What is the preferred recording format, WAV or AIFF?

[cuttime]

Shouldn't we have devolved into personal attacks about "taste" in this thread yet.

I nominate YoMama jokes.

[HCMarkus]

Shouldn't we have devolved into personal attacks about "taste" in this thread yet.

Not the right bunch of members I guess.

Actually, this one of the main reasons I love MOTUNation.

[Shooshie]

There is no need for scientific proof. In fact, science kind of gets in the way of understanding this stuff at this level — caught between the technical realities of mixing, sharing, and archiving vs. the reality of human hearing and people's choices of phonographic media for replaying what we create. There are simply too many right ways and wrong ways, depending on too many factors to ever hope to test in any consistent scientific way.
Shooshie

It seems like you are confusing "scientific" with "common sense". The scenarios you are presenting don't defy scientific study. The research would be more complicated, but not impossible. As with any WELL-DESIGNED study, you just have to account for all of the factors you can consider.

The adage "Trust your ears" is too simplistic and/or self-centered. If you know you have better hearing than everyone who will listen to your products, then perhaps that is a fairly safe rule-of-thumb.

I think "Do no harm" is perhaps a better adage for us audio pros. If I'm bringing a signal in from a thoughtfully positioned microphone, I lovingly send it through the nicest sounding mic pre I can afford, and try to preserve the sound as best I can. Throughout the process there are decisions that will add one quality and take away another-- usually and hopefully for the better of the project. Reverb will add a spaciousness to the sound while it might lose some degree of immediacy and intimacy. Perhaps, a more accurate adage is "Choose your harms in service of art."

However, when it comes to bit-depth and SR, it can be a complicated question, but the consequences are actually pretty minimal. Choosing a higher rate can require some hoop-jumping with SRC to get to your final format requirement (or you go through some added DA/AD stage). Matching the final format requirement is fine if that format is decent (48K/24, or even 44.1/24). However, it will make sense to archive at a high-rate and bit depth if the project warrants that level of care.

When I'm creating, I listen to the content, the music and follow where it needs to go. When I'm in audio engineer mode, I listen to the sound quality and use my knowledge and experience to prevent mistakes and avoid both signal and data loss.

While I agree with you, I think you missed my point, and thus my reasons for saying what I did. We all know the scientific proofs. We're aware of what's causing what, and why. Some of us, such as myself, have read tons of books on the subject, websites, articles, and talked to a lot of people about it, including countless posts here in MOTUNation. My point is that we are all very informed. We are all very educated about it. "There's no need for FURTHER scientific proof" is perhaps what I should have written.

I said we're caught between these tons of scientific data on the one hand, and the realities of what people like on the other. Sometimes real-world issues of data storage limits or CPU functionality enter the picture, too. ALL of it helps to make informed judgments, but after all that, I'm still back at 48K/24bits (sometimes 32 bits FP), with no real "reason" to explain why. It's just where I've decided to do my work. When it goes out to CD, Band Camp, SoundCloud, Drop Box, iTunes, or wherever it ends up for people to listen to, the choice of 88K, 96K or 192K simply would not have made one iota of difference. If I were recording data from a space telescope and sending it to NASA, I'd definitely choose to use the highest resolution possible, providing it didn't reinforce some level of aliasing that harmed the data. (and we'd know about that, because NASA would tell us if it were true) But the world of audio fidelity has actually taken several steps back since the days of vinyl, sacrificing resolution for clarity and digital convenience. So, 48K is enough. If archiving for future remixes, perhaps I'd go with 96K or 192K, and hope for the best.

To be clear: I wasn't denigrating the science. I was embracing its ubiquity in our age. We've reached a point in acoustic and wave sciences where we know way, way more than we can hear, so we waste hours and hours debating what to do about that. Do we get the greatest technology known to man? Or do we mix with what we have and target it for the people who are listening?

If we have a big ant bed that we want to be rid of, we could hire the 101st Airborne Division to come take it out in the most technological way possible with every weapon system there is, or we could just go buy an anteater. Either way will probably do the trick.

Shooshie

[Killahurts]

I guess I'm supposed to go to Broadcast Wave to be in the cool club, but I don't even know what that does

Pull up AIFF's in a different program, you don't know where they go in time. Pull up BWAV's, time stamps are built in, you can send them to time code points and everything is in the right place in time.

