CAKEWALK SONAR User Manual page 151

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 553.
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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