When did studios begin 24bit recording ?

[EJ3]

I mostly listen to classical and some older pop/rock. I'm not regularly encountering brickwalled recordings or remasters. With classical reissues, most recent reissues have some improvement over older remasters, there's a lot of them at Tidal, many as high-rez FLAC.

I have a wider range of genres than many folks: I listen to (from 1927-now classical, POP, rock, Low Fi, Rock-A-Billy, Metal, blues, jazz, blue grass, Austrian/German folk music and others [I'll usually decline an Opera, though, even if it's in German {a language that I used to be able to speak}}). To me most OPERA just sounds like people doing controlled screaming.

 

[sergeauckland]

Has it, though? I dunno man, ever since then I keep finding tons of great music that certainly would've sounded worse in the 90s and before, because the only way to get great quality was renting or building a 50,000$ studio. Doing away with that and democratising quality recording was the last great musical revolution in the late 90s and 2000s. Since then, all you need is a cheap laptop and audio interface, all that matters is skill and talent, not money. I much prefer that to the old ways, when poor kids couldn't do anything substantial.

Music hasn't gotten worse, especially not in recording and production quality, it's the exact opposite. There's just way more now, which inevitably includes the 99% crap that always existed. You just don't remember the old crap, typical survivor bias. Find the 1%, it's continuously been getting better and better.

My view on this is that the technical quality of the equipment has undoubtably improved since the 1980s, but the use to which it has been put hasn't. Mainstream Pop/Rock etc recordings now are equalised, compressed, limited, squashed to extinction, and generally very unsatisfactory, whereas in the 1980s and before, they still had some dynamic range and an attempt at a flat frequency response. In spite of, or maybe because of the limitations of tape and multitrack recording.

Those judging recordings and awarding Grammies and the like don't seem to care about recording quality, giving awards to horrible recordings whatever the artistic merit.

S.

 

[Eric Natural]

And the actual quality of recordings has diminished ever since.

I'd challenge that as well - to #58's point with 66k things to choose to listen to.
The new Beck record sounds great for example : = )

 

[Palmer]

Exciting times indeed. Early 2000s you could also get a Delta 1010 for 400, or 500-600 when it came out in 1999. Not bad for the time for 8ch i/o, not bad at all. Products like these popped up in numbers, and finally meant just about anyone could suddenly afford professional features and quality.

Still have one, Win 7 dedicated desktop, Ableton... still working pretty well, for what it is.

 

[Dan Lavry]

Side note, the original AD-122 seems kind of lost to the sands of time, I can't even find any specs beyond its 122 dB (unwtd) dynamic range. I did find out that they (and the MkII) like to run hot, as things on the bleeding edge often do, and that early units generally cannot be serviced due to parts unavailability.

I've come across a 32-bit ADC with a 90 dB dynamic range spec in some modern-day headset codec thingy, thought that was kind of hilarious (50% of bits being pure noise).

By 1990, the best mainstream IC converters were good enough to warrant more than 16-bit (which meant 18-bit) output, and by 1993 the first 20-bit jobs popped up. 20 bits was found in converters like the Focusrite Blue series by 1994 and became all the rage in prosumer soundcards in 1996, and then the next year the first 24-bit jobs popped up (of which even the best ones barely needed more than 20, but I guess people found handling 22 bits awkward and the data stream already supported 24 anyway).

The '90s were a wild time. Imagine going from barely 100 to almost 120 dB of dynamic range in like 7 years. By the end of the decade, performance approaching custom, hot-headed cost-no-object designs like the AD-122 became available in volume production (still expensive but no longer involving a kidney or first-born). By 2004, any reasonably well-heeled enthusiast could buy an EMU 1212M for like 200€.

(Mind you, in the same time a new PC probably went from a 386 with 1-4 MiB of FPM DRAM to a 233 MHz Pentium II with 64-128 MiB of PC66 SDRAM, and then a 2.8 GHz P4 or equivalent Athlon64 with 512 MiB to 1 GiB of DDR/DDR2 SDRAM. That's "a bit of a difference", too.)

The AD122 is over 30 years old. I am also very old and It was likely my last AD design. So I simply did all I could. The AD runs cool. It offers 126dB dynamic range, > %0.0003 THD+N and really low latancy. It took a lot of time. It was a real challenge!

