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WHAT DAN SAID! Major difference - especially when you add up 24-tracks at 24-bit versus 16.

Give it a shot!
-Mike

I understand in your case Andy; most of your work is done for TV, and the dynamic range and stereo soundstage of 24-bit will never fully be realized after it passes the broadcast transmitter! Too bad - because you compose some great pieces!

-Mike

Rad, what Andy says is true - the smaller the file size, the quicker the DPS will process things. I use 24-bit/44.1khz and really can hear the difference.

Just to let you know, I currently have 6 Projects on my drive (my personal max!), and still have 121 HOURS of recording space left.

-Mike

Rad, Akai used to have a .pdf file on the old US site called a "Hard Drive Recording Time List" - I just went to the new site and don't see it. I don't have it in this computer, but I do have the list printed out at home. Unless someone else has it, I'll look tonight and get you the numbers.

When Sean gets back, perhaps we can ask him to repost it on the Akai Site.

-Mike

Here's an equation that may help others in calculating drive time:

Example:
How much recording time will I get when recording 16 tracks on a 9GB hard drive at 24 bits with a 48 kHz sampling rate?

Answer:
124.27 (Min/GB) x 9(GB) = 1118.43 track minutes
1118.43 / 16 (tracks) = 69.90 min / 60 (minutes) = 1.17 hrs
1.17 hrs = 1hr 10 min

Note: This assumes the user is recording and filling all tracks simlutaneously. In reality disk space is dynamically allocated, meaning that if you don't record on all tracks for the full 1 hr 10 min on every track additional space will be available for other tracks.

Yo John (or Dan) - Is the Korg D-1600 DAW 16 or 24 bit?

-Rad-

Dan,
I should have said it is only 16 bit (instead of 16 bit only). For most users, the advertised track count is the important spec...and for the D1600 to playback 16 tracks it can only be 16 bit. I figure the same for the DPS24 ...since it can play back the full 24 tracks at 24 bit, it's a 24 track machine. The new D1600MkII is a 24 bit machine (16 playback tracks at 24 bit)...however, the DX32 thing is a 16 bit machine as far as I'm concerned (and most people) because to play back 32 tracks, you must record at 16 bits. The ability of these machines to record at higher bit-depth and sample rates does make this stuff confusing. I wouldn't call the dps a 24/96 machine, even though it has the ability to record that way since the playback tracks are halved.

Hadley,
All of the tracks on my page at Songramp are compressed mp3 files of 16/44.1 tracks that were recorded at 24 bits and then dithered to 16 after the fact (excluding the ones done on the D1600). Both the 16 bit (for CD) and 24 bit projects that generated the mp3s sound considerably better than the mp3s. The times I've exported both 16 bit and 24 bit projects directly without dithering to SoundForge, there has been a noticeable difference in the sound though, and it's significant. Andy's right about the benefits of speedier backups (although the scsi option makes all backups extremely fast so it's not a consideration for me anymore) as well as more thrifty disc useage. However, since I always clear my hard drive after a song is done...disc useage and system resources never even get a chance to break a sweat for me. You have the option of recording at 16 bits, and Andy's music is proof that 16 bit is a viable option. For me, there is no reason to not record at 24 bits as it has no effect on performance in my case. Also, songs recorded for duplication/distribution (especially ones that are headed for the mastering house) will benefit from recording at the higher bit rate and leaving dithering until the last possible step in the process before duplication. There's a bunch of stuff about this on the web...you can probably do a Google under "24 bit" or "mastering" and get a bunch of hits (Google just gets better all the time).

-john