Date:         Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:26:10 -0400
Reply-To:     Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
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Sender:       Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
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From:         Dale Francis <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: Sound card confusion
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Bill

this is an issue with many DAW"s. Not all DAW's do an honest job of  
taking the data from the converters  you are using. They do their own  
"processing" of the audio without you being aware of the issue. In  
this case, you have a 44.1 A/D conversion which your DAW wrote as a 96  
file.




On Oct 14, 2008, at 3:21 PM, Fliss, William wrote:

> Good afternoon everyone,
>
> I have a question for the list.  Let me preface this by saying that  
> I am not an audio engineer nor do I consider myself in any way an  
> expert with sound recordings.   I am hoping somebody can explain  
> what seems to me a strange situation.
>
> I was converting some analog tape (reel-to-reel) to .wav.  I set the  
> software (in this case Audition 1.5) to record at the 32-bit  
> (float), 96KHz setting.  Everything went fine, and I saved the file  
> without a problem (the file was understandably huge, given the  
> settings).
>
> I later discovered that the sound card in the computer, according to  
> the specs, could only record up to 16-bit, 44.1KHz.  So my question  
> is, how did I successfully (it seems) end up with this file that was  
> recorded at a rate much higher than the sound card allows?
>
> The only thing I can think of is that something (the driver?) was  
> filling in the gap with information that made it look like a much  
> higher quality recording that it is.  If I open up the file with  
> another software (Audacity, for instance), it registers as a 24-bit,  
> 96KHz recording.  But is it really one?  Or am I misunderstanding  
> how the sound card/driver works in this process?
>
> Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on the matter,
>
> Bill Fliss
> Milwaukee, WI