Wow! So if I use BWAVs in DP, I can go to something like Protools, import the audio files and they go where they're supposed to on the timeline? Sample accurate? Fantastic, I will learn more about these BWAVs..

[MIDI Life Crisis]

In theory, yes. I think it was the initial release of PT 10 that didn't read DP 8's timestamp.

[darrell]

Where can I buy an anteater?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I'd start by asking your uncle.

[Shooshie]

Where can I buy an anteater?

Can't. You have to rent them at eatUant4rent.com
(and I wouldn't say anything about it to your uncle.)

[kassonica]

BWAV all the way...

a dishonourable mention goes out to SD11....glad that went the way of the dodo

[Killahurts]

a dishonourable mention goes out to SD11....glad that went the way of the dodo

Hear Hear!

[stubbsonic]

There is no need for scientific proof. In fact, science kind of gets in the way of understanding this stuff at this level — caught between the technical realities of mixing, sharing, and archiving vs. the reality of human hearing and people's choices of phonographic media for replaying what we create. There are simply too many right ways and wrong ways, depending on too many factors to ever hope to test in any consistent scientific way.
Shooshie

It seems like you are confusing "scientific" with "common sense". The scenarios you are presenting don't defy scientific study. The research would be more complicated, but not impossible. As with any WELL-DESIGNED study, you just have to account for all of the factors you can consider.
...
I think "Do no harm" is perhaps a better adage for us audio pros.

While I agree with you, I think you missed my point, and thus my reasons for saying what I did. We all know the scientific proofs. We're aware of what's causing what, and why. Some of us, such as myself, have read tons of books on the subject, websites, articles, and talked to a lot of people about it, including countless posts here in MOTUNation. My point is that we are all very informed. We are all very educated about it. "There's no need for FURTHER scientific proof" is perhaps what I should have written.

...

To be clear: I wasn't denigrating the science. I was embracing its ubiquity in our age. We've reached a point in acoustic and wave sciences where we know way, way more than we can hear, so we waste hours and hours debating what to do about that. Do we get the greatest technology known to man? Or do we mix with what we have and target it for the people who are listening?

With all due respect, it is difficult to interpret what you wrote in that way. You suggested that "We are all very well educated about it" which makes a pretty unnecessary presumption-- and makes a quite different point than what you made in your original post; i.e., "There is no need for scientific proof." and "Science kind of gets in the way of understanding this stuff." Those statements lead me to believe that you think of science differently than I do.

There are very real practical considerations. And there are common-sense factors related to diminishing returns-- i.e., spending $1000 for a .001% increase in fidelity. We don't have to ignore science to make practical compromises.

I think we're arriving at similar conclusions. -- but in your ant analogy, what is the ant? Distortion? Noise? Aliasing? What is the ant-eater? 48K sample rate. Is the 101st the 96K rate?

[Shooshie]

With all due respect, it is difficult to interpret what you wrote in that way. You suggested that "We are all very well educated about it" which makes a pretty unnecessary presumption-- and makes a quite different point than what you made in your original post; i.e., "There is no need for scientific proof." and "Science kind of gets in the way of understanding this stuff." Those statements lead me to believe that you think of science differently than I do.

There are very real practical considerations. And there are common-sense factors related to diminishing returns-- i.e., spending $1000 for a .001% increase in fidelity. We don't have to ignore science to make practical compromises.

I think we're arriving at similar conclusions. -- but in your ant analogy, what is the ant? Distortion? Noise? Aliasing? What is the ant-eater? 48K sample rate. Is the 101st the 96K rate?

Again, I wrote a little carelessly. I should have said "no FURTHER scientific proof is necessary." In other words, no need to rehash this stuff again. No need to post all this stuff all over again. We've read it and seen it a hundred times.

Do not try to cast me as one who doesn't believe in science, or who does not respect it or use it daily. I've already explained this. If you understand my apology for writing loosely and explanation as to what I meant, there is no need to rub my nose in it, which is what you are doing.

And I refuse to believe you are such a literal thinker that you cannot understand my analogy. I'm standing back and commenting in a very general way. You're trying to make it some kind of literal 1-to-1 simile. Think "metaphor," which is much looser than that.

