From: Barton Michael Chiate
Subject: Re: Question
My comments are:
Bob, Thanks for all your articles. Great stuff!! Required reading for my students. I have a question. Maybe you can help. I have several recordings of classical music that were recorded to DAT through an Apogee AD 1000 with UV22. I dumped them into my computer to edit at 24 bit.(Figured higher is better)
Hello, Barton. Thanks for writing and for your fine comments.
The only reason to “bump them” to 24 bit is if you’re processing the material or doing any editing or gain changing. Otherwise the 24 bit didn’t buy you anything, as I think you already know. In fact, most DAWs would let you keep the original files at 16 bit and calculate at a higher wordlength. This saves space, since “bumping” to 24 bit just adds zeros at the tail but doesn’t add any new information.
I have not done aything to them but edit. They are now ready to master but I don’t know the best way to get them back to 16 bit. I have an AD8000 with the D/A card and a Finalizer Plus. So far, I have been using the dither in the TC to a DAT to burn CD’s but I would like to avoid writing the file to disk again so I can burn the CD for the duplicators.
I see. Well, Murphy’s law says to get a bitscope (always have one around) and make sure you didn’t accidentily put in any extra bits. If the program did put in extra bits, then ask why and find out why. If the bits are due to legitimate processing, then you really have a 24-bit file. Then use the UV-22 (or something better!) to go to DAT and then load that back into the computer if you must. Or just loop out and then back in….our Sonic system can play back 24 and record 16 simultaneously, can yours?
Or, if it’s really 16 sitting in a 24-bit slot (8 bits zeros), and you’re stuck, then just copy it out to DAT or S/PDIF-AES CDR and then back into the computer. That’s probably the fastest way.
Don’t go through analog. Why do that? If you have the AD8000 you must have a DAT machine around somewhere; doesn’t the AD8000 go D-D?
Bob