Mastering 16 bit Source Material

[Lucin Niega]

Hello All,

I record at 16 bit 44.1. Please don't be horrified . I actually perfer the sound as I do not have a compressor and recording in 16 bit seems to help some. Anyway, I would just like to know if it is harder to master this type of material as opposed to mastering 24 bit source material. I do dance music mostly. I use an H7600 for conversion (Master Clock). I have (3) Z4's and use an 01V96 to mix. Everything stays digital after the conversion process. Does anyone have any tips that might make the mastering guy's job as easy as possible. I want to have a great sounding track at the end of the day. I read about the over compression thing. I don't think that's going to be too much of an issue. Thoughts?

Lucin

[12th & Vine]

Hey Lucin ...

It is no more 'difficult' to master material received at 16/44.1.

It's sometimes easy to loose sight of the fact that a lot of great recordings were done at 16/44.1 over the years. Whatever works and sounds best for you.

The best tip is probably to get the mix sounding like you'd like it to sound. And then explain your vision for the project to your mastering engineer.

Good luck with the project.

[soundroid]

Originally Posted by Lucin Niega

Hello All,

I record at 16 bit 44.1. Please don't be horrified . I actually perfer the sound as I do not have a compressor and recording in 16 bit seems to help some.

Lucin

I really must have missed something at audio school?

[Lucin Niega]

Originally Posted by soundroid

I really must have missed something at audio school?

I never went to school for audio so I don't think I can help you there. Try searching the forum to see why some people, like myself, perfer to record 16 bit. You don't have to be passive aggressive by the way and yes you can learn something new. I believe in you.

[soundroid]

Originally Posted by Lucin Niega

I never went to school for audio so I don't think I can help you there. Try searching the forum to see why some people, like myself, perfer to record 16 bit. You don't have to be passive aggressive by the way and yes you can learn something new. I believe in you.

please point me to the thread that has credible audio engineers stating that recording at 16 bit helps them in terms of using an audio compressor.

once again I refer to your quote;
"I actually perfer the sound as I do not have a compressor and recording in 16 bit seems to help some."

statements like this I feel need clarifying.

[Kiwiburger]

Not having a compressor is a very compelling reason to record at 24 bits. You simply don't have enough headroom to throw away with 16 bits.

I've seen a few people state that they prefer the sound of 44.1, compared to higher sampling rates. Not many people would agree there either, but I guess it adds a certain crunchiness that might benefit some material.

[soundroid]

Originally Posted by Kiwiburger

I've seen a few people state that they prefer the sound of 44.1, compared to higher sampling rates. Not many people would agree there either, but I guess it adds a certain crunchiness that might benefit some material.

I hate to be disagreeable with everyone on this thread, but there's some comments
that are doing my head in.
I've never heard anyone in my life say that 44.1kHz 'adds a certain crunchiness' to the sound. 44.1kHz was, and probably still is considered as the professional sampling rate.
mp3 or 8bit I can understand being crunchy, but 44.1 is certainly not what i would consider to be a 'crunchy' sound, even when comparing it to 88 or 96 k. I don't know which pro engineer is making these sort of statement but maybe they should look up the threads on ear candling!

[Franco]

Not trying to get in the way of anyone's pissing contest, but:

When "stacking tracks" at 16bits, let's say 24 audio tracks, the feeling of the mix can sound "crunched", as opposed to the bigger wordlength, which can result in a more (most times, desired) open sound. I don't believe tracking at 16bits "adds" anything, probably the opposite.

"Does anyone have any tips that might make the mastering guy's job as easy as possible."

Keep your mixes "in the yellow" and give the dude some room. If you like the sound of your mixes the way they are, talk to your ME and tell them you want transparency at the end of the day. Reason why I say this is because your ME might want to get crafty and apply some Mid/Side processing to your mix to give it more depth, and you may not like the results if you actually want a..uh, 16bit crunch sound on your masters.

[Lucin Niega]

Originally Posted by Franco

your ME might want to get crafty and apply some Mid/Side processing to your mix to give it more depth, and you may not like the results if you actually want a..uh, 16bit crunch sound on your masters.

