Woolworm wrote:So the UR-C series have 32bit recording and the prices are cheap as hell, same as Scarletts. Their high end audio interface, the AXS, not only has 32bit but at 384k sampling rate.
Now I know a lot of you are probably rolling your eyes but Ill explain why you would maybe want these things. The second reason is a bit dumb but philosophically smart. The first is more of what type of recording you do.
So, I am on the forum of I love fuzz. I imagine a lot of you play loud music. Having a 32bit audio interface means whilst recording, the fear of clipping becomes less of a problem and you'll be less likely to turn down the gain of your mics, and for me it is all about capturing the actual sound that is there live. I want the mics as is, no cuts, no boosts. Also you can record ungodly SPL's like lightning or earthquakes close up not just far away, ofcourse you would also need a mic that can withstand that amount of pressure. Would a normal dynamic mic be able to handle it?
Now for the 384k sampling rate. Now yes you can't really tell a difference between the sampling rates. However, its all about seeing into the future. Just because you can't hear the frequencies doesnt mean they aren't there. Think about hundreds of thousands of years from now when humans have evolved where we can hear those frequencies. All the music from the past would be nion obselete cos all we did was just cut those frequencies. Its about preserving your music for as far into the future as possible. I am not trolling. I am 100% serious. The only annoying thing a DAW prolly cuts off at 192k for now lol but the AXS is expensive anyway but Im defo gonna pick up a UR-C. Its so cheap and at 32bit? Are you serious? The preamps are prolly dope as well, better than a scarlett definitely.
Just to clear something up - moar bits resolution does not mean less clipping!
That would be like saying if you change your PCs screen resolution from 800x600 to Full HD 1920x1080 your screen gets bigger... that is not the case!
Like on your PCs screen, the resolution only affects the sampling quality of the signal, not the dynamic range. If it is clipping or not is only depending on the input stage of the Analog-to-Digital Converter in the interface. This Converter can only sample signals within its input voltage range, everything above or below that range is clipped.
The resolution (12bit, 16bit, 24bit, 32bit) now only determines in how many steps this input voltage range is divided (like I said before - the
resolution of the signal). If you have a 12bit converter for example, the input voltage range of the Analog-to-digital converter is divided into 2048 steps. So if the input voltage range is for example 10V, the smallest difference in input signal you can differentiate is 10V/2048 steps = 4.88mV. Changes in input signal, that are smaller than those 4.88mV cannot be detected and are therefore lost. Lets go to 16bit resolution, where the 10V input voltage range would be divided into 65536 steps, so 10V/65536 = 0.153mV = 153µV. So with 16bit converters, changes of 153µV in the input signal could be detected, meaning much higher resolution!
Still, both converters can only accept (in our example) 0-10V input voltage. No matter the resolution, everything above or below this voltage range is clipped (= not sampled).
What is equally, if not more important, is how fast the sampling happens (sampling frequency). This determines how acurately the signal can be rebuilt in the digital realm and then also transfered back to the analog world. To successfully (and as lossless as possible) convert an analog signal to digital and back, the sampling frequency must be greater than twice the maximum occuring frequency in your input signal. If we take the current human limit of hearing frequency of ~20kHz, the sampling frequency of the Analog-to-digital converter in your interface must be >40kHz - does some value in that range seem familiar (44.1kHz for CDs)?
Now as it was noted earlier in this thread, the full music experience isn't limited to hearing, but also feeling certain frequencies. Since Overtones and harmonics can extend beyont the hearable range, higher sampling frequencies might be able to catch more "depth" and "feel" of the sampled signals by getting a wider frequency range.
At the end, just one thought to memory usage - keep in mind that every sample must be saved on the Computer/Recorder that you are using. As you can imagine, the more samples you get, the more memory it takes. That is also the case for the resolution of the Converter... a 12bit sample takes less space than a 16bit sample - and that takes a lot less space than a 32bit sample. And the higher the sampling frequency, the more samples you get! So if you increase the resolution and the sampling frequency, you have to take care that you can actually transmit the resulting amount of data to a PC and save it fast enough to not cause lag or data loss/corruption.
