24 Bit Export?

Hi!

Why isn’t there an option for a 24 bit render .wav?

32bit is 24bit integer + 8 bit float WAV: the two formats are simply the same thing with different names.

Yes, but the 32bit files take a lot of space on the HDD.
Imagine that you export every track of a song to mix/master it somewhere else.

24bit is enough for CD production.

Yes, 24bit is standard on pro audio.
Would be nice to see it on rendering options.

You are correct. 24-bit is the absolute standard in the professional music industry especially when passing the rendered WAV’s to engineers to pre-master and master.

24-bit is a vital option missing from the renderer and I would love to see it in the next version of Renoise please :)

Additionally, not all music software supports 32-bit including Logic Audio for PC which only accepts up to 24-bit.

If you use Win9x / NT / 2k / XP, the files will always be stored in 32 bit or a larger format. The missing 8 bits will be filled with dummy data and this is not something Renoise can change anything about it… maybe in OSX, but not in Windows. Yes it can be stored in a 24 bit format, but loading, saving and processing procedures will take longer time, I can understand for exportable formats (to use in 24 bit hardware e.g.) this would probably do okay.
But for saving your harddrive space on your platform, i don’t think it will differ much.

I’m not sure if I understand what you mean. Are you talking about when the files get processed inside Renoise… they occupy 32 bit space?

But still, when you render/store 24 bit files that uses 1/3 less space, right?
And that might not be very relevant if you just use them on your hd, but it becomes more relevant if you have to transport the files on a flash disk or a cd. Or if you have to transfer them through an internet connection.

Is the extra processing power (for 24 bit) really relevant, tho? I don’t know, I’m just guessing. Anyway, we can just wait a bit longer for the render if we choose to…

And talking about 32 bit incompatible software: I still cannot play 32 bit files in Winamp gaplessly (/in ‘loop’ mode).

I mean that in programming software in general, there is no integer or float type that occupies 24 bits. It’s either these byte ranges:1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64.

You can store the data using a two byte integer and a one byte integer or you can store it using three loose bytes, but you can also use a 32-bit integer and don’t use the last 8 bits, or reserve them for processing or other data.
Most applications that treat 32-bit samples, use these 8 bits for other data to process the 24-bit signal.
And most applications store 24-bit samples as 32 bit and yes:occupying 25% more drive-space than actually used.

It’s not specific a Renoise problem but more a problem of the limitations of the programming environment Renoise has been created in