Thank you!

Depth is what I'm looking for. Is that something that can be accomplished in the mastering phase? Tell me more. What are the things that ME's are most proud of adding to the mix? For dance music? Experience is VERY welcome.

[LewisWu]

Originally Posted by Lucin Niega

I never went to school for audio so I don't think I can help you there. Try searching the forum to see why some people, like myself, perfer to record 16 bit. You don't have to be passive aggressive by the way and yes you can learn something new. I believe in you.

some music like rock is already heavily compressed.. thats pretty much the only time that i can think of where it wouldn't matter so much... bit depth wise... but that being said.. they are using compressors... some material sounds fine in 16-bit, after its been mastered.. and some 16-bit material sounds just as bad as its 24-bit sibling.. you win some you loose some..

maybe its a lo-fi thing....

[Lucin Niega]

Originally Posted by LewisWu

some music like rock is already heavily compressed.. thats pretty much the only time that i can think of where it wouldn't matter so much... bit depth wise... but that being said.. they are using compressors... some material sounds fine in 16-bit, after its been mastered.. and some 16-bit material sounds just as bad as its 24-bit sibling.. you win some you loose some..

maybe its a lo-fi thing....

Is 16 bit lo-fi? I think it sounds f___ing awesome! . That's just my opinion. For the music that I make, especially for drums, it makes a big difference when you hit the a/d hard, @ 16 bits, leaving little headroom, especially for drums, as long as there is no perceivable distortion. That is what it has in common with a dynamic processor, like a compressor. The dynamic range is purposefully limited and stabilized. I feel this helps to fit the sound into the mix.

[LewisWu]

ok... then its a lowered fidelity thing... leaving little to no headroom and killing your transients isn't compression.. though within the context of electronic music, i suppose i could see it working.. still, if you're working in the digital realm, where there isn't much noise to begin with, why not take advantage of those extra 8 bits.. that would give you that much more detail when mixing. 16-bit audio that has been mastered can sound awesome... this being said, does all 16-bit audio sound awesome... no... in the right context it can sound great.. so can 8-bit audio.. this doesn't mean that it will work for... appalachian folk music.. ymwv

[inlinenl]

Originally Posted by Lucin Niega

Thank you!

Depth is what I'm looking for. Is that something that can be accomplished in the mastering phase? Tell me more. What are the things that ME's are most proud of adding to the mix? For dance music? Experience is VERY welcome.

I would rather have a good song / mixed well / recorded okay in 16bits .. than all the opposite at 24 bits ... 16 bits can still give a nice edgy sound ...

depth is for sure created / can be created/enhanced in mastering .. the use off un-linked stereo-compressors ( 1, 2, 3 ), nice tube-compressors will create a sense off depth .. the use off high-end converters .. all will add to the space thing .... seperation and width is at least that what I try to accomplise while mastering dance/electronic music if needed ... apart from the loudness which is the easiest ....

there can be some more specialist tools .. like the K-processor designed by B.Katz .. also licensed in a few more pieces off gear ...

while working on dance .. I aim for killer sub/kick .. detailed mid with presence ( novations/virus etc. etc. ) and silky high's .. but not loosing the tempo .. what's the hook .. maybe the hi-hat ... dance needs to be carefull with compression ... it should be punchy ... don't flatten the punch ... better use the colors off the HEDD to do some limiting ..avoid L2 limiting ..... you won't need any even if you'll have to go up to an RMS off -09.00 dB ...... I prefer to stay to a max off -09.50 dB RMS

but there will be different mixes out there which needs a diff. approach/feel ...


IMHO

[Lucin Niega]

Originally Posted by LewisWu

killing your transients isn't compression

Manipulating your transients is. You make a statement as if you have heard for yourself. It doesn't kill the transients. Do you know how many people are still using old school 12 bit samplers? SP1200's, MPC60's, akai 950's? I don't either, but it seems like a lot. They use them for a particular reason. It's easy to say lo-fi. Really? It hits. It's as plain as that. It sounds better to a certain group of people who are interested in electronic music. I said I made dance music from the jump. If you don't deal with dance music or electronic music in general, which implies the use of samplers, synths and drum machines, why do you feel the need to talk about something you don't normally do? I don't want you to speculate. Please speak out of experience.

[aussie_techie]

i dont really understand why 16bit is perceived to be better here but who cares if it works for you then do it.
anyway the question was about exporting for mastering not recording so with that said why not just export a 24bit file. even though you may record in 16bit you can still realise the benefit of higher bit depths once a song is mixed. the mix engine is going to be a higher bit depth anyway and when tracks are mixed below 0 then the lower end information will go below the 16bit so you can preserve it if you use 24bit here.

if your going to export at 16bit you should dither. ill let others answer as to what dither is preferred here.

[brethes]

Originally Posted by Lucin Niega

Manipulating your transients is. You make a statement as if you have heard for yourself. It doesn't kill the transients. Do you know how many people are still using old school 12 bit samplers? SP1200's, MPC60's, akai 950's? I don't either, but it seems like a lot. They use them for a particular reason. It's easy to say lo-fi. Really? It hits. It's as plain as that. It sounds better to a certain group of people who are interested in electronic music. I said I made dance music from the jump. If you don't deal with dance music or electronic music in general, which implies the use of samplers, synths and drum machines, why do you feel the need to talk about something you don't normally do? I don't want you to speculate. Please speak out of experience.

Recording at 16 bit to achieve a certain sound and submit 16bit 44.1Khz for mastering is perfectly fine as long as you are happy with the sound of your mixes.
Many people forget that often having higher definition and extra frequencies is not necessarily an advantage. This is along the same lines as using an SM 57 on snares, tablas or guitar amps as it filters out unwanted frequencies and focus on the right one for those instruments. You are right that many people in dance music or rap swear by the sound of their 12 bit MPC60 or Akai S950. Call it Vintage Digital if you want but that "grittiness" can be very nice...

Also folks forget that recording at higher bit rates or sample rates require conversion at some point to end up on a 16 bit 44.1Khz Red Book CD Master, which even with the best S/R converter (see S/R post on this forum showing some surprising results with some well know mastering softwares), will degrade the sound somewhat. The only major drawback with 16 bit is the reduced dynamic range which wouldn't be a problem is your mixes are reasonably loud (but not squashed!)

[narcoman]

Originally Posted by Lucin Niega

I never went to school for audio so I don't think I can help you there. Try searching the forum to see why some people, like myself, perfer to record 16 bit. You don't have to be passive aggressive by the way and yes you can learn something new. I believe in you.

Well theres nothing intrinsically wrong about recording at 16bit - the only problem is a higher (relative) noise floor and reduced dynamic range. Im guessing that you kept things hot in the mix/tracking and that is a little "deteriotative"....

Recording at 16bit will in no way replace using a compressor - not even related. There are NO advanatges to recording 16 bit. 24 bit is 16 bit with 8 extra bits. Performs the same function with lower noise floor and increased dynamic range. Both will happily represent waveforms with exactly the same accuracy - its the noise floor and dynamic range that suffer. Abusing 16bit is easy and that can cause problems - thats why 24 bit is the better option. Dont have to abuse it to get away from the noise floor. However, there is nothing wrong with 16bit if you know what your doing.

[lucey]

Daniel Lanois mixes to DAT at times ... works for him. Works for you? Works for me. 16 bits can be meaty and maybe that's perfect.

The MIX, the MIX, the MIX. That's what matters at mixing. Any one move in mixing can be more important than bits and rates.

[ed littman]

Originally Posted by Kiwiburger

Not having a compressor is a very compelling reason to record at 24 bits. You simply don't have enough headroom to throw away with 16 bits.

I've seen a few people state that they prefer the sound of 44.1, compared to higher sampling rates. Not many people would agree there either, but I guess it adds a certain crunchiness that might benefit some material.

Your saying.....At 16 bits, with a dynamic range down to -96 db is not enough head room?

