Sample rates

[dewgong]

I mix at 88200 but my computer cant handle that at all. Ive taken all the necessary steps to keep overall cpu usage low but im still having trouble. I dislike mixing at 48k because things tend to sound unpleasant at that level. All my synths and plugins sound muddy and the high end is ALWAYS unpredictable. Is there an ideal rate at which to work? Are there also strategies for detailed sound design at lower sample rates?

[lfm]

You could try http://ddmf.eu and Metaplugin - where you can load any synth/effect and activate oversampling.

This means you can get sample based synths, and even algoritmic emulated synths rendered in double samplerate and then back to project in your host.

Quite noticable depending on synths and character of sound.

Finally, look at what freeze/bounce options you host is equipped with. This means not all resource demanding stuff runs realtime through your project development, but appear as audio which is really easy for host to manage.

[jancivil]

I mix at 88200

you're tripping

[Kaboom75]

I make the song in 48k then when it's ready to render switch to 96k. You can afford to increase the buffer and latency if all your doing is listening and adjusting dials.

[dewgong]

I make the song in 48k then when it's ready to render switch to 96k. You can afford to increase the buffer and latency if all your doing is listening and adjusting dials.

I've really tried mixing at 48k and my system just seems to perform appallingly. The highs aren't rendered properly at all for instance. When I go up to 88k I often have to re-engineer everything because the entire track is transformed into something else entirely.

[JohnD71651]

But isn't it going to be sampled down to 44.1/16 or 48/24 later? How can you mix for something that isn't going to be there in the final product?

[dewgong]

But isn't it going to be sampled down to 44.1/16 or 48/24 later? How can you mix for something that isn't going to be there in the final product?

I try to make the original 88k files available. As for issuing cd's and compressing down to mp3 I haven't actually had any problems at all. Ableton can scale down far better than it scales up... at least in my case.

[dewgong]

Working at 88 to 192k also makes pitch shifting and time stretching smoother and more convincing

http://www.musicofsound.co.nz/blog/why- ... mple-rates

[BertKoor]

I dislike mixing at 48k because things tend to sound unpleasant at that level. All my synths and plugins sound muddy and the high end is ALWAYS unpredictable. Is there an ideal rate at which to work?

What happens if you work in 44.1 kHz? I suspect your audio interface works better at that rate (and its multiples) and does a bad sample rate conversion if you use 48 kHz.

What audio interface do you use btw? I'd suggest to download the RMAA suite from rightmark.org, and do some measurements with various sampling rates.

[DJ Warmonger]

I dislike mixing at 48k because things tend to sound unpleasant at that level. All my synths and plugins sound muddy and the high end is ALWAYS unpredictable

Then you must be aliasing as hell. As most of plugins now feature oversampling or anti-aliasing techniques, you may be using some poor distortion effects.

[camsr]

I make the song in 48k then when it's ready to render switch to 96k. You can afford to increase the buffer and latency if all your doing is listening and adjusting dials.

You ever compare the two?
Do you use oversampling when working at 48 and also on the render?
Do you not use any oversampling at all?