Music for Games, Films, and other Visuals

I was forwarded an article today.

It speaks of the frivolous existence of delivering hi-res digital audio. You know, anything above our Redbook Audio CD standard of 44.1kHz 16bit PCM digital audio. OK, so certainly I have a bias here…

If you read the article it discusses a recent year long research project involving blind testing of CD playback vs a Hi-Res format (DSD). However, my immediate reaction was that they were all missing the point!

I do respect and admire the Mix Magazine author, but I have to believe that he knows the presented angle of the research misses the mark. The argument for hi-res audio, for me, has always been based on the increase in available processing power and not in the additional delivery of stored information to the consumer.

My experience has shown that a hi-res recording of the “basic” tracks of a mix really does improve the quality of the final mix. If the DAW has 24 bits of information and over twice as many samples (96kHz) to work with in ALL of the DSP involved, it will be a better mix. ALL of the calculations will be improved, throughout the life of the project.

The use of higher resolution (both sample rate AND bit depth) leads to a better final mix regardless of delivery format.

I’d love to see a research project look at the underlying presence of processing etc in the digital audio world rather than focusing on that last element of delivery format!