When you are setting up a recording session in a DAW, one of the things you need to decide on is the sample rate you will be using. Oddly enough, sample rate is one of those things that is often misunderstood and sometimes controversial.
Let me give you a quick primer in case you need to get caught up on the conversation. Unlike analog recording, digital audio cannot record a continuous stream of information. Digital audio take a series of digital “snap shots” of an audio wave form that is then stored (and usually manipulated) in our digital recorders. On playback the digital audio system can convert or reassemble those snap shots back into an analog wave form that is remarkably similar to what was recorded. When you buy a CD (you still buy those, right?) the sample rate is 44.1k, meaning that the audio is made up of 44,100 of these digital snap shots. If you rent a DVD of a new Hollywood blockbuster, the sample rate for the audio will be 48k, or 48,000 of these snap shots.
The sample rate determines the highest frequency that can be recorded, and that frequency is half the sample rate. So at 48k the highest frequency that can get recorded is 24,000 Hz. (In practical reality this is a bit lower than that because some of the highest frequencies need to get filtered out.) Although there is debate about this, traditional understanding is that the highest frequency that a young healthy human can here is 20,000 Hz, so when the CD standard of 44.1k was created, it was pretty much all we would ever need…. so why would we ever want 48k, 88.2k, 96k or even 192k sampling rates?
The answer to that question is the stuff of engineering white papers and endless debates on internet forums. The most common answers are:
- The higher sample rates just sound better
- If I need to do time stretching the higher sample rates sound better
- I cannot hear the difference, but I am going to record with higher resolution just in case
- My plugins sound better at higher sample rates
- Digital summing sounds better at higher sample rates
- Some guy on the internet told me I was supposed to
I am going to forego my own opinions about this issue for the moment (and honestly I am still developing my own opinions on some of these issues). But these are issues I see furiously debated among engineers. The value of working at higher sample rates is something that I have seen engineers passionately advocate for online and in magazine articles, even going so far as to be dismissive and condescending to those that would be foolish enough to still record anything at a sample rate lower than 96k. These guys and gals are so passionate about this, that even I, a guy that has been working with digital audio since the early 90s, started to second guess some of my work. Had I been a lazy unprofessional idiot by working on serious projects at 44.1 or 48k?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Am I still a lazy unprofessional idiot because I still do tons of projects at 44.1k (album projects) and 48k (film, TV, and video game work)? I am simply a bad person?
A huge part of my work is mixing, mastering and doing consulting for clients all over the world. My clients range from weekend warriors to mega stars that I am bound by non-disclosure agreements from mentioning. I noticed something about the sample rates of the projects that were getting sent to me: Of the working pros that did audio recording full time, and the projects being done for major record labels, film companies and big video game companies, almost all of the work was coming to me at either 44.1 or 48k sample rates. By almost all, I mean close to 100%. The majority of projects I was seeing that were at higher sample rates (usually 96k) were coming from hobbyists and part-time engineers.
I was curious to see if I was just getting an odd sampling of projects, so I reached out to my Facebook community for an informal poll. I have almost 5,000 Facebook friends. Most of them are music and audio people. They range from bedroom producers to some of the most successful audio engineers in the world. I asked: “For those of you that make at least 90% of your living doing audio recording, what sample rates are you doing most of your work at?” I got around 100 responses on the first day and the make up was a good mix of small studio owners to multi-platinum engineers . The result? About 95% of the respondents said they were doing the majority of their work at 44.1 or 48k! Literally only about 5 or 6 of the full time pros were doing work at high sample rates!
So does this mean that recording at higher sample rates should be avoided, or that engineers that choose to do so are wrong? ABSOLUTELY NOT! What it means is that if you choose to record at 44.1 or 48 you are not in any way, shape, or form being unprofessional. You are actually working to professional standards.
I see a day somewhere down the road (I am writing this in July of 2017) when most people will be working at higher sample rates. It has some potential advantages and as storage (and RAM) gets cheaper, and processors get faster and faster, there will not be any compelling reason to work at lower sample rates. But we are not there yet. When you shift from 44.1 or 48 to 88.2 or 96 you are doubling the amount of storage space you need, you are increasing the load on your processors (especially if you work with a lot of virtual instruments, reverbs and “harmonic” plugins) and in many DAWs you are reducing the number of tracks available to work with. On a simple recording with a few tracks this does not really make much of a difference, but once you start working on more complex albums, or the intense track counts and processing that can be required for high end film or video game work, higher sample rates can actually make some projects impossible. The same can be said for a bedroom producer’s less complex project that he or she is doing on an older computer.
The important thing to remember is that working at higher sample rates can have some advantages, but none of them are so important that they are worth slowing down your work flow or making it impossible for you to get the job done. Whether you choose to work at 44.1 or 192, you are working within professional standards. For what it is worth, the 3 biggest projects I have worked on in the last year have been for a major video game company, a major label and one of the biggest metal labels in the world. All of those projects were at 44.1 or 48k.
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I am gearing up for next years Mountain Recording Retreat in May of 2018. Enrollment will probably open up in mid August. It is such an amazing event. I never imagined I would ever get to host a recording event where people were on the verge of tears that it was ending. On a technical side, one of the reasons we have been able to do things in this resort location at a low price is that my friends at a couple companies have been really supportive in helping me set up the listening room. My favorite music store in the world, Chuck Levin’s Washington Music Center (where I often teach master classes) has given me sweetheart deals on gear rentals for the monitoring for the workshops at the Mountain Recording Retreat. I have bought tons of stuff from them over the last 30 years. If you are looking for gear you should definitely check out the info below.
