[Ardour-Users] Saving disk space

[Axel 'the C.L.A.' Müller]

On Sat, 1 Oct 2016 19:10:34 +0200
Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net> wrote:

> On Sat, 1 Oct 2016 18:47:01 +0200, Axel 'the C.L.A.' Müller wrote:
> >
> >After putting some more thoughts into it I tend to propose an
> >all-in-one-trouble-free option in "Session Properties -> Media" for
> >that. Ardour would decide itself it is safe to keep the bit depth or if
> >float format should be used. This would completely overwrite the
> >"Sample Format" option in that tab and import as float even if Sample
> >Format is not set to float, if required.
> 
> Actually a "keep bit depth" option when importing, is all that is
> required. Importing integer audio files and converting them to floating
> point never is needed, assuming that a DAW is able to use different
> audio file formats at the same time.

As pointed out earlier it might be required when importing a file with
mismatching sample rate, as the original file might have some
intersample peaks above 0 dBFS that are then clipped on sample rate
conversion when using integer - causing unwanted distortion.

> 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. When recording from your
audio interface 24 bit integer usually is perfectly fine, as almost no
converter does sample at a higher bit depth anyway. An exception might
be if your interface does some processing and delivers that as 32 bit
float already.

When you record from inside your 32 bit float environment (jack,
bouncing internally, soft synths, etc...) it's a different story as
there might be some additional information that might be lost/truncated
or even clipped when using integer.