Why does some artists/mix engineers prefer mixing in 48Khz and bounce it back to 44.1 for streaming?
is there any difference in sound quality?

Recently got a studio acapella of a popular song and noticed that even it streams on youtube in 44.1 acapella was recorded in 48 and also saw a mymizxlab episode that also shows some tracks produced in 48Khz .

is it any better to mix in 48Khz?

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 5, 2021

Hello @BigM, the question will not be able to be answered unequivocally even in 100 years.
Personally, I only use 44.1 KHz - I only know 3 formats. Wav - MP3 and FLAC ...!
I've never had the idea to change that, it went well for the last 21 years and then it will continue for the next 21 years.

44.1kHz vs 48kHz Audio – Which Is Better?
https://www.protoolsproduction.com/44-1khz-vs-48khz-audio-which-is-better/

 

Artist? Don't you mean recording/mixing/mastering engineer?

I track and mix in 48k because of higher Nyquist and less aliasing/foldover. Then I downsample to 44.1k if the platform require it and/or it needs to be in Redbook Audio format. 48k is still (generally) the sample rate for video/TV.

Higher sample rate also means lower latency at the same buffer size (due to the higher clock-speed).

 

Last edited: Sep 4, 2021

If you are mixing for TV and Streaming 48k.

Just streaming 44.1 should be fine.

Soundwise dont worry about it, cuz consumers dont care about 48k vs 44.1.

If the song is produced and recorded well 48k or 44.1 doesnt matter.

If the song is shit it will still sound like shit in 48k or 44.1.


Listen to this for example

Tell The Vision by Kanyewest from his album DONDA
Listen to Pop smokes vocal.
Its sounds so bad dont know which format to put his under Mp3 or wav Flac or 48 or 44.1 but it still sounds bad.
But thats Kanye and DONDA is RAW so it suits the Album.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Nov 28, 2022

But the real case is i tried 48khz and created a beat just to try converted all audio samples into 48(by DAw itself) and it was good. then i tried to recreate the same beat with 44.1 then i got some noticeble pitch differences between samples i used they sounded bit different even in the same pitch. and i wasn't able to recreate the beat except sounds i created with vsts.

that's a huge question inside my head.

 

I'd go for 48kHz when

1. I have sources in 48kHz (samples or audio recordings) and want to avoid realtime SRC (for whatever reason).
2. The client demands it (TV, movie, 'stupid' mastering engineer).

Other than that, it's unnecessary. 48kHz has only 10% less aliasing than 44,1kHz and now take into consideration that plugins have 2-32x oversampling (which is 200-3200%). And 2x oversampling hardly has an audible or technical effect.

 

sorry my fault

 

thanks for the advice

 

How about the bit depth for final master for youtube and spotify. 16 or 24bit?

 

No.

But Andrew Scheps said that there is no reason why we should use 44.1. Since the size difference is too small compared to 48Khz, so better we use 48Khz. Anything above 48Khz is not necessary. Use Oversampling on plugins.

 

YouTube
File Format: 24-bit/48k WAV files or 24-bit/44.1k

Bandcamp & SoundCloud
File Format: 24-bit/44.1k Sample Rate (or higher) WAV Files

Spotify
16/44.1 or 24/44.1


The sampling rate for home recording

The sampling theorem is used in all areas of digital signal processing. In music production, sampling rates of 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz or more are usually chosen. This is because the human ear can only perceive frequencies up to a maximum of 20 kHz. Thus, as described above, the sampling rate must be more than 40 kHz. In order to have reserves, a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz was chosen for the CD, for example. 48 kHz is common in film and video.

Higher sampling rates such as 88.2 kHz or 96 kHz sometimes make sense when recording in order to always be able to work with the best possible resolution during subsequent processing. However, they usually have to be converted back to lower sampling rates during finalization. These are specified by the distribution media such as CD (44.1 kHz) or DVD (48 kHz).

 

Last edited: Sep 4, 2021

I'd always go for 24bit. The lossy compression formats (mp3, opus, aac) used for streaming doesn't work on a fixed bit-depth but still if the quality of the source is better you'll have a bit more quality on the lossy format. Well, probably not with 128kbps MP3 but perhaps on a 256Kbps Opus/aac

 

I would suggest to stay in the sample rate that you start in.
If you know that you are required to hand the project in at 48k than start at 48k.
Upsampling is never that great, iZotope RX is great for sample rate conversion.

 

There can be pitch differences if your samples were sampled at, say 48khz, and you import them on a session of different sample rate. usually DAWs will resample them to the session's sample rate, but if it doesn't for whatever reason, you'll get pitch differences. See if your DAW has an option to resample audio when importing.

16Bit WAV, most streaming services will transform it to lossy formats anyway. Even if they didn't, 16Bit ist still more than enough. Check this out.

Edit: To clarify, working in a session with higher bitdepht does has benefits, but expotrting at 16 Bit should be enough.

 

Last edited: Sep 4, 2021

I usually do everything in 48/24 and downsample to 44.1/24 44.1/16 when it is needed. There are a lot of opinions about this matter. For an example, Jack Joseph Puig in one of the MWTM series (MWTM Workshop #1) said that 48kHz and 96kHz will "sound digital" to him, and only good for electronic music, for band or organic recorded tracks (real bands, live performances etc) he said only 44.1kHz and 88kHz will make sense and sound good. It is interesting but that is just his opinion, I'm not sure and I honestly don't know whether he is right or wrong because it can't be proved scientifically or measured how anything "sounds" to you, it is just experience.Brian Lucey said he master at 44.1kHz because that is what the final product will be listened at. (Puremix)

 

Well, to be honest 16 bit is enough for streaming these days like @mk_96 said above. I was considering mostly future streaming with more quality.

I didn't notice this at first. If what you hear is pitch differences instead of quality it's another problem in the process, the resampling being the prime suspect

 

If your final product will be at 44.1, than you should use 44.1 kHz (or any multiplication of it) in order to avoid recalculation, which implies digital rounding.

 

Wow. How can a professional say that in a course?

 

yeah, it surprises me as well but I wont argue with someone that said only the B side of a 670 sounds good and avoid using the A side of it. lol

he said that in the course as well. watch it!

also maybe he is trying to say what @pratyahara mentioned above but avoid getting too technical about it.

 

The higher the sampling rate, the greater the bandwidth and the more accurate the sound of the digital representation.
The longer the word width (more bits), the larger the dynamic range and the more faithful the sound.

It is always better to mix with the highest possible resolution, even if the medium on which the production is ultimately heard is a CD or even an MP3 file with low values. On the one hand, there is the reason for archiving, on the other hand, high-resolution masters result in better-sounding recordings, even if these are then played back with a lower resolution. Source: Bobby Owsinki