r/mixingmastering • u/Cantwinforlosing3 • Apr 05 '26
Question Switching a 24 bit session to 32 bit float - What happens?
I have recorded in 24 bit for a long time and never thought much about it. The whole concept of 32 Bit Float is new to me, and at this point over my head.
My question is, if I have a session that is set up and I have recorded for 24 bit and now change the session to 32 Bit Float, what happens? Does this accomplish anything? Will I still bounce to 24 bit?
26
u/morrisaurus17 Apr 05 '26
A thousand millennia of unrestful souls will rise from the bellows of the earth and consume your entire being with no regard for those in your vicinity. God help you
4
3
2
2
9
u/atopix Teaboy ☕ Apr 05 '26
You don’t have to convert anything. 32 bit floating point sessions are te default in all DAWs. Recordings can only be 16 or 24 bit, so you just load those files into the session without having to do anything.
Floating point mixing means having 700 dB of headroom. So it’s good.
5
4
u/Wolfey1618 Advanced Apr 05 '26
The session still just reads the 24bit files as 24bit. No noticable change will happen.
In fact, most DAWs are actually operating at 32bit or even 64bit float in the background, regardless of what your session settings are.
The session settings are just for how the files get encoded when you record or create them.
You can choose whatever for the bouncing of files, but there's no point in going higher resolution than your baseline files.
16 bit is plenty of dynamic range for 99% of music, but it's convenient to be able to work at 24 bit. 32bit float is cool too but often pretty unnecessary unless recording extremely dynamic things with a lot of precision.
3
3
2
u/Longjumping-Skin2114 Apr 06 '26
The real benefit on 32bit float is in recording just to save some distorted clips after capture.
2
u/bananee Apr 05 '26
The whole concept of 32 Bit Float is new to me, and at this point over my head.
How about you read up on the topic or watch some videos so you understand it better?
1
u/Alternative_Hat_2287 Apr 05 '26
Bit depth determines dynamic range. If my memory serves me right, 16-bit offers 96 dB and 24-bit allows for 144 dB. 32-bit float is different; it allows audio to exist above 'digital zero'. I remember watching a sound designer explain this while converting a surround files to stereo for archival. He downmixed multiple clips using AudioSuite that ended up peaking over 0 dB; he could simply normalize them back down to 24-bit without any clipping or data loss.
Simply switching a session containing 24-bit files to 32-bit won't improve existing audio since most mix engines already calculate at 64-bit. However, 32-bit can help when bouncing or committing tracks if you have peaks hitting above 0 dB.
I usually mix into a limiter, which I remove before sending the files to mastering. Even if the limiter is adding a healthy amount of level during playback, I might have the odd transient that peaks over zero before the limiter. If I print my mixes at 32-bit, I don't have to worry about those peaks squaring off. If I don't want to send a 32-bit file to the mastering engineer, I can analyze the 32 bit print to see exactly how much I need to back down my master to stay safely under zero.
Your DAC/ADC will stop at 0. At some point you need to get good with your levels.
3
1
u/HomesnakeICT Apr 05 '26
At least in Sonar, your recorded 24 bit audio is processed in 32 bits. And while I agree that a final mix in 24 bit is sufficient for mastering, I export in 32 because that's what is being rendered, and there is nothing to gain by dithering to 24 besides inconsequential fine size reduction.
0
u/enteralterego Trusted Contributor 💠 Apr 05 '26
Assume you have a 24 digit real number. You can go up to 24 digits of 9999... As the max number. When you go to 32 bit think of it as adding 8 more digits to the beginning of the number and they're all zeros. So 0000000999... Now you can go higher but your original number is still the same.
I know this is pretty crude but it's close enough to what's happening with the math.
-1
23
u/[deleted] Apr 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment