Digitakt VS Octatrack sampling sound quality

Sample rate is one thing, bit depth is another.

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Yes. But the “argument against 192 is the same argument against 24”. I’m only contributing to the conversation by bringing attention to a knowledged study showing high res files can be discerned.

The study does not say anything on bit rate either way, only that it wasn’t tested.

Because it’s 25 bit. :slight_smile:

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Alrightalrightalright. While it pains me to admit it (mainly cause I have to readjust my head), I concede that there might be no difference between recording 16bit vs 24bit on the OT. I recorded the same source twice without changing any settings, loaded the files to my DAW and had a listen. 24 might be closer to the source material but not enough for me to say absolutely either way.

Def not a gamechanger and def not worth the extra RAM. I’m glad to have done this for the latter alone.

I really am curious about the test above now. I’d like to hear the original file, whether timestretch was on, ect.

However I still contend there’s a difference in highres audio versus standard. Ive done enough tests to be sure on that. However this means nothing to audio over Apple earbuds nor to people who don’t care enough (keep in mind audiophiles are often classical / jazz / classic rock aficionados…mics and instruments and rooms; nuances and subtleties matter to them). I’m not convinced the worth of a thousand pound strand of speaker cable. But a highres file vs a standard file over a good system is def a different experience.

K I’m out. Way too far down an empty rabbit hole.

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High bit depth decreases rounding errors when mathematically computing signal processing…
Modern DAWs actually mix and process in 32 bit float, 64bit float is starting to show up now.
There are audio interfaces that output 32bit D/A…

When all sorts of crazy math computations are going on you need higher resolution to not introduce rounding errors, in the end you can drop it down to lower resolution after the math is done…

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Before someone attacks me, even Digitone knows this… :slight_smile:

It’s a 24/48 device but it uses 32/96 for internal computation for higher sound quality…

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There is a good video on YouTube where the guy bounces a complex acoustic recording (from a daw) to 24bit, 8bit dithered and 8bit not dithered.

The 24bit and 8bit dithered perfectly cancel each other out, leaving only the added dithering noise. All of the music is retained at 8bit but with some added noise. It makes perfect sense when you really think about it but also some how seems counterintuitive.

Obviously the 8bit undithered sounds much worse, as the detail is lost to rounding.

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Having a higher bit depth when processing is obviously handy though but that isn’t what is happening in the test.

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We all have our anecdotes, and our own needs and use cases.

I have some compressed stems I use in OT for my live set. Did a lot of renderings and tests to see if 24 bit was necessary for my needs.
4 stems per track. They’re rendered at -6dB and playing back through OT (4 static machines plus 1 neighbor track each = 4 neighbor tracks, FX for each stem are eq, reverb, delay)

The difference between 16 bit stems and 24 bit stems was not noticeable on my OT MKII in this case.

That said, I’m surprised more folks in this thread aren’t noting the high frequency “bump”, “enhancement”, whatever you want to call it, that has been observed on the Digitakt’s output since its release.

I find the OT’s output to be rather flat (“even”, not “unexciting”), personally.

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It’s 8 better.

This is my dream when I have kids.

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Would it be out of the question to do a comparison of a sample, straight up vs. run through the OTMK2’s inputs? You’re one guy who’d probably get it right :slight_smile:

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yea seriously someone do it QUICK.
I’m on holidays n it’s driving me nuts :sweat_smile:

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Funny thing is I do think the Octatrack could sound better… :joy: (don’t hate me, haha)
It’s just I never think these comparisons are done in the most appropriate way.
I’ll still use the OT no matter as what it does in my opinion far outweighs some fidelity, but alas I admit it would knock my socks off if it sounded as good as my apogee. :slight_smile:
Just being real, there’s always room for improvement no?

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I’ll just put it this way…
If Elektron jumped in here and said “Hey, we’re designing OT DPS-2 and we’re thinking of making it run 96K and putting in the latest high fidelity AD/DA and dsp, but you nauts seem cool the way it is so should we even bother?”

What would you say? :thinking: :smile:

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I’d say good, it’ll keep the price down and maybe I’ll buy it :stuck_out_tongue:

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Touché!
I’d vote for 96 though… :rofl:

Call me crazy, but folks seem to get wrapped up in wanting to believe whatever device they use is tops. This can lead to sort of a device defending position where people may begin to irrationally argue about a devices abilities.

Honestly when it comes down to it I would hope that the DT does sound better than the OT seeing how it’s made from the same people 8 years later. In my opinion it would be better that a company is improving its products rather than it staying the same. People feel relieved when there isn’t an improvement on new devices because it makes them feel better about what they are using and doesn’t feed their desire to obtain the new thing. This train of thought to me seems completely backwards in regards to actually wanting to see improvements in devices as time progresses. We should want to see things get better, not hope that they don’t so we can feel OK in our time capsule…

This goes for Model:Samples too. If it has improved features that older devices don’t have, this is good and shows that Elektron are progressing and improving things… Perhaps some of the things will come to older devices or perhaps there’s new code that will be able to at least bring the features to all the newer devices from now on… Improvement is good and we should like to see it happening…

OK enough of this BS…
Please inform Ess I’ll need to be Digitoned by the collective for this… :joy:

Octatrack rules!
#Octacult

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Bias is a real thing for sure, for me though definitely not in this case, I have both machines and enjoy them for what they are, I’ve never felt compelled to do a shootout between them because I just use them without worrying about any differences in sound quality, but I clicked on the video just out of curiosity to see.
For me the OT sample definitely had less top end shimmer, but the bass was much fuller, it won’t affect my use of either machine, but it has made me interested in doing some further tests and with other samplers too. I think the summing to mono on the DT might be responsible for the low end loss, so I will test that theory. It isn’t high on my list of priorities though, but I’ll probably do so in the next few weeks.

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