[ardour-dev] How to record 24-bit audio files?

Mark Knecht markknecht at gmail.com
Sun Dec 19 17:33:06 PST 2004


On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 19:54:42 -0600, Jan Depner <eviltwin69 at cableone.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 2004-12-19 at 19:22, Mark Knecht wrote:
> > On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 13:32:07 -0500, Paul Davis
> > <paul at linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:
> > > >Is there a way to record 24-bit audiofiles instead of the default
> > > >32-bit ones? I mean something like choosing session bit-depth in
> > > >ProTools.  I'm thinking about easier interchangeability of audiofiles
> > > >between different audio applications in different DAWs. Many computer
> > > >based systems use max.  24-bit resolution, which IMHO is pretty much
> > > >enough in most cases.
> > >
> > > I think you are a little confused.
> > >
> > > Ardour's native files are ordinary RIFF/WAV IEEE floating point
> > > format, which uses 24 bits to store a mantissa, and the remaining 8
> > > for the exponent and other flags. They have 24 bit precision for
> > > absolute accuracy, but can also contain values way outside the normal
> > > dynamic range of a 24 bit file. This is useful for containing a mix
> > > whose values went outside the 24 bit range.
> > >
> > > Ardour does not attempt to "fake" 32 bit resolution. If ProTools has
> > > problems with importing its native files, its because they (like a lot
> > > of other software) don't properly handle this 100% legal WAV
> > > format. Software that does (like anything using the libsndfile
> > > library) can read them with ease.
> > >
> > > Meanwhile, you can always *export* audio from Ardour in a number of
> > > different formats, most or all of which will be importable by PT and
> > > other non-standards-compliant software.
> > >
> > > Note that main reason to use 24 bit files has nothing to do with
> > > resolution but disk i/o bandwidth. You get a significant savings by
> > > storing only 3 bytes per sample instead of 4. Ardour might switch to
> > > such a format one day in the future, to accomodate higher track
> > > counts.
> > >
> > > --p
> > >
> >
> > Hi,
> >    About 2-3 weeks ago I posted (I think) a message about 24-bit
> > export files being mostly noise. Has this been looked at? (Is it
> > reporoducible by anyone else?)
> >
> >    16-bit export continues to work fine.
> >
> 
>    I've been exporting 24 bit and have no problems with them.  I've
> also done 16 bit with no problems.  I'm using the latest CVS.
> 
> Jan
> 
> 

Humm - export of just the master tracks from the menu export?(Not a
region export?)

- Mark



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