> Yes, but the comment was specifically about dynamic range in audio production, not about higher bit rate's prime benefit of reducing artefacts in digital summing.
But audio production often involves lots and lots of digital summing. I don't see how that's not related.
> Any mastering compression of more than 3db gain reduction is mostly excessive, but let's say 6db. So a final master will bring up a noise floor 18db at most (if gain staging was done properly and as you say you left plenty of headroom for the mastering engineer - although clearly you wouldn't be able to use all the headroom). That's still a noise floor of less than -78db, but more realistically around -85db.
That's only counting mastering compression.
What about NY style parallel buss compression on drums where you want to hit -20db GR as an effect, which will inevitably add some saturation too. 6-10db of compression on an individual drum track is common too if you're doing metal or electronic music. So you've got 10 drum tracks, each with several effects and a parallel track with distortion/compression.
> Saturation usually only add harmonics not gain (obviously depends on the kit you're using)
If it's not adding amplitude to your signal it's almost certainly bringing up the noise floor. Saturation generally works by applying gain until the device/plugin distorts. Just because amplitude isn't going up doesn't mean gain isn't increasing.
> Myth. Watch this [1] and you'll realise that there's plenty of range with 16 bit. People were producing with 16 bit for years perfectly fine. Before that high end studio tape machines (like the classic Studers or Telefunkens) were equivalent to about 14-16 bits (based on their noise floor) and we had decades of music produced and recorded on that format.
This is true for when you're operating on friendly signals like a sine wave signal generator with a fixed amplitude. Not so nice when you're tracking with 20db of headroom and the drummer some how manages a flam 24db f*cking louder than everything else which clips the overheads (this actually happened using 24bit, but now with crazy dynamic drummers I give myself TONS of headroom because there's no reason not to). At least when tape "clips" it doesn't ruin the take.
I do agree with you that 16bit can be good for recording (and for home audio I agree you'll never be able to tell a difference) but I don't believe there are literally zero differences between 24bit, and hard disk space is so cheap that there's no reason not to use the extra bits.
But audio production often involves lots and lots of digital summing. I don't see how that's not related.
> Any mastering compression of more than 3db gain reduction is mostly excessive, but let's say 6db. So a final master will bring up a noise floor 18db at most (if gain staging was done properly and as you say you left plenty of headroom for the mastering engineer - although clearly you wouldn't be able to use all the headroom). That's still a noise floor of less than -78db, but more realistically around -85db.
That's only counting mastering compression.
What about NY style parallel buss compression on drums where you want to hit -20db GR as an effect, which will inevitably add some saturation too. 6-10db of compression on an individual drum track is common too if you're doing metal or electronic music. So you've got 10 drum tracks, each with several effects and a parallel track with distortion/compression.
> Saturation usually only add harmonics not gain (obviously depends on the kit you're using)
If it's not adding amplitude to your signal it's almost certainly bringing up the noise floor. Saturation generally works by applying gain until the device/plugin distorts. Just because amplitude isn't going up doesn't mean gain isn't increasing.
> Myth. Watch this [1] and you'll realise that there's plenty of range with 16 bit. People were producing with 16 bit for years perfectly fine. Before that high end studio tape machines (like the classic Studers or Telefunkens) were equivalent to about 14-16 bits (based on their noise floor) and we had decades of music produced and recorded on that format.
This is true for when you're operating on friendly signals like a sine wave signal generator with a fixed amplitude. Not so nice when you're tracking with 20db of headroom and the drummer some how manages a flam 24db f*cking louder than everything else which clips the overheads (this actually happened using 24bit, but now with crazy dynamic drummers I give myself TONS of headroom because there's no reason not to). At least when tape "clips" it doesn't ruin the take.
I do agree with you that 16bit can be good for recording (and for home audio I agree you'll never be able to tell a difference) but I don't believe there are literally zero differences between 24bit, and hard disk space is so cheap that there's no reason not to use the extra bits.