[Ardour-Users] Saving disk space

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sat, 1 Oct 2016 10:37:29 +0200, Alf Haakon Lund wrote:
>On 01. okt. 2016 10:27, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
>> On Sat, 1 Oct 2016 10:08:55 +0200, Alf Haakon Lund wrote:  
>>> I guess for my main use of Ardour to edit stuff for airing on radio,
>>> the extra hifi bits doesn't make much sense anyway.  
>>
>> Not for broadcasting, but for editing floating point makes much
>> sense.  
>
>Would that sense be like 'Ardour works better' with floating point, or 
>'the final product sounds better'?

"sample data is maintained internally in 32 bit floating point format"
- https://community.ardour.org/key_features

In contrast to integer, when using floating point you don't need to
care about optimised signals. As long as you edit, you should use the
most neutral way to do it. If you store data by an integer format
during editing, you risk to run into issues when continuing mixing.
Once you introduce a still inaudible issue caused by using integer, it
could become an audible issue when continuing mixing.

For broadcasting even a good 4-track cassette recording is good enough
in the first place. Not only ping-pong recording is an issue with
4-track cassette recordings, the issue starts already before you
ping-pong record. If you want to add an effect, the original audio
signal, good enough for broadcasting, might not allow you to manipulate
it and keep broadcasting quality.

In the digital domain the signal might remain good enough for
broadcasting, but it anyway could become more work to exactly get the
result you want.

Very often you likely could use integer for a mix, too, but you never
know and shouldn't risk to run into an issue. Using integer could make
sense for e.g. a tablet PC, but considering to use integer for reducing
disk space IMO is the wrong approach. How could disk space nowadays
become an issue?

Regards,
Ralf