Stubbs, I thought we were on the same side of most things rational. What is causing you to take this tone with me and act this way? Have I done something to offend you? Why would you think for one second that I do not believe in science? I repeat yet again that my intent was merely to show that when you know as much about this as we do, there's probably not any furtherscientific evidence that will explain our choices. It's more about cost, preference, convenience... not acoustic or digital science. Yet again, I reiterate that I'm not rejecting the science! I'm saying that FURTHER taking of sides based on science only highlights that some of our choices are not rational ones: I could easily choose to work in 88.2K, but instead I choose to work in 48K, because it suits me. An idiot could tell that a scientific deduction would lead one to choose the higher rate. Beyond that point, the scientific rationale loses some of its power, and we realize that recording everything at 192K probably wastes a lot of hard drive space and CPU power while yielding very little sonic gain over half that rate.

I was born a scientist, yet I choose a lot of things based on personal instinct or feel, not scientific reason. We all do. My point, for three posts now, has been that we discuss this too much for what we get out of it. It doesn't change anyone's opinions, usually, unless they are new and just entering this discussion, which most of us have been talking about since the digital age came up on us.

That is all. If I'm not saying it right, please drop it. The failure to communicate is surely my fault. But please do not bend my intent and try to cast me as some kind of luddite or idiot or one who does not understand this discussion, which I've been engaged in, like most of you, for decades. In this case it is surely you who does not understand me, despite 2 attempts at explaining it, and now 3, yet I take full responsibility for writing unclearly. Please accept my apologies for confusing you.

I'll say it in a less subtle way. This discussion, at this point in our lives, and at this level of our skills, knowledge, and abilities, does little to further our understanding or deepen our choices. In other words, it's a waste of time, but an entertaining one at least.

And I've wasted more time than I ever intended in this thread. So sorry to have even attempted to soft-spin my criticism of it or enter the fray at all. I will try to keep my opinions out of things like this in the future.

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

There is no need for scientific proof. In fact, science kind of gets in the way of understanding this stuff at this level — caught between the technical realities of mixing, sharing, and archiving vs. the reality of human hearing and people's choices of phonographic media for replaying what we create. There are simply too many right ways and wrong ways, depending on too many factors to ever hope to test in any consistent scientific way.
Shooshie

With all due respect, it is difficult to interpret what you wrote in that way. You suggested that "We are all very well educated about it" which makes a pretty unnecessary presumption-- and makes a quite different point than what you made in your original post; i.e., "There is no need for scientific proof." and "Science kind of gets in the way of understanding this stuff." Those statements lead me to believe that you think of science differently than I do.

One more thing: you misquoted me in the paragraph you wrote, directly above this one. Compare your misquote to the full quote in my own writing, also above. I assumed that you would read and understand the qualifiers. "... science kind of gets in the way of understanding this stuff at this level — caught between the technical realities of mixing, sharing, and archiving vs. the reality of human hearing and people's choices of phonographic media for replaying what we create."  I'm saying that there are many reasons for our choices, not always directly related to acoustic science alone, and sometimes not even technical.

I already explained that I should have inserted the word "FURTHER" in "there is no need for [further] scientific proof." That is to say, at this stage of the argument there's no need to keep posting scientific proof. We've seen enough to understand what's going on. If you are going to quote someone, be sure the parts you leave out are not integral to understanding the spin they applied to a given statement. In this case they were essential, and had you paid attention to them we probably wouldn't be going through all this clarification right now. Still, I could have made it clearer. I did not go back and edit, and I should have. 100 apologies for misleading you due to my writing in a state of exhaustion after over 48 hours without sleep.

Shooshie

[stubbsonic]

Sorry, Shooshie. I wasn't intending to sound hostile, but I can see that it did come off that way.

You are seriously brilliant and I learn stuff from you all the time. You're great!!

I think we were mostly arguing the same points in slightly different ways.

I think in the course of these threads it is easy to forget that people of all ages and experience levels read them and learn things. So where you've been through this same argument many times, some of this subject area is still a little unfamiliar to me. I haven't read that much about the research on this subject (double-blind listening tests with high-rates vs standard rates), so I find it interesting.