Scott Henderson Discussion

[jason3000]

Hey Scott,

I've heard you say multiple times that recording at 96khz has drastically improved your recording sound.

I could be wrong about this, but a lot of commercial albums are recorded at 44100 and seem to sound great. (atleast to my ears). But then again, I haven't put them side by side.

I do quite a bit of home recording sending out guitar stems to people. So if I record at 96k and it goes into a 44100 session, do you think it's still worth it?

Just curious how big of a difference it actually can make. Curious on your thoughts.

[Scott Henderson]

Drastically is an understatement - the difference between 48 and 96 is HUGE. Everything sounds more 3D and more open, and the tone of midrange instruments like guitar are greatly improved.

I don't think it's true that commercial albums are recorded at 44.1. Big budget projects can easily afford to use tape, which still sounds the best to me, or record at high sample rates - hard drives are cheap now. The final product is 44.1. because it's made into a CD at mastering, but that's by using super high quality mastering gear which can dither high sample rates down to 44.1 without hurting the sound.

If you record a 96k solo and the person you send it to converts it to 44.1 on a computer, it's going to sound like 44.1. Actually worse, because computers are horrible at conversion - it would be better to record at 44.1 if that's the sample rate of the project - then it doesn't have to be converted.

It seems my answers lately are leading to selling my products.... so again, not trying to make a sale here, but if you compare the HBC or Tribal Tech X CD, both recorded at 44.1, with the Vibe Station CD recorded at 96, I think you'll easily hear the difference in sound quality.

[jason3000]

This is great info Scott. I will try this...my guess is I will never record at 44100 again, haha.

Just curious, if I'm sending out just dry guitar stems that I recorded at 96K and then those wav files were sent over to them and then just dragged into a new logic session at 44100 is that cool? Or is that considered an automatic bad conversion? Hope that makes sense

The reason I'm asking is most sessions I do for people are already at 44100 on their computers, but I want to send them the highest quality guitar sounds.

[Scott Henderson]

If they have their Logic preferences set to automatic conversion, your file is converted to 44.1 when it's dropped in. It's no different than importing the 96k file (which won't play) and then converting it. You're really better off recording at the sample rate of the project, because theres no conversion. You'll have to save 96k for your own albums! I'm in the same boat as you - most of the sessions I do are 44.1 or 48. I'm curious about that because modern computers are fast enough to handle 96, and terabyte hard drives are cheaper than ever.