Export a 24bit file

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Hello,

I recently took a short training workshop and we were using an earlier version of Audacity. Now back at work i’m using 2.1.1 and I created a file at a sample rate of 96000Hz and 24bit but in the export options I only see 16bit and 32bit float. Is it ok to export to a higher bit rate? Where did 24 bit go?

Thanks
Elizabeth

2

24-bit is in “other uncompressed files”
See: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/file_export_dialog.html
and: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/wav_aiff_and_uncompressed_export_options.html

3

Oh thank you.

Is it bad to create the file at 24bit and export at 32bit float?

Elizabeth

4

It’s not bad or harmful, just a waste of space, and not all apps may be able to play 32-bit float.

24-bit and especially 96000 Hz are arguably wasteful, especially if you are only recording speech: http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html.


Gale

5

Is it bad to create the file at 24bit and export at 32bit float?

It’s not necessarily “bad”, but do you have a reason for it?

Normally, floating-point is used in certain circumstances for as a temporary format. For example, Audacity does it’s internal processing in floating-point. The main advantage for a temporary file is that it can go over 0dBFS.

It’s rarely used as a final or release format and there’s no reason to do so. There are no audio DACs that go over 0dB and very-few floating-point audio DACs, and none of them have true floating-point resolution/accuracy. In a computer, the driver will automatically convert the data to 16-bit or 24-bit integer as appropriate for the particular soundcard/DAC.