[Ardour-Users] Saving disk space

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sat, 1 Oct 2016 12:58:14 +0200, Axel 'the C.L.A.' Müller wrote:
>On Sat, 1 Oct 2016 12:43:43 +0200
>Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 1 Oct 2016 12:27:16 +0200, Gunter Königsmann wrote:  
>> >That would mean that ardour is in fact quite intelligent and that
>> >saving 16-bit-data as 16 bit in most places does in fact do nothing
>> >but saving disk space.  
>> 
>> True, but since saving disk space nowadays isn't an issue,...  
>
>I disagree. I tend to record long sessions with quite a few tracks.
>For example the last session was well over 15 GB at 24 bit setting. And
>especially when moving a few sessions to the laptop with only a small
>SSD in it, disk space starts to matter to me again.
>
>> you shouldn't risk to run into an issue that at least wastes time.  
>
>What issues? I never ran into a single issue when using lower bit depth
>than 32 bit float.

If you process a track there's no issue. If you record the processed
track by integer instead of floating point and then continue editing
the recorded track, then you could experience issues.

However, there already is a difference between mixing a big band for
broadcasting and recording songs from a CD and mixing it with radio
host vocals.

In short, floating point for the file format allows you not to think
about your work-flow, while using integer for the file format could
cause issues, you need to care about your work-flow.

Wrongheaded hard ware solutions are not a valid argument. Disk space
nowadays is not an issue, if you chose your hardware task-oriented.

Regards,
Ralf