 

[Dan Lavry]

The AD122 is over 30 years old. I am also very old and It was likely my last AD design. So I simply did all I could. The AD runs cool. It offers 126dB dynamic range, > %0.0003 THD+N and really low latancy. It took a lot of time. It was a real challenge!

To clarify, I was talking about my newest AD, not the AD122.

 

[Pluto]

The new Beck record sounds great for example

Making an example of one great-sounding record rather focuses my point; the average standard has dropped enormously, IMHO.

The rigour of basic level control seems almost a lost art these days. The tendency to use severe limiting as a sonic device for its own sake has resulted in many modern records sounding unduly irritating and stressful to the ear; worse, in some respects, than the ‘loudness wars’ era. It's the sonic equivalent of giving a gun to a kid.

The skills of professional music production appear to have taken a back seat. While there is no shortage of new music, the record company ‘system’ had the virtue of filtering out the worst dross (and, no doubt, much throwing out of the baby with the bathwater). Today, unless you have the time to traverse that dross for yourself…

 

[Matt S]

Has it, though? I dunno man, ever since then I keep finding tons of great music that certainly would've sounded worse in the 90s and before, because the only way to get great quality was renting or building a 50,000$ studio. Doing away with that and democratising quality recording was the last great musical revolution in the late 90s and 2000s. Since then, all you need is a cheap laptop and audio interface, all that matters is skill and talent, not money. I much prefer that to the old ways, when poor kids couldn't do anything substantial.

Music hasn't gotten worse, especially not in recording and production quality, it's the exact opposite. There's just way more now, which inevitably includes the 99% crap that always existed. You just don't remember the old crap, typical survivor bias. Find the 1%, it's continuously been getting better and better.

I agree with this. Nostalgia of the old days - we certainly are guilty of romanticising some aspects of what we heard back then. Some music from decades ago did sound awful, whether analogue or otherwise.

Even Apple Music recommendations frequently pulls up tracks which sound good. Find myself adding to - playlist - good audio quality ...

 

[GroeneLeeuw]

Making an example of one great-sounding record rather focuses my point; the average standard has dropped enormously, IMHO.

The rigour of basic level control seems almost a lost art these days. The tendency to use severe limiting as a sonic device for its own sake has resulted in many modern records sounding unduly irritating and stressful to the ear; worse, in some respects, than the ‘loudness wars’ era. It's the sonic equivalent of giving a gun to a kid.

The skills of professional music production appear to have taken a back seat. While there is no shortage of new music, the record company ‘system’ had the virtue of filtering out the worst dross (and, no doubt, much throwing out of the baby with the bathwater). Today, unless you have the time to traverse that dross for yourself…

I agree.
It´s not the tech as modern tech is certainly much much better. It´s the way it´s used or even misused as the loudness wars is an example. Better tech made that possible
I´m not the nostalgic kind of guy, quite the opposite, plenty of what has been done in the past is rubbish (pop music & production quality, not talking others because I don´t have much knowledge) but one does need to admire what has been done that was (and still is) very good given the tech those people had at their disposable.

 

[EJ3]

I'd challenge that as well - to #58's point with 66k things to choose to listen to.
The new Beck record sounds great for example : = )

Ok, 1 thing that sounds great out of 66K things to choose.
I have 600 things that sound great (older [but not early]) CDs.
And 600 vinyl that sound better than average (for vinyl).
So at least 50% of my stuff sounds great, compared to 1/66K.
OOP's, I compared it. (Yeah, I know it's a better ratio than that [in spite of the fact that I don't stream]).

 

[Svperstar]

(Mind you, in the same time a new PC probably went from a 386 with 1-4 MiB of FPM DRAM to a 233 MHz Pentium II with 64-128 MiB of PC66 SDRAM, and then a 2.8 GHz P4 or equivalent Athlon64 with 512 MiB to 1 GiB of DDR/DDR2 SDRAM. That's "a bit of a difference", too.)

I was telling some younger PC gamers how insane PCs were in the 1990s. An absolutely top of the line PC from 1995 would be useless for gaming by 1999. I know people still using PCs from 2018 in 2026.

