16 bit vs. 24 bit Audio, What Should You Record At? (FAQ Series)

Today I answer the question of what is bit depth, what's the difference between 16-bit & 24-bit audio in analog to digital conversions, and which bit depth should you record at.

00:13 - What is Analog to Digital Conversion?
00:34 - What is Sample Rate?
01:08 - What is Bit Depth?
01:51 - How Is Bit Depth Interpreted?
03:19 - How Does Bit Depth Affect Sound
04:38 - Bit Depth Theory & Equations
05:43 - Bit Depth & Dynamic Range
06:41 - What's the Benefit of 24-bit?
07:12 - Should You Record 24-Bit Audio?
08:03 - Outro

Buy the Neumann TLM103

Buy the Arturia Audiofuse

NOTE (FULL DISCLOSURE): If you purchase an item using my amazon link, it provides me a small referral fee. For more info check my FAQ page links below.

Check us out, Follow us, & Like us over at:

[obvious_humor]

*Everything you need to know for audio playback and production...*
TLDR: 16 bits is enough for playback, and 24 bits is only helpful for production.
Small correction: Bit-depth doesn't really get you "resolution".
*1) Frequency gives you resolution for audio.*
As far as frequency goes, 44-48kHz is enough because human hearing doesn't really go beyond 20-20k, and 44.1 gives you up to 22kHz accurately according to the Nyquist formula.
44.1kHz is the CD audio standard.
48kHz is DVD audio standard.
*2) Bit depth gives you dynamic range.*
6dB of dynamic range per bit.
This means 16-bit has 96dB DR and can easily cover from 20dB (silent room) to 116dB (front row at a rock concert, almost hearing damage).
24-bit has 144dB DR and can cover the range between a silent room and a jet engine.
*3) Higher bit-depth lowers the effect of noise while mixing audio.*
When you process audio, every operation adds a little bit of noise.
With 16-bit, you have 65k steps.
With 24-bit, you have 16M steps.
A random error shift of 10-100 steps will be ever-so-slightly more significant if you have less steps to scale it.
The absolute range means you have more room for error.

[jerrymassengill]

This video taught me McDonalds drive thru uses 4 bit audio....

[ElectronicsForFun]

l record in 32-bit float, at 192Khz WAV just because l hate having all of that extra hard drive space.

[harihararamesh]

I am now 64yrs..A student Of you Sir...That 16 bit to 4 bits example with your own voice is Awesome .👏👏...With regards- HRR.

[pepelsbey]

Thanks for the video! I’ve never realized the actual difference so clear, before I saw picture quality and numbers difference. In my understanding: record in 24 bits for better processing (noise reduction, compression, EQ, mixing) and publish in 16 because no one would ever notice the difference on YouTube or in a typical podcast.

[thiago_]

Man, this is one the best explanation that I've ever heard about this topic. You gotta be an amazing teacher. Well done.

[proclaimav]

Hi Bandrew! Enjoyed the video. Your hunch is correct about starting with better quality before you compress. I work for a well know satellite TV company and the signals flowing into our facility are high bandwidth, high quality before they hit our compression system to make sure we get a good result for customers. Recording studios record at much higher quality than we normally see in the end product. Garbage in, garbage out, Awesomeness in, pretty good out...

[RobertWGreaves]

Today’s ADC units are far better than those from the past. A bit depth of 16 and a sample rate of 44.1 kHz is more than sufficient for the human cochlea to hear amplitudes and frequencies as accurately as our hearing apparatus is capable of. This is true of a straightforward record and playback. However, when we edit digital audio in any way, we introduce new quantization errors that build up in the lower bits the more we edit. Enough so that we can start to hear the artifacts introduced by editing. So 24 bit is recommended for professional recordings that will be edited so that the artifacts generated in the lower bits are rendered well nigh insignificant because a smaller portion of overall bits are corrupted by S/E errors due to editing. Therefore if the editing after recording is minimal, then 16 bit is all you really need.

[mahmud-ahsan]

Oh man, sorry to say I was laughing when I heard your 4 bit sound. By the way thanks for teaching me this bit depth.

[alvinelmore]

bro I want to thank you for giving me exactly what I needed within the first minute of your video the rest of it I skimmed but the first minute was the info that I wanted. Thank you!

[socialite]

Higher bit depth means greater precision in mapping an analogue voltage to a corresponding digital value, and allows for a greater signal to noise ratio.
16 bit (2 bytes) means you have 65, 536 possible digital values available for representing the analogue voltage.
24 bit (3 bytes) means you have 16, 777, 216 possible digital values for representing the analogue voltage.
So, 24 bit can more precisely record what the analogue voltage was.

It's important to know that the digital values are evenly spread out between maximum voltage and minimum voltage.

This is important when you're dealing with very low voltage levels - there are fewer digital values between zero and the value closest to the one that represents the voltage if you're using a lower bit depth. That means any editing of the resulting digital audio has fewer values to change between. So it's always better to capture in the highest bit depth possible, and do any processing at an even higher bit depth, before mastering down to the bit depth needed for the final product.

16 bit allows for a maximum signal to noise ratio of 96dB, and 24 bit allows for up to 144 dB s/n ratio.
Very few audio music recordings are made that have a dynamic range that cannot easily be accommodated within a 96dB noise floor, and almost no commercial music recordings have that sort of dynamic range.
Quantization is the process of mapping the voltage to a specific digital value. Dithering is a way of doing the quantization that reduces digital artefacts caused by quantization.

Bit Depth is about digital accuracy of the sampled analogue signal. Sample rate affects maximum frequency that can be digitally represented. Sample rate is a different matter that has it's own considerations that need to be understood.

[CaleSchmitz]

I randomly found this video and I regret nothing. The explanation was SOLID and made me watch through to the end. I suppose I have to subscribe now. :)

[kingmadeofficial]

Without a shadow of a doubt, this is the best Chanel I ve subscribed to, u are amazing bro, keep up the good work

[czdaniel]

For the picture analogy, I think it might be closer to a picture format that can create 65, 000 colors vs a picture format with 16-million different colors. But I'm no expert

[philvale]

Hi, I enjoyed your territorial on a BIT Recording, I have finally found out why some music sounds better on recording on YouTube than others,
Just recently I have been listening to a lot of music at 70-year-old dude retired enjoy listening to music just recently I rebuilt my transmission line loudspeaker cabinets, I’ve been listening to a lot of music, Classical to heavy metal, Play the same music recorded by different people obviously on different devices and you can notice when somebody record something in 16 to 24 BIT, It is surprising how much difference it can be ruin a piece of music, I hadn’t realised, Until now, Great territorial found something at my age of life, Phil FROM THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOULIN FRANCE.

[EthanRMus]

Ive heard a lot of people try to make bit depth only about SNR, but I think youre right that it also does impact accuracy/audio quality

[HumbugShow]

Great analogies, simple explanations and easy to follow. You hit it out of the park with this one.

[richardpress]

Good, informative video. One of the best ones done on this - would be cool to see more on why we need 24 bit vs 16 bit for recording music vs podcasts though.

[Vertshark]

I've decided to use auto-tune in every podcast I do for that warm "I am a robot here to kill humanity and take over world" sound everyone wants!

[sleepinredroses]

I just wanted to tune my microphone for discord and teamspeak, now I am here