specific scenario that does benefit from high sample rates is (extreme) time stretching - might be worth consideration and at least experimenting with it if it's something you use a lot.

The choice to use 48kHz for film/video originates from it to better fit different (image) frame rates than 44.1, afaik. It's not a quality thing either.
 
When storage is 100$ for a 20TB is the time I'm puttin all my projects at 96khz as the default setting.
Fine with 48khz for the time being.
 
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