rick.lang wrote:I’m thinking 192KHz may not be required though for an indie narrative film so may record 96KHz. Appreciate any feedback on that rate since I don’t know what is typical for these things.
I recall having worked at 96kHz only once in my career (for audio-post, music is different), and it annoyed me and I told the producers to record at 48kHz moving forward. That was for a radio soap opera. It didn't need the higher sample rate for "quality" purposes, nor for processing purposes. It was just a waste of drive space and taxed the (now decommissioned) computer to the edge.
Every single time other than that I've received audio at 48kHz for location sound and adr/narration. Music and fx have originated as 44.1kHz or 48kHz.
I don't know of anyone that works at a rate higher than 48kHz except for sfx guys. I can see how some doing music would prefer it, but I can also see how many won't care.
One thing to consider is just where post is being done and just how "indie" it is. The lower the budget I'd assume the "lesser" the space/gear. It doesn't necessarily mean poor gear, but it might mean that instead of a fully decked out PT HDX system you'll have someone mix on a native system instead, and it might be fine running at 48kHz, but at twice that rate CPU demands start getting out of hand. So speaking of noise reduction one thing I would imagine would be problematic is running iZotope RX plugins in real time in the post session. Not saying everyone will or should do it, but they can be quite resource hungry and bumping everything up to 96kHz
might force the audio people to make some annoying choices (I.e. route differently or process offline).
I'd ask those doing post for the film if they have a preference, if possible. 96kHz is fine I guess since it can always be down sampled by the post people if needed. But if you're recording only dialog then I have a hard time believing anyone would even raise an eyebrow over it being 48kHz.