Question about sound quality with Audacity.

[ZoneIII]

I'm a newbie although I've been using Audacity for my simple needs for years. I just got a Zoom H6 recorder and it can record up to WAV96kHz/24bit. This is probably a really dumb question but, like I said, I'm a newbie. Will Audacity be able to preserve that quality when I am finished with a audio file? I guess what I'm really asking is will I be able to save the final file it to that format. I was just wondering if I there will be a "weakest link" involved.

[DVDdoug]

Yes. Audacity works in 32-bit floating-point internally. And, you can export to 24/96.

Of course, Audacity is an audio editor and you can make edits or add effects that screw-up the sound!

I was just wondering if I there will be a "weakest link" involved.

The weakest link is normally the acoustic side and the sound "hitting the microphone". That includes the actual performance, including the quality of the instrument and the voice. Then microphone positioning, room acoustics and soundproofing/room noise. Then, the microphone, your recording levels, and the analog microphone preamp.


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FYI - 24/96 is the current studio standard, but the guys over at the HydrogenAudio forum that do Sceintific blind ABX tests have shown that you can't hear the difference between a 24/96 original and the same file downsampled to 16/44.1 CD quality. In fact, a good-quality high-bitrate MP3 often sounds identical to the uncompressed original in a proper blind listening test.

24-bit analog-to-digital recorders are usually only accurate to around 20-bits, and the background noise in the room (or studio) usually means you are "capturing" less than 16-bits of true resolution.

So... Try not to loose any sleep if your "final product" needs to be a CD or MP3.

[kozikowski]

The two longest threads on the forum are bruno and Ian. One recording an acoustic guitar and the other his voice. Bruno went through equipment and environmental changes to get his product out, but Ian was using the same microphone at the beginning and the end. All of his fixes were environment improvements and upgrades.

Koz

[steve]

If you use the Zoom as an audio interface on Windows, you will only get 16 bit resolution in Audacity due to a limitation between Audacity and the Windows drivers. (you will probably also pick up the sound of the computer fan).

If you record on the Zoom and import the WAV file into Audacity then Audacity will import the 24 bit file with full 24 bit resolution.

In both cases Audacity will (by default) convert the data to 32 bit float format (this does not lose any quality because it is using more bits than the original).

If you record on the Zoom at 24/96, you must use a good, fast flash card to be able to handle the data without dropping bits.

[ZoneIII]

Thanks you very much for the useful responses.

I'm new to this and your responses were a big help, especially the info on using the Zoom as an input device as opposed to recording on the Zoom and then importing the files into Audacity.

Thanks much!

[ZoneIII]

I forgot to mention that this (quoted below) is very useful. I knew that there is a point after which you can't hear a difference in quality but I wasn't sure what that point was. Thanks for that info.

"FYI - 24/96 is the current studio standard, but the guys over at the HydrogenAudio forum that do Sceintific blind ABX tests have shown that you can't hear the difference between a 24/96 original and the same file downsampled to 16/44.1 CD quality. In fact, a good-quality high-bitrate MP3 often sounds identical to the uncompressed original in a proper blind listening test.

24-bit analog-to-digital recorders are usually only accurate to around 20-bits, and the background noise in the room (or studio) usually means you are "capturing" less than 16-bits of true resolution."

[kozikowski]

I knew that there is a point after which you can't hear a difference in quality

Just to be excessively careful about that. Those numbers are for straight recording and listening, not production. If you know your song is going to go through extensive production, filtering, effects, etc, barely adequate "CD Sound" is not going to do it. That's where 24/96 comes in.

It's difficult to maintain a level playing field, you can always go down in quality either intentionally or accidentally, but you can't go up.

Koz

[Gale Andrews]

If you use the Zoom as an audio interface on Windows, you will only get 16 bit resolution in Audacity due to a limitation between Audacity and the Windows drivers.

Just to add that while that is true of the current Audacity 2.0.6, if you use the Nightly Builds these include support for a more complete WASAPI implementation (for recording from physical input devices) and WDM-KS. Those two hosts can record in 24-bit, as can ASIO.


Gale