the sample rate thing

the villain arc begins

Ok I wasn't gonna do this but I'm on the bus without headphones so....

Let’s talk sample rate and why it matters as a recording artist. 

[Strap in…]

While we can get into the technical details I think I'd rather just speak from my heart about this.

Because, my interest in recording technology stems from something primal - my love of sound. Not just music, sound itself.

So what is sample rate? I find people have a hard time grasping mathematical and musical concepts so how about an analogy? How about another question? How long can we sustain the suspense?

Sample rate is something like a frame rate in film making.

A film of course, is a series of what are essentially photographs played back rapidly to imply motion and change - it’s a flip book!

For our purposes sample rate is pretty close to this.

To capture analog sound and convert it to digital it must be measured (sampled) and reconstructed with those data points.

Just like film, each sample is a TWO DIMENSIONAL (exists without time) slice of data.

A series of snapshots make a sort of "connect the dots" and are able to record the wave into digital information.

Ok, hold that in your mind for a moment because this is where the music differs from film

and there's one more stop we have to make to truly appreciate the beauty of what we are capturing and then we can drive it home with why any of this sample rate stuff matters.

comes with built in rumble pak

Of course you're familiar with notes, A B C D E F G etc. The little bricks in which a vast majority of modern "western" music is build upon.

These notes break down into something that is called a "fundamental" - the tonal mothership that is the basis as what we hear as a "note".

But from that echoes something called "overtones" or "harmonics" Think of them like smaller satellites that emanate from the fundamental and swirl around it into your ears as extra nutritional sonic information. They are quieter than the fundamental.

Now, this isn't music theory but objective reality - measurable physical fluctuations in air pressure that we perceive as sound ("psychoacoustics").

So when one plays a C, you're actually getting the C, the next C an octave up, then a G above it, then another higher C, then an E (major third) then a Bb (ish)..... and into the oblivion of the edge of our hearing range.

**If you're a bit keen on theory you're seeing that the basically seeing that the strongest overtones basically create a Dom 7 chord. A lot can be illuminated from this cheeky little series - why dissonances are dissonant, why harmony is actually an extremely beautiful discovery

COOOL!!!

Ok, I know that got bit heavy.

Just think of the harmonic series as like, a solar system. The fundamental is the sun, and everything else revolves around that in predictable and beautiful fashion.

These overtones, and how prevalent and strong they are are a huge reason in why a gong sounds like a gong (many fluctuating, "beating" shimmering overtones as the metal warps with energy) compared to a clarinet which has a much more stable "brown" tone which blends nicely into chords.

A horn is a horn ok? Shout out Sidney Bechet

So it is becoming easier to see that these waves are special, rare, delicate.

The tone is the butterfly and the sample rate is our net. When the sample rate isn't sufficient, we crush the butterfly with our hand and say "LOOK! I GOT SOMETHING!" but we didn't.

Let's destroy something beautiful today!!!

The way we captured it harmed it, shifted it, distorted it. Beyond repair.

[For reference: CD quality is 44.1 kHz, meaning 44,100 samples per second. The human ear tops out around 20 kHz, so the signal has to be captured at least twice that rate - The Nyquist Theorem - to avoid aliasing/distortion/crusty sounds when you turn it up loud.

Higher rates like 48 kHz, 96 kHz, or 192 kHz capture even more nuance in high-frequency transients and overtones.

**Anyway it's not really in the scope of this article to get more granular than that but it gives you some jumping off points if you wanna go deeper! .]

"Well, I can't tell the difference, it's good enough for me!"

That's fine! It's ok to be a hobbyist or casual creator.

But just because someone is happy with chicken fingers and fries doesn't mean an upscale restaurant isn't objectively valuable for people who love culinary excellence.....

All these beautiful buildings - churches, temples, and hell even STONEHENGE were designed to amplify acoustic sounds.

This stuff is PRIMAL for us as humans. When one doesn't respect the input, you're effectively crushing the roof of these acoustic chambers into a studio apartment. Honestly that just kind of makes god/aum sad.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"

People will say I'm taking this too seriously, or too far but I reject that.

You merely adopted the sounds, I was born in the .wav

Sound is of utmost importance to me. I take it seriously/spiritually. I knew sound before I had vision, before I had cognition. The mother's heartbeat is the guide into the tempo of life.

a tempo only a mother could love

Most regular people can't tell if something is out of tune until it it hits 25 cents (a smaller measurement of pitch than a semitone, which is moving one key over on a piano, and 100 cents in distance) or so. A trained musician can come within 5 cents, or be completely accurate - perfect pitch.

Similarly, for some of us who are caretakers of sound we CAN hear the difference, on good systems or in good acoustic environments, and it matters to us because having experienced rich environments, great players, and great instruments, we KNOW what we are missing when these harmonics get crushed.

Also, not for nothing - when one samples the analog wave without proper respect, it will introduce unwanted distortions and artifacts into the signal, and it can never be undone.

[Making wise capture choices in this way is known as "future-proofing".]

So, if that music is turned up, what else gets turned up? The flotsam of analog to digital conversion, crusty sonic ghosts.

If you're a serious independent artist trying to shop your music around you'll soon find these A&R people are listening to music on good gear in high quality environments. Your stuff might sound find in your boxy bedroom studio (no shame) but you'll just have a harder time competing to the next track who had the forethought to capture the full nuance of the performance.

The distortion that was never there in the first place. Some people are unwilling to learn and grow in a chosen art field.

We call that prideful ignorance, a celebration of the mediocre. An excuse to do less rather than more. It's ok to have a casual hobby, but trust me, uhhh.....

Especially in a time where this information is literally two clicks away.

So do your engineer a favor and raise the roof of your Nyquist abode.

++++

Big shout out to cleverdan for helping clarify the technical aspects of analog to digital conversion and taking the time to ping pong knowledge with a musical caveman like myself.

-808 5055 07

[This article reformatted from a thread on twitter]