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Setting the Audio Sampling Rate and Bit Depth
Each SONAR project has an audio sampling rate and an audio driver bit depth
that indicate the level of accuracy with which audio data are sampled and
processed. The same parameters are used for all the digital audio in a project.
When you create a new project, if you do not want to use the default setting, you
must choose a sampling rate before you start recording audio.
SONAR lets you choose from several different sampling rates: 11025 Hz, 22050
Hz, 44100 Hz, 48000 Hz, 88200 Hz, 96000 Hz, 176400Hz, and 192000 Hz. The
default used by SONAR is 44100 Hz, the same rate as audio CDs. However, you
may choose a higher rate and later mixdown to 44100. You can also enter any
hardware-supported value in the Sampling Rate field. Consult your hardware
documentation for supported sampling rates.
Note: For most sound cards, all digital audio in the same song must be at the same
sampling rate. Some dedicated audio systems let you mix different sampling rates
in the same song; SONAR only lets you do this if the audio system supports it. This
feature is meant primarily for sound cards that use different Windows drivers for
input and output; SONAR treats such cards as two different programs.
A higher sampling rate produces better quality sound. However, a higher sampling
rate also means that each audio clip takes up more memory and disk space and
requires more intensive processing by your computer. If you have an older
computer, or a slow hard drive, you might be better off with a lower sampling rate.
For more information, see “Improving Performance with Digital Audio” on page
634.
By default, the audio driver bit depth of audio data is 16 bits. If your sound card
supports 18, 20, 22, or 24 bit audio, you can choose to take advantage of these
higher resolutions.
If you are creating a new project that will contain only MIDI material (no audio),
you do not need to set the audio sampling rate or bit depth. If you import audio
from a Wave file or another digital audio file, the sampling rate and audio driver
bit depth of the wave file are converted to your default setting, if necessary.
Note:
If you are planning to move your project to a Digital Audio Tape
(DAT) or to some other media via a digital transfer, set your sampling
rate and bit depth to match the target unit. For example, use
44100Hz/16 bit for a project that will be mastered to a CD, so that no
sample rate conversion is required.
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