Any advantage to 96K and above?

What's happenin people?!? I was curious if any of you cats find any advantage to using sample rates above 48K. Now this is interesting because most MPC's only go up to 44.1K, 16-bit max. The 4000 goes up to 96K, 24-bit. But cats love 60's, 60II's and SP's at only 12-bit. Some engineers/producers say 44.1 or 48 is all that's necessary, while I've heard 96K makes thing more bright, open, detailed on the highs. Also, some high quality A/D converter designers say anything above 48K is unncessary.

So how bout it then? What is the consensus? Is rockin 48K good enough, or is there really a sonic benefit to 96K?

yes there is a sonic benefit to 96k, but the benefit is clearer in the mixing of the audio rather than in the tracks soloed. the mixing is handled much better, I guess more detailed math (that's all digital audio is, math which approximates reality where as analog is reality that can be approximated by math ) means more detailed digital summing and or translation from D/A converters. I imagine that the converter companies might not be making their products so exact in the higher ranges of sampling rates, and that may be why the downplay it, but the summing is much improved, even if going from a lower bit/sampling rate to 96k, the way it captures it helps in the mixing process.

It does tend to be bright though, not in a bad way, but more than what we are used to so you're eqing will be a bit different, also, multiband compression reacts a bit differently on the highs, you can squash them a bit if you need to and it doesn't get so ugly so fast like the Waves C4 can get with lesser rates.

That's just my experience, others may have different ears

...good looks Elmac. I was hoping some 4000 users could shed some light on the subject. I have heard as well from a couple other sources that the detail is enhanced on final mixes. But what I'm curious about is do kicks and snares @ 24-bit,96K have a sonic advantage to 16-bit, 12-bit, etc. kicks and snares?? Cats talk about 'crunchy' and 'grimy'. How bout higher sample and bit rates giving an advantage?

Just in mixing, I find 96 changes the sound in such a way that EQ is needed just to get it back to what it had accoustically. Like it's picking up highs better than our ears and reproducing them in a way that we are not used to hearing, so it can sound a bit wrong, but I view it as a technical reading to get the mixing benefits, like an oscilloscope.

I think accurate recording is an illusion, it's really just reprosuction, almost additive synthesis digitally.

Analog is more like an Xray, not accurate either, but it is made by a natural process (magnetism) which obeys physics much like sound. It still changes the sound, but in a more pleasing way over all. Screw tape editing tho!!!

...yeah, I was talking to a homie a week or two back about the digital vs. analog thing. The best way I could put it is analog actually captures an electrical response from the source. Whereas digital is a mathematical formula manipulated to imitate or emulate an electrical response from the source.

We were even debating if analog had more 'soul' as it were since the human nervous system actually generates electricity. So naturally wouldn't a real electrical source capture that energy better than an emulation of the process?? Probably too deep a concept for most, but it makes sense to me. I mean a soulful band could still be recorded digitally, but is there some inherent quality about genuine analog recording that brings out more emotion? Of course this is waaay beyond MPC's and more of a live instrument thing, but it's still mysterious why even the best albums recorded today aren't saturated both with raw sound and in a sense soul(depends on the band of course, there are exceptions).

About the frequencies thing, I've wondered if 96k alters sound in a fashion similar to neighboring frequency theories. Thus, by boosting or altering something we can't hear, is something we can hear being affected. I also had a homie who was tellin me about his pops breakin down a theory on sample rates. Basically it was that the human body detects things with many senses so possibly with sample rate differences, it could be another one of our senses detecting the inaudibly subtle nuances our ears aren't picking up off top. Sounds weird but then, if bass hits just right, you feel it as much or maybe more than you hear it.....Got me out there on some latenite ramble sh**.....

For sure. I don't get into the soul debate, one is not far superior to the other, they offer different things. But digital is removed from the laws of physics governing sound until it is back out the D/A. But that's what makes convolution reverbs possible, so it's not all bad. But as far as accurate recording, I still don't think it exists, everything is reproduction, but tape uses a natural process.

That sounds about right, having the inaudible affect the audible, some things come out too bright, and it can tke the presence out of the recording if you go straight from mic to 24/96, then you have to compensate. An Ideal system in my mind would record to tape, then dump to 96, the tape would do the HF roll off in a pleasing way, and the 96 would capture it well, then allow greater editing functions and superior in the box mixing. But if you are taking it out of the box for summing, then it becomes a moot point. It's interesting working at 96k, I don't do it at home, I only do it on jobs, but I quite like it as you can really hear everything even in a mix, the mix sounds, um, wider, where you can pick out individual sounds even in really busy mixes.