Sample Rate Question

Thank you all for being here! Yes, I’m another newbie, but I’ve been searching this forum repeatedly as I slowly get my act together recording my own novels as audiobooks.

When I first started this odyssey, I took a class based on the Presonus StudioOne software, where it was suggested that I record my project with a sample rate of 48000. Then when I save the project to .mp3, I can bump it down to the required sample rate of 44100 for ACX. The idea is to record and do all the editing in the higher sample rate so I lose less quality when saving as .mp3. It’s also possible that I completely misunderstood what the instructor said.

I’m about to edit my first chapter prior to uploading to our friends at ACX for testing and realized I recorded it at 44100. Is it generally a good idea to record and edit at the higher sample rate, say 48000? Can the sample rate be changed when converting to .mp3? Or does that happen when exporting to .wav? To be honest, I barely understand what a sample rate is.

Like someone else noted in one of the posts I read here, this is an incredibly steep learning curve, and I so wish I’d found this forum before buying my equipment and trying to set up my studio. It would have made things go much faster. But thanks to a lot of what I’ve learned here, things are finally working. I’m passing the ACX Check. I know I’ve got the humans to get past. I will learn this stuff and be better for it. In the meantime, thank you from the bottom of my heart!

In fuzzy generalities, the higher sample rate, the higher pitch sound can be.

In both cases, it’s beyond audibility. 44100 is the sample rate used on Audio CDs. 48000 is the sample rate used in video.

Bottom line: Nobody is Going to Know. Given there’s a very tiny conversion error, I’d probably stick to 44100 for everything.

It’s true, if you were doing very serious pitch shifting or other frequency management, then we could have a chat. But we assume you’re talking in front of a microphone and then cleaning it up a bit. Either rate works.

Do you have any work posted we can listen to? If not, can you cut a sample track?

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/TestClip/Record_A_Clip.html

The humans will be looking for damaging processing errors and non-human sounds. Yes, you made it through ACX Check, but your story sounds like a bad cellphone.

Post two. One raw like the web page says, and one you think is ready for submission.

Koz