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It's very unlikely your audio interface can actually record at 32 bit resolution. https://www.mojo-audio.com/blog/the-24bit-delusion/ https://www.mojo-audio.co

It's very unlikely your audio interface can actually record at 32 bit resolution. https://www.mojo-audio.com/blog/the-24bit-delusion/ https://www.mojo-audio.com/blog/the-24bit-delusion/ 32bit or more makes sense for dsp and summing, and non-musical data storage. But your I/O is most likely not giving 32 bits

jrajav 4y ago
32-bit is common in field recordings, like with a Zoom (and there's reason to believe they can legitimately take advantage of it).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  That's a bit different, as it's 32 bit floating point, not integer. 32 bit float is often used for summing and that's what's going on here. Those are done by having 2 (or more) parallel ADCs (usually 24 or 16 bit) with the input voltage scaled lower on each successive one, and then they are digitally re-scaled and mixed together using a 32 bit float format into a single stream (double that paragraph for stereo). The big benefit from 32bit float is you can go "above" 0db, so your digital operations can't "clip" in the analog sense. I definitely see the benefits of 32 bit float hardware, especially for field recordings (zoom aren't lying, it does work). But it's a different format and the internals are relying on the integer based format and don't exceed 24 bit integers.
  - atoav 4y ago
    I was thinking flac 32 bits is float as well?
atoav 4y ago
My sounddevices mixpre 10 records in 32 bits. Granted not all of those bits will be significant, but the preamps are good enough to take 24 bits to the limit. 32 bits are less critical to set the gain for (more headroom) and audio files are tiny anyways (compared to say, video). So in a practical sense I need to be less precise with setting the gain, or can record a bit more dynamic events. I am very happy with the results. Sounddevices has a good explaination if you are curious: https://www.sounddevices.com/32-bit-float-files-explained/ https://www.sounddevices.com/32-bit-float-files-explained/

jrajav 4y ago

32-bit is common in field recordings, like with a Zoom (and there's reason to believe they can legitimately take advantage of it).

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
squeaky-clean 4y ago
That's a bit different, as it's 32 bit floating point, not integer. 32 bit float is often used for summing and that's what's going on here. Those are done by having 2 (or more) parallel ADCs (usually 24 or 16 bit) with the input voltage scaled lower on each successive one, and then they are digitally re-scaled and mixed together using a 32 bit float format into a single stream (double that paragraph for stereo). The big benefit from 32bit float is you can go "above" 0db, so your digital operations can't "clip" in the analog sense. I definitely see the benefits of 32 bit float hardware, especially for field recordings (zoom aren't lying, it does work). But it's a different format and the internals are relying on the integer based format and don't exceed 24 bit integers.
- atoav 4y ago
  I was thinking flac 32 bits is float as well?

atoav 4y ago

My sounddevices mixpre 10 records in 32 bits. Granted not all of those bits will be significant, but the preamps are good enough to take 24 bits to the limit. 32 bits are less critical to set the gain for (more headroom) and audio files are tiny anyways (compared to say, video). So in a practical sense I need to be less precise with setting the gain, or can record a bit more dynamic events. I am very happy with the results. Sounddevices has a good explaination if you are curious: https://www.sounddevices.com/32-bit-float-files-explained/ https://www.sounddevices.com/32-bit-float-files-explained/