Ed

[LewisWu]

Originally Posted by Lucin Niega

Manipulating your transients is. You make a statement as if you have heard for yourself. It doesn't kill the transients. Do you know how many people are still using old school 12 bit samplers? SP1200's, MPC60's, akai 950's? I don't either, but it seems like a lot. They use them for a particular reason. It's easy to say lo-fi. Really? It hits. It's as plain as that. It sounds better to a certain group of people who are interested in electronic music. I said I made dance music from the jump. If you don't deal with dance music or electronic music in general, which implies the use of samplers, synths and drum machines, why do you feel the need to talk about something you don't normally do? I don't want you to speculate. Please speak out of experience.

uh.. yeah.. i've used adc's and dac's to make music for a while now.. and "hitting the a/d hard" kills your transients... thats why we have the additional detail and headroom of 24-bit recordings.. so we can push the noise floor further away, and record in the safe zone, to preserve the transients...

with tape, "manipulating" your transients is like compression... but digital isn't like that.. thats like the guy who wants to record DASH because he likes the way it compresses his sound.... the reason those old samplers sound good has as much to do with the analog stages as the converters.. do a search, you'll find many threads that discuss the analog sections of samplers, as well as converters.

and don't speak for all electronic musicians, as it is clear that you are not the chosen "speaker of the masses".. and i can say lo-fi, because what you talk about is almost there... (lo-fi isn't a bad thing, though you make it out to be, like i was making a statement about your dog having the mange or something frivilous)

Originally Posted by Lucin Niega

I record at 16 bit 44.1. Please don't be horrified . I actually perfer the sound as I do not have a compressor and recording in 16 bit seems to help some.

i'm glad you like it... good luck with that...

you remind me of JP22...

[Lucin Niega]

Originally Posted by brethes@mac.com

The only major drawback with 16 bit is the reduced dynamic range which wouldn't be a problem is your mixes are reasonably loud (but not squashed!)

Thanks.

[Lucin Niega]

Originally Posted by lucey

16 bits can be meaty and maybe that's perfect.

The MIX, the MIX, the MIX. That's what matters at mixing. Any one move in mixing can be more important than bits and rates.

Great description of the sound. Thanks for the advice. I frequently come back to the mix to judge with fresh ears. I change things here and there but it's very minor stuff. I guess I will probably get it mastered when I feel I don't have to change anything.

[jamescater]

Firstly I'd like to state that I don't have a problem with anyone recording in 16 bits.

However I have heard the following quote before

"I record at 44/16, therefore there's no point in sending anything higher than that to the mastering process"

This statement is just not true.

When you mix several 16 bit samples together "in the box", your DAW software will use a much higher resolution that 16 bits through its processing chain. This is usually 32 bit or more.

Basically multiple 16 bit samples are combined into a single 44.1/32 track

So just because your origional samples are 16 bit please don't make the mistake of thinking that that you should export the mixdown as 44.1/16

You should ALWAYS render the mixdown as 44.1/24 for a 44.1KHz project

Purists would also expect you to add 24 bit triangular dither for the final accuracy, but the main thing is to render using 24 bits which gives your output file much more accuracy and dynamc range than 44.1/16

[Lucin Niega]

Originally Posted by jamescater

When you mix several 16 bit samples together "in the box", your DAW software will use a much higher resolution that 16 bits through its processing chain. This is usually 32 bit or more.

I'm mixing on a digital mixer. Checkout the first post if you would like to know my setup.

[jayfrigo]

Originally Posted by jamescater

Firstly I'd like to state that I don't have a problem with anyone recording in 16 bits.

However I have heard the following quote before

"I record at 44/16, therefore there's no point in sending anything higher than that to the mastering process"

This statement is just not true.

When you mix several 16 bit samples together "in the box", your DAW software will use a much higher resolution that 16 bits through its processing chain. This is usually 32 bit or more.

This could be misleading, and can get tricky. The point of knowledge and experience is that it allows for judgement. You simply can't get a one-size-fits-all answer on a forum.

So, to clarify, even if you record at 16 bits, you certainly want to process at 24 bits or higher. Recording and delivery are different from processing.

If you record out of a console or even out of a DAW to a different mix format at 44.1/16, then that is what you should send to mastering. Adding 8 extra zeros doesn't increase the dynamic range or lower the noise of an original 16 bit recording. And sample rate conversion away from 44.1 can only hurt, not help your delivery file.

