How do I make my music higher quality?

To accomplish the goal of high fidelity music (high quality), we must first understand what factors influence audio quality.

Voltmeter

Factors:

Sample Rate

Sample Rate is the number of samples being taken of your audio in conversion in analog to digital conversion. Think of this like the number of pictures being taken per second of your audio. 44.1Khz is 44,100 snapshots, 48kHz is 48,000 snapshots, 96kHz is 96,000 snapshots. The more snapshots, the higher the quality of the audio conversion. In theory, you would want the highest available sample rate but WAIT: The higher the sample rate, the larger the audio files. Also keep in mind that 48Khz is more than enough to handle film sound, and music recording and mixing. The only uses for anything above 48kHz is typically super detailed sound design as used in Discovery nature shows.

Bit Depth

Bit depth refers to the number of bits in a system. Bits are how computers communicates and is made up of 1's and 0's. The bit depth is important for capturing changes in voltage or dynamic range. The more bits you have, the larger your dynamic range or variance between the loudest and softest signals are. To capture the entire frequency spectrum and

amplitude in your music follow these guidelines:

44.1Khz and 16bits, 48Khz and 24 bits, 96kHz and 32 bits.

Hardware

Mics, cables, preamps, interfaces, outboard gear, pedals, pedal boards etc. make up hardware that affects what is possible in terms of sound quality. If your pedal board has a grounding issue that comes off as buzzing, it will be captured in the recording. If your mic makes things sound like it's underwater, everything captured by that mic will sound underwater. In mixing you will either spend time easily carving out space for each instrument (good audio) or be frustrated repairing bad audio. Everything in your signal chain from the instrument, to the cable, to the interface, and to the DAW- affect quality (aside from Sample Rate, and bit depth.)

NOTE: Higher Sample rates and bit depths are great at reproducing detailed highs and lows (think below 60hz and 96kHZ and up). 44.1kHz (16bits) and 48kHz (24bits) capture the midrange about the same, the difference between the two is in the low end and upper frequencies.

If you have any questions, make sure to reach out.