Axefx II AES recording 48khz (32bit float)?

Ironwill

Ironwill

Experienced
What can I expect of recording with the Axe fx as master clock AES in a 48khz 32 bit float session?
Anyone have experience, will it sound bad that way if its not synched to 24 Bit? Iam very interested in.
 
Hey Ironwill,

You should be fine. I would set your DAW to 24bit 48Khz and then have it process with the 32bit float. This will keep the audio files 24bit but will process any FX, dithering etc with the 32bit floating computation. At least as far as I understand it Hahahah.

Take care, Chris.
 
Chris Broderick said:
Hey Ironwill,

You should be fine. I would set your DAW to 24bit 48Khz and then have it process with the 32bit float. This will keep the audio files 24bit but will process any FX, dithering etc with the 32bit floating computation. At least as far as I understand it Hahahah.

Take care, Chris.
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Ah alright sounds like a good way, thx
How I understand, Recording At 48 khz 24 bits and mixing and processing I just switch over to 32 bits in the session right?

When record on 32Bits, you think this will bring any problems or tone altering,shifts?

I definitely need to try later.
 
Your DAW should do that for you, so you shouldn't have to switch anything (just maybe once in your preferences to turn on the floating point computation).

Take care, Chris.
 
Chris Broderick said:
Your DAW should do that for you, so you shouldn't have to switch anything (just maybe once in your preferences to turn on the floating point computation).

Take care, Chris.
Click to expand...

Okay, I just tried, started my session 48khz 32 Bits float engine. I compared recording with 32 bits and switch in the the session setting window to 24 bits, I can hear a very slight difference. The 24 bit recorded clip sound a little more detailed, wider and warmer to me, but its not a big diff.

thx for your help mister!! :)
 
Ironwill said:
Okay, I just tried, started my session 48khz 32 Bits float engine. I compared recording with 32 bits and switch in the the session setting window to 24 bits, I can hear a very slight difference. The 24 bit recorded clip sound a little more detailed, wider and warmer to me, but its not a big diff.

thx for your help mister!! :)
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I doubt it. IEEE floating point format is 23 bits of mantissa, 8 bits of exponent and a sign bit. 24-bit fixed point is 23 bits plus a sign bit. So there is nothing lost in converting 24-bit fixed to 32-bit float. And you are better off mixing in 32-bit float since overflow is not an issue.
 
FractalAudio said:
I doubt it. IEEE floating point format is 23 bits of mantissa, 8 bits of exponent and a sign bit. 24-bit fixed point is 23 bits plus a sign bit. So there is nothing lost in converting 24-bit fixed to 32-bit float. And you are better off mixing in 32-bit float since overflow is not an issue.
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OK, the Shade of difference I hear is most likely in my head ?! Alrighty, so I don't have to care about switch to 24 bits in PT session when recording, just stay on 32 Bit depth float (Pro Tools converting on the fly) and it shouldn't make a difference when record with the Axe fx 24 bit fixed.right??
 
As of yet there are not any 32-bit AD/DAs so recording at 32-bit will yield the same results as recording at 24-bit (but your files will be much bigger). Of course the word length of a 24-bit session will expand to 32-bit internally in your DAW when you add any processing (including panning and level changes).

As a side note, since most DAWs operate at 32-bit float it's a good idea to apply dither when you bounce the project.
 
For those who are interested, that's the kind detailed answer I've got from AVID Support as well:

"From the HD I/O guide:
HD I/O features 24-bit analog-to-digital (A/D) and digital-to-analog (D/A) converters.

So you are correct that the 32-bit floating point comes into play when clips are processed (for example), it won't impact the initial quality of the recordings. There are still advantages to recording into a 32bit float session via 24bit converters as, for example, less rounding errors should be caused, and there are extra bits available for processing (Audiosuite render etc).

From Pro Tools 10 you can have mixed bit depth and sample rate files in the session, so I don't find the initial session bit depth/sample rate is as important as it was previously. You can also change the Setup > Session > Bit Depth (or Sample Rate) on the fly if you need to.

It's not necessary to change the bit depth of your session down to 24bit.

As you probably know 32bit fioat files will be larger in size, so that's one disadvantage to keep in mind. So a 24bit signal recorded into a 32bit float file will still create 32bit files. The overall quality should be higher, but it will take more memory. "
 
Nice thread.

I haven't done much 32 bit float with PT yet because almost all the passing around I do is 24/48 projects.

But I've wondered about it being better or worse overall.

I'm going to give it a go for an upcoming project where I need to print 16/44.1 files anyway. So I might as well dither from 32 bit float as to 24.
 
barhrecords said:
Nice thread.

I haven't done much 32 bit float with PT yet because almost all the passing around I do is 24/48 projects.

But I've wondered about it being better or worse overall.

I'm going to give it a go for an upcoming project where I need to print 16/44.1 files anyway. So I might as well dither from 32 bit float as to 24.
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If you're just listening to a single track it won't matter either way. The advantage of 32 bit float is that you won't lose precision mathematical precision as multiple tracks are mixed together - presumably they're hitting other plugins and sub groups and sends as well. IOW, with 32 bit float you will potentially retain more detail in the final rendering.
 
hippietim said:
If you're just listening to a single track it won't matter either way. The advantage of 32 bit float is that you won't lose precision mathematical precision as multiple tracks are mixed together - presumably they're hitting other plugins and sub groups and sends as well. IOW, with 32 bit float you will potentially retain more detail in the final rendering.
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Ummmmmmm no shit? :)

I've been mixing for music production with Pro Tools for a while now. Got in the Pro Tools game at version 6.
 
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