[Ardour-Users] Saving disk space

Axel 'the C.L.A.' Müller axel-mueller-74 at web.de
Sat Oct 1 12:17:29 PDT 2016


On Sat, 1 Oct 2016 20:34:58 +0200
Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net> wrote:

> On Sat, 1 Oct 2016 19:46:31 +0200, Axel 'the C.L.A.' Müller wrote:
> >As pointed out earlier it might be required when importing a file with
> >mismatching sample rate
> 
> What is a mismatching sample rate, if you import the audio file as is?
> AFAIK Ardour could use different formats at the same time, MP3 etc. and
> seemingly different wav bit formats. Different sample rates need to be
> converted when importing?

The highest quality sample rate conversion that everybody wants (TM)
just uses a lot of processing power, so it's best done offline - AKA
converted during import.

> Another advantage of floating point is, that you don't need to learn
> which DAW is able to handle what formats at the same time. Simply use
> 32 bit floating point 48 KHz wav for everything during production, what
> ever DAW you are using. The only time when I'm not doing this is, if a
> tablet PC DAW forces me to use a format.
> 
> >> Only when recording floating point is useful, at least if you want
> >> to continue mixing including the recorded tracks.  
> >
> >Depends were you record (or bounce) from. [snip]
> >
> >When you record from inside your 32 bit float environment [snip]
> >bouncing internally [snip]
> 
> That's what I was talking about.
> 
> The reason why I'm against mixing different formats is confusion that
> could cause accidents.

Sticking to float is without question the safest way. But if disk
space matters, you know your workflow, requirements and technical
details, you can make an educated decision if you might choose a lower
bit depth - or in the case of the import, Ardour might get a feature to
choose automatically.

It should also be noted that this topic is about the bit depth of the
files that are supposed to be used by Ardour internally only. You
should not normally mess with the files in the interchange directory.
So the compatibility with other DAWs is not of any concern here. There
are various export options (for example Stem Export) for that.



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