Hi, I am using Mas os high sierra 10.13.6 and Audacity 2.3.2
Here are the specs of my computer:
MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports)
Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7
I am very interested in recording high sample rate sound. Through audacity, I get the option to raise the sample rate to 384000 samples per second. however, when I go into my mac microphone options, the highest option that I see for sample rate is 96kHz. I am wondering how audacity gets a higher sample rate. I would guess that the internal analog to digital converter has some sort of limit for the sample rate. Also, audacity has muliple output settings for sample resolution up to 32bit float. Is it possible to output the absolute raw data that audacity captured so I can parse it on my own?
Thanks
Studio digital rates are 96000 and 24bits. Anything higher than that isn’t sound any more. 384,000 sample rate will cheerfully record LORAN navigation radio transmissions. Not the information on the transmission, the actual transmission itself. Probably not what you had in mind unless you happen to have a LORAN transmitter.
You can get into serious trouble with higher than normal digital sample rates because of your computer’s inability to keep up. Sound doesn’t have holes in it for the computer to take a breath. It’s constant bits and there is no such thing as pausing for a second to go check the network connection for example
If you pick a nose-bleed high sample rate and start having stuttering, ticking or gaps in the show, our response is likely to be. “Yes. That’s correct.”
Audio CD standard is 44100, 16-bit and digital video flies by at 48000, 16-bit. As above, Recording Studio rates are 96000 and 24 bits.
Koz
Missed one. You can output your show at 32-floating WAV, but you should be able to point to someone who can open and play it. Otherwise you’ll have a unicorn pet on your hands. Nice to look at, but nobody can play it.
Also you can go into the Audacity setups and disable dither. 32-float doesn’t need it.
Koz
I am very interested in recording high sample rate sound.
Why? (It won’t improve sound quality.) It might help with ultrasound but you have to make sure your hardware supports higher than audio signals. A higher sample rate doesn’t guarantee higher signal frequencies.
I am wondering how audacity gets a higher sample rate.
The windows drivers will upsample if the hardware isn’t capable and unless you have the actual hardware specs you’ll never know. And of course, upsampling doesn’t improve the audio quality. Hardware manufactures often tell you what the hardware & software can produce and they don’t tell you what the hardware is really doing.
Pro audio interfaces often use ASIO drivers which don’t re-sample. (Audacity is not an ASIO application.) And as far as I know ASIO is not supported for the Mac.
The bit depth is up-scaled to 32-bit floating point by Audacity. Floating point is better for DSP (digital signal processing). Virtually all ADCs & DACs are 16 or 24 bit integer (fixed-point).
Is it possible to output the absolute raw data that audacity captured so I can parse it on my own?
As above, you can’t control the sample rate unless you go with ASIO hardware and an ASIO application.* You can convert losslessly between 16 or 24-bit and 32-bit floating point, so bit depth conversion usually isn’t an issue. Virtually all audio editors/DAWs use floating point “internally”.
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- Most hardware and software that support ASIO also support standard Windows drivers.