“I have a 96k sample rate capable DAW and I just don’t hear any difference at all when I record at 96k compared to 48k. Some friends have told me that the processing works better at higher rates. What do they mean by this?”
Well, this once again gets us back into some controversial areas. Many users hear little or no difference when recording at higher rates. Many others swear they hear a profound difference. For the sake of keeping this tip within the confines of your question, we’ll avoid delving into this for the time being.
It’s hard to know exactly what your friends meant, but I suspect they may have been referring to the increasingly popular opinion that some DSP processes do sound significantly better when done at higher sample rates. Often the biggest difference is with distortion algorithms. If you have a plug-in for DAW that does distortion, compare the results between 48k and 96k. Many users hear a significant difference, even though the rest of the recording may sound the same. Compression is another one some users have reported being improved by higher rates.
Your mileage may vary depending upon how your particular software application and plug-ins handle the math. There are some well grounded technical reasons why higher rates can improve things in some cases, but those explanations are beyond the scope of this tip. Suffice to say that many aspects of digital recording do not work in ways we’d say are particularly “intuitive,” yet as engineers in this time, ultimately concerned with sound quality, it is important for us to develop an increased understanding of how the tools we use work behind the scenes. To that end we hope to bring you more Tech Tips delving into the deep dark secrets of digital audio in the future.