I figured, Im not exactly new at this, but the thing is, how come when I clik on properties, it says its a 24 bit 96 khz sound file? and the file size is huge!!!
....

the extra data is probably just zeros (padding inserted by the file-writer to make up for the shortage of data from your sound card). you shouldn't be getting any sort of 'enhanced' sound by writing 16bit 44.1khz data into a 24bit 96khz format. maybe you can acheive some improvement mixing with this method due to the internal structure of VV, but there isn't much point if you can't hear it. my advice is to first get better hardware, THEN get into 24/96 recording.

You don't say what sound card you are using....

If the card has WDM drivers, then Windows will emulate just about every sample rate and bit depth imaginable. If the card only supports 44.1/16, then Windows (The dreaded Kmixer) will resample and bump up the bit depth before it is handed to Vegas.

This conversion is EXPENSIVE CPU wise. Especially since 96 is not an even divisor of 44.1. (The bit depth conversion is actually trivial, so I will skip that portion of this.)

When you load any file into Vegas, it is sample rate corrected on the fly to match the project hardware setting. So, if you have a 96kHz file, it is resample to 44.1 (or whatever your project sample rate is set to.) Again, added CPU to do these conversion.

Big file sizes? 24/96 takes a lot more room to store than 44.1/16. 1 min of mono 44.1/16 audio is ~5 meg of data. 1 min of mono 96/24 is > 16 meg!!!! Over 3 times the space. If you record in Stereo, Yikes!!!

Add those huge files sizes and then down sampling when you are reading them into a 44.1/96 project, and you are really pushing the CPU and the harddrive system on any box. Remember, that even if 1 min of mono audio at 44.1/16 is 5 meg, in order for a 44.1/16 project to provide 1 min of mono audio from a 96/24 file, it must read and process through > 16 meg of data!

Peter

Hey I am learning something here that I didn't know... maybe I should research the WDM drivers.

Anyway, what you are saying is that if you set Vegas to record in 24/96 (and lets say I don't have the appropriate hardware), WDM emulates it (uses the CPU to do the conversion instead on the hardware). Now if I have a card, lets say a Sound Blaster Audigy which plays 24/96 but doesn't record 24/96, and I record in the "emulated" 24/96... Do I really get a 24/96 recording?

I am a-little confused here... Maybe I am getting your previous post in the wrong manner also...

Where can I get more info on the WDM drivers?

I got it all wrong... ignore the last message... now I get it after a-bit of research... No you can't make a ferrai out of a Toyota :)

The audio will only be as good as the converters. If you have 48 kHz hardware, then internally the KMIXER will resample th 48 to 96. There is no improvement in the quality, and depending on the resampling code used, you could loose something.

The bit depth conversion is typically just padding of zeros. Even if your hardware supports 24 bit, there is a bug in the kmixer that can actually truncate the 24 bit audio down to 16, and then back up to 24 bit, loosing 8 bits in the translation.

Peter

Do we have to go through the Kmixer no matter what?
Or is this just for WDm drivers?
Which setting in Vegas will allow for true 24 bit recording?

I am about to get some new AD / DA converters and will be doing the 24 bit dance soon.

This is a helpful discussion. I've been using two 20 bit Layla sound cards with 98se, and recently began recording at 24/44.1 in Vegas Audio 2. To my ears, everything sounds better than recording 16/44.1. My understanding is that I'm only missing out on the added 4 bits (20-24) that the Layla converters don't handle. Is this correct?? I would appreciate any and all comments/responses to this.

Thanks!

thanks sonicPCH thats sort of what I expected. I do have WDM drivers, and the CPU was goin NUTS. I am looking into better hardware for the 24/96 stuff, and hopefully there will be a big Difference with my audio work.

>>Do we have to go through the Kmixer no matter what?
>>Or is this just for WDm drivers?

If you are using WDM based drivers, yes, it will always go through the KMIXER.

XP does not have this 24 bit problem.

>>Which setting in Vegas will allow for true 24 bit recording?

The only way around this is to use native Wave drivers for your hardware or switch to XP.

Peter

wait a sec... I have XP... what the heck does that mean??? Is it 24 bit?
sorry if I sound dumb :)

Jacose he is saying that XP does allow 24 bit recording through the KMIXER (in other words, while using WDM drivers)

so I guess what I'm getting out of this is:
You may not be able to record 24 bit audio properly under Win2k while using WDM drivers due to a bug in the 'KMIXER'. this sounds insane to me, is it really true?

I will attempt to clarify:

There are bugs in the KMIXER in _Win2000_ that prevent 24 bit audio from being recorded correctly. It will work, but the kmixer truncates the lower 8 bts off the sampled data. You end up with 16 bits of valid data in a 24 bit sample. (The upper 16 bits are valid.) It is also unable to record 24/96 with TRUE 24/96 hardware. (It will emulate it correctly, but why do this?)

The problem that Jacose is talking about is moot. He doesn't have 24 bit hardware, so KMIXER is emulating 24 bit streams for him - REGARDLESS OF THE OS HE IS USING!. This can account for his high CPU usage and the general lousy sound he is getting.

Once again:
- KMIXER is capable of 24 bit recording. There are BUGS in the _WIN2000_ kmixer!!! that cause loss of data or noise.
- WinXP _DOES NOT HAVE THIS KMIXER PROBLEM_!!!!!. It will record 24 bit audio correctly. If you don't have 24 bit hardware, then the best you can get is what your hardware supports.

Clear?

Peter