.WAV bits

[Birdinator99]

When exporting a pre-master, it has been suggested to me to do so as a 32 bit .WAV file. My options only let me go to 24 bits -- is there much of a difference in quality between the two types? Does another option affect quality more than bits?

[Buoy]

At 11/3/11 05:10 PM, Birdinator99 wrote: is there much of a difference in quality between the two types?

If you're exporting a normalized audio file, no, not at all. If you have extremely low volume samples that you're going to normalize and compress, then you might hear the noise floor from a 24bit file eventually. In which case a 32bit file is better if you have enough space.

A useful analogy (unless I butcher it too much): some image formats can contain information about shades that are too close for the human eye to discern - in the unedited image itself you won't notice any difference of course. But if you try to increase brightness, saturation, etc, you would get artifacts if you didn't have the information about the "indiscernible" shades because they get exaggarated

[Birdinator99]

Exporting as a 24 bit .WAV gave me an annoying sound/buzz that played during part of the song, so I tried normalizing the bass, because that's where I heard the problem. It didn't do anything -- should I remove compression when normalizing? Should I normalize all my tracks if I plan to normalize at all?