 

[Sjkrabbe]

Funny this popped up on this site, I literally just had someone on Discord a few weeks ago say that some cassette tapes from the 1990s needed to be ripped in 24-bit because a tape can be "too loud" for 16-bit. Not even kidding.

Don't think that is possible. I took the 24-bit rip of these tapes, converted them to 16-bit, then compared the longest track, everything was identical.

some funny and crazy claim on Discord - heavily rooted in some kind of lack of knowledge - at least :-D

 

[Svperstar]

some funny and crazy claim on Discord - heavily rooted in some kind of lack of knowledge - at least :-D

To be fair 24-bit IS the standard for making music, and archiving for future use, but a tape from the 1990s needing 24-bit? One of the strangest arguments I've had.

 

[Ropeburn]

To be fair 24-bit IS the standard for making music, and archiving for future use, but a tape from the 1990s needing 24-bit? One of the strangest arguments I've had.

As opposed to my pristine 24/96 vinyl rips from older times with hand-drawn, truly manual click correction. Those captured all the noise and rumble in full glorious detail.

 

[Matt S]

I agree.
It´s not the tech as modern tech is certainly much much better. It´s the way it´s used or even misused as the loudness wars is an example. Better tech made that possible
I´m not the nostalgic kind of guy, quite the opposite, plenty of what has been done in the past is rubbish (pop music & production quality, not talking others because I don´t have much knowledge) but one does need to admire what has been done that was (and still is) very good given the tech those people had at their disposable.

I was not suggesting that we shouldn't appreciate what has been done in the past, as we absolutely should. I just feel that there was a lot of rubbish back then, too.

 

[Ropeburn]

I was not suggesting that we shouldn't appreciate what has been done in the past, as we absolutely should. I just feel that there was a lot of rubbish back then, too.

That's exactly it. It didn't stand the test of time and thus is largely forgotten - rightfully. Pure survivorship bias.

The "democratisation of music", both cheap quality gear and especially ease of self-release I mentioned before certainly enabled anyone to flood the market with crap, perhaps by a larger share than before - but while the crap to gem ratio may have gotten worse, the gems have also exploded in numbers.

Because amongst 1000 laptop kids there's always a few with real talent and determination who develop skills fast - I've seen it personally numerous times - which they probably couldn't have in the old days when everything was ****** expensive and unreachable for most.

It's all a matter of finding those gems, and that's become easier than ever before. Labels still exist as curators and pre-selectors, efficiently accompanied by bloggers, YouTube channels, internet radio, and whatnot, all of which add to the ease of finding the good stuff.

There's really no need for a bleak outlook and "everything is crap these days". That's just false nostalgia. Get with the times just a little, adapt your search methods, train your algorithms, and you're in for a real treat every day by the dozens.

 

[emmodad]

The AD122 is over 30 years old. I am also very old [ snip ]

"I am also very old"

"I am also very experienced"

there, fixed it for you

(chuck, 68 soon)

 

[Dan Lavry]

I used to think that 68 is very old.
That was 12 years ago.
( Dan, 81 soon)

 

[Multicore]

And neither on the ADC side. Switching to 24 bit mode doesn’t not unlock more full scale voltage input, does it? The same voltage is quantized in 2^16 or 2^24 possible values.

I connect mics to the MOTU M4 and set the mic preamp gain on the M4. I can then choose between 16 and 24 bit recording on the computer and I don't need to adjust the mic preamp gain on the M4 when I switch between 16 and 24. And I don't see a difference in the level in the DAW. The difference is resolution.

To give our Shiba Inu friend some love, the practical ROI on 24 bits here is that I can set the mic preamp gain a bit lower and be confident that it's not too hot and won't clip. With 16 bits I'm more inclined to push it up. So, given that I only really need 16 bits of audio information from the mic in terms of its signal's dynamic range, having 24 gives some useful extra flexibility.

 

[Multicore]

As opposed to my pristine 24/96 vinyl rips from older times with hand-drawn, truly manual click correction. Those captured all the noise and rumble in full glorious detail.

Hey! I like to listen to noise and pops and rumble with the best possible sound quality.