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DAW workflow question: 32 bit > 24 vs 32 all the way

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checht:
I'm considering which DAW to move to from Audacity. Down to Reaper and Logic Pro, and tending towards logic as I'm a lifetime apple person and my low vision is an issue learning new software. Haven’t found a visual accessibility skin for Reaper that works for someone needing high contrast, and I'm dialed in on that on logic.

But, logic cannot import 32 bit float files, so I'd need to convert my recordings to 24 bit.

My question is whether this would be a problem. I have gotten used to setting gain for recording so that levels go above zero a bit. Not every show, and not the whole show, but some recordings end up in the red somewhat.  Would converting to 24 bit lead to clipped files? I'll likely split the poly wav in Audacity anyway, so reducing bit depth could happen at that time. I could normalize first I guess…

Any other considerations I should be mindful of? I can certainly learn Reaper, and probably figure out how to customize the interface myself, just seems like logic will be easier/faster new platform for me. Suggested workflow?

Thanks!

morst:
32 float only has 24 bits of meaningful audio data (the mantissa) anyhow.
As long as you don't clip during transfer to 24 bits then you should be fine?!

aaronji:
^ And the actual dynamic range is very unlikely to exceed even 16-bits. I suppose it would be preferable to do all mastering prior to dither, but I doubt it makes much difference (especially since the DAW probably upsamples to 32-bit float for processing).

checht:
1. Thank you both.
2. Yes, Logic say that the workspace is 32 bit float.
3. Should I normalize in Audacity prior to bit depth conversion?

morst:
Mathematically speaking, to avoid rounding errors, it would probably be good to do the work on the original bits, but if the rounding error is really at the limit of resolution, I wonder how audible it would be if you didn't do it the optimal way?



--- Quote from: aaronji on July 25, 2022, 05:01:44 PM ---^ And the actual dynamic range is very unlikely to exceed even 16-bits. I suppose it would be preferable to do all mastering prior to dither, but I doubt it makes much difference (especially since the DAW probably upsamples to 32-bit float for processing).

--- End quote ---
:o :o :o

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