Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean for the musicians?

Re:Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean ... by hatsix on Thursday September 28, 2023 @11:57PM (#37699117)

if you digitized at 24 bit, then 16 bit is technically compressed. with flac, the waveforms aren't compressed, but the amplitude is, so audio buffs claim they can hear more separation. I can't hear it, but I also can't taste the difference between coffee bean origins, but I know people who can.

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Re:Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean ... by PaulDavisThe1st on Friday September 29, 2023 @12:28AM (#37699269)

FLAC supports bit depths between 4 and 32 bits per sample (the reference decoders only support up to 24 bits per sampl). Other than that, it does not change the bit depth of the data.

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Re:Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean ... by pdntspa on Friday September 29, 2023 @01:15AM (#37699545)

I'm pretty sure the 16-vs-24 thing has been proven already. 24-bit only really makes sense if you're fucking with the material. Same with 44.1khz vs higher sample rates.

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Re:Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean ... by astrange on Friday September 29, 2023 @01:20AM (#37699574)

You could hear the difference with a 24 to 16 conversion only because it usually involves dithering, which means there is some injected noise. If they choose not to do that, 16-bit dynamic range is enough to store someone whispering in your ear next to a running jet engine.

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Re:Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean ... by Dylan16807 on Friday September 29, 2023 @02:35AM (#37700041)

According charts in google, a jet engine at 100 yards distance is 105dB louder than a whisper. 16 bits can do 96dB without dither.

More importantly, the problem isn't trying to hear 96dB of range all at once. The baseline is fixed in place, so when you have a quiet section all those high bits are 0 and you need the low bits to have enough detail by themselves. And a whisper is pretty far from the quietest thing you might have in a track.

If you can hear the dithering noise, then I'm pretty sure there are sounds you're hearing that would be wrong or missing without the dither.

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Re:Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean ... by astrange on Friday September 29, 2023 @02:46AM (#37700112)

It's not a binary decision, there are different dithering algorithms with different noise frequencies.

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Re:Bandcamp has been sold to Songtradr. What does this mean ... by TomSwirly on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @03:19AM (#37748815)

FLAC is a lossless encoding. You can reverse it and get a bit-for-bit identical WAV file.

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