Back to processing for a moment... SRC in certain cases before digital processing can actually be a benefit, especially with non-linear processes like compression and limiting, but that's a different story. You would not want to alter the original sample rate before sending it to mastering. If there's a compelling reason to upsample, they'll do it there. If not, you've saved yourself unnecessary harm to you music.

However, if we are talking about recording at 16 bits and then mixing in a DAW environment, and never leaving the box, then you would want to both process and mix at 24 bits or higher. You can still output a dithered 16 bit mix at the end, or a dithered or an undithered 24 bit (depending on your processing and mixing bt depth), or even a 32 bit float file, though those are less standard and sometimes harder to handle if you are sending them elsewhere for mixing or mastering.

16 bit truncated without dither definitely gets crunchy and grainy. However, properly handled 16 bit, though potentially a bit noisy if dealing with very dynamic music, is certainly capable of sounding good. 44.1 also can sound good, though you certainly have filter artifacts in the audible range with 44.1 which may help to account for some people's distaste for it.

Originally Posted by Lucin Niega

I'm mixing on a digital mixer. Checkout the first post if you would like to know my setup.

With 01V96 assuming V2 software, I would recommend type II equalizers much more musical but also quite radical sometimes. Built-in dynamics are pretty poor, in general to be avoided (especially for mastering) and only usable with slow settings and minimal action. Possible alternative for compressor could be Yamaha add-on strip channel (can be tested by 10 minutes trial time, see V2 manual).

Of course SPX quality reverbs are pretty poor sounding (always grainy despite severe EQ) but delay and pitch usefull on top of usual chorus. Use available AES or SPDIF I/O to insert a quality reverb such as Lexicon, TC or Sony.

If the 01V96 single MY slot is not occupied by your digital I/O card the Waves Y96K would be a great addition to consider with all mastering facilities inside: L1, renaissance compressor, renaissance EQ (Pultec emulation), delays and acoustic reverbs for 8 channels. Can not consider a Yamaha digital mixer without this great card.

[soundroid]

Originally Posted by narcoman

Recording at 16bit will in no way replace using a compressor - not even related.

that was exactly my point to begin with which seemed to be lost on most.

[Sunbreak Music]

Originally Posted by soundroid

that was exactly my point to begin with which seemed to be lost on most.

It just seemed like bait to begin with.......

[aussie_techie]

Originally Posted by Lucin Niega

I'm mixing on a digital mixer. Checkout the first post if you would like to know my setup.

the 01V still has 32bit internal resolution so it makes little difference if you use software or a digital mixer.

[Lucin Niega]

Originally Posted by High Fidelity

With 01V96 assuming V2 software, I would recommend type II equalizers much more musical but also quite radical sometimes. Built-in dynamics are pretty poor, in general to be avoided (especially for mastering) and only usable with slow settings and minimal action. Possible alternative for compressor could be Yamaha add-on strip channel (can be tested by 10 minutes trial time, see V2 manual).

Of course SPX quality reverbs are pretty poor sounding (always grainy despite severe EQ) but delay and pitch usefull on top of usual chorus. Use available AES or SPDIF I/O to insert a quality reverb such as Lexicon, TC or Sony.

If the 01V96 single MY slot is not occupied by your digital I/O card the Waves Y96K would be a great addition to consider with all mastering facilities inside: L1, renaissance compressor, renaissance EQ (Pultec emulation), delays and acoustic reverbs for 8 channels. Can not consider a Yamaha digital mixer without this great card.

I've noticed that the type 2 eq sounds much better as well. Although, I try to use as little eq as possible. I like the dynamics, but then again, I usually use them on slow settings. I have not tried out the add on effects yet, but I will check the demo out this weekend. I was alway curious about them. As far as an outboard reverb is concerned, I usually have my Harmonizer on Aux 1 & 2. I like it alot, the Eventide that is . I would love to try out that waves card, but I need the adat card to occupy the slot all the time. Maybe If I upgraded to the DM1000 or something.