Do you know the differences between 24-bit and 32-bit floating point recording formats. Do you know when you should use one or the other? All this is explained and demonstrated in today’s tutorial video.

To summarize:

32-bit offers absolutely no benefit in terms of sound quality or headroom as a recording bit-depth. Use 24-bit for recording.

32-bit allows you to “unclip” and remove distortion of audio that was captured within the DAW. For rendering virtual instruments or freezing tracks that might go above 0dbFS use 32-bit.


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5 responses to “24 and 32-bit Recording Formats Explained”

  1. Tom Wilkowske Avatar
    Tom Wilkowske

    Thanks, John, I always wondered about this.

  2. Niels Avatar
    Niels

    I know this is an old blog post by now, so chances are you already know this. But for people reading this post now and drawing conclusions based upon it: The problem is not with recording analogue audio per se, the problem lies with your audio card, that is not capable of recording in true 32 bit float. Your audio card in this video uses integer quantization and basically provides the DAW with 16 or 24 bit integer values, which your DAW converts into 32 bit float because you asked it to. But by then the damage is done. There are audio interfaces on the market for reasonable prices that are capable of true 32 bit float recording.

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