Needle Drop Recording Confusion - 32 with a 24 bit capture device?

Am I missing something? I keep reading the work flow thread and see some people recording at 24/32. Just how is this accomplished with a 24/96 recording device?

I have a soundblaster live 24/96 external usb card. Control panel sound says 24/96 is it's max recording setting, yet software lets me do 24/32...IEEE 32 32 float....what the heck is all this?
should I just set the recording to 24/96 to match my hardware or is there something secret going on here I am missing.

Confused.....

 

Have a look here:

Basically, your DAW software is converting it to 32 bit float on the fly. 32 bits decreases quantization errors due to changes in the samples volume level. You're not getting increased resolution magically. Don't worry about it. The DAW software "knows" that it's capturing using 24 bit hardware.

 

So IEEE is cool to record, edit, de-click etc. Then convert straight to flac or change the sample to straight 24 bit first?

 

Yes, I typically record each side of an LP in floating point and keep it that way for all post-processing. I save the master project in that format as well. After splitting tracks, I dither the resulting files to 16-bit FLAC.

 

SoundBlaster is annoying, buggy drivers, too often resample all incoming. Get a better interface or sound card. Less frustrating.

 

recommendation?? - budget $100-200

 

M-Audio has been really good, Asus Xonar also good.

 

Lot of people like the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2

 

hmmmm - I have one of these in my work PC feeding my bifrost....might have to check that out

 

I don't record to the computer, I use one of these jobbie do's. Less hassle and much more flexible and it will run on batteries which will virtually eliminate any added noise and junk from your recording device. But whatever you choose have fun.

M~