Hi everybody.
I’ve been trying to record my vinyl collection at hi-res audio 24 bit rate/ 96 sample rate using Audacity and im having a problem. Every time i export the audio the bit-rate seems to come out at 16 bit.
I have a Macbook Pro OSX 10.9.5 and ive connected my turntable and amp into my external audio interface which is a Roland DUO-CAPTURE EX which is able to record at 24 bit rate.
In Audacity I’ve gone to Preferences → Quality and then set it at 24/96. When i’ve finished recording and go to Export the audio as a WAV i’ve only got a ‘16-bit float’ and ‘32-bit float’ option so i cant seem to export a WAV with a 24 bit rate. If i try instead to export it as a flac i get a drop down menu that has an ‘options’ button which leads to a ‘FLAC Export Setup’ menu with ‘Level’ and ‘Bit Depth’ options, ive set the ‘Bit Depth’ at 24 and the ‘level’ at 8 (although im not entirely sure what the ‘level’ means here). Despite all this the flac file comes out as 16/96.
It’s really beginning to frustrate me because as far as i can see ive set up everything correctly for 24/96 files but Audacity is still exporting the files at 16/96.
I’m really hoping some knowledgable person can help me out
I doubt it. The connected devices don’t have an influence on the export options.
I’ve just tried it with 2.1.3 alpha and exporting to Flac in 24/96/best. All went well. However, I’m on Windows…
Is the project rate 96000 Hz?
The bit depth in preferences should be 32 bit float.
I don’t know how it is on Mac but audio is usually recorded at 16 bit, regardless of the preference setting.
(On Windows, one has to use Wasapi to get 24 bit).
You set sample rate and bit-depth either in the interface’s setup application or in Audio/midi setup. Every destination app will follow this when recording. And the hardware will follow that too.
In the unlikely case that the app doesn’t support 24 bit input, or higher sample rates, Core audio is aware of that and will resample on the fly when recording.
The other way around, it functions similarly. If you play a 16 bit audio file to a 24 bit device, Core audio will add zero’s to get to 24 bit.
That’s what’s so confusing for Mac users with Audacity’s project settings. Is there any use case for not setting a project to 32 bit? Most other DAW’s don’t even offer that option and simply hide the internal project bit depth.
Now even Apple offers 32 bit bit-depth on input, while the hardware is only capable of 24 bit. There is only one interface I’m aware of that is really 32 bit. Price: form 12.000 € upwards. All others advertise 24 bit, most are only 20 bits effectively.
So I agree the Audacity project bit-depth should be 32 bit. But my point is that the interface is 48 kHz tops. Setting project/export to 96 kHz will not add anything quality wise and will only result in much bigger files.
Unless Roland has released another, newer interface with the same name and 96 kHz capability. Which they often do…
Do you mean “16-bit PCM”? If it really says “16-bit float” then you don’t have Audacity supplied by us and we can’t help you with it. You can obtain Audacity 2.1.2 from us at http://www.audacityteam.org/download/mac
If you are exporting in .aiff of other apple software, I have learned that it will only do it in 16bit because that is all apple will support at the
moment. It works in .wav up to 32bit 192khz perfectly with awesome results. The major issue is managing the file in iTunes, basically it imports as an unknown file and will not even allow me to manually edit the information. Definitely a “Bad Apple”! Until apple accepts that people want better than 16X256 quality for their audio this won’t change. I am looking into a super cheap mini pc as a playback device.
Aiff is near identical to wav. If you found a limitation, it’s in the software you use to produce those files.
Aiff isn’t even an Apple format. It’s just Apple’s version of Iff, which was developed by IBM, IIRC.
t works in .wav up to 32bit 192khz perfectly with awesome results. The major issue is managing the file in iTunes, basically it imports as an unknown file and will not even allow me to manually edit the information. Definitely a “Bad Apple”! Until apple accepts that people want better than 16X256 quality for their audio this won’t change. I am looking into a super cheap mini pc as a playback device.
You’re fooling yourself.
32 bit for playback is utter madness. I won’t go into details, that would take us too far.