💾 Sample Rate Bit Depth Calculator
Choose a sample rate, bit depth, channel count, and duration to see the uncompressed PCM data rate and file size — so you can budget disk space and bandwidth before you hit record.
📊 Calculate PCM Data
What is a Sample Rate & Bit Depth Calculator?
A sample rate and bit depth calculator shows how your recording settings translate into data — the bitrate of the uncompressed stream and how many megabytes a take will occupy. It makes the trade-off between audio resolution and file size concrete before you commit to a session format.
Plan multitrack projects, estimate how much a long set or stems folder will weigh, and choose a sample rate and bit depth that balance fidelity against the storage and bandwidth you have.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
How is uncompressed audio data rate calculated?
Multiply the sample rate by the bit depth and the number of channels. CD-quality stereo — 44,100 samples per second × 16 bits × 2 channels — works out to about 1,411 kbps, or roughly 10.6 MB per minute. Higher sample rates, deeper bit depths, and more channels all push that number up proportionally.
What sample rate and bit depth should I record at?
44.1 kHz / 16-bit is the CD and streaming standard, while 48 kHz suits video. For tracking and mixing, many engineers work at 24-bit because the extra headroom lowers noise and gives more room for level mistakes. 88.2 or 96 kHz can help with heavy processing but cost more disk space, as this calculator makes clear.
Why are my WAV files so much bigger than MP3s?
WAV and AIFF store every sample uncompressed, so size scales directly with sample rate, bit depth, channels, and length. Lossy formats like MP3 and AAC throw away data the ear is less likely to notice, shrinking files several times over. Use the audio file size calculator to estimate those compressed sizes.
Does 32-bit float make files larger than 24-bit?
Yes. 32-bit float uses 32 bits per sample versus 24, so files are about a third larger than 24-bit at the same sample rate and channel count. The payoff is a very large headroom once the audio is inside the computer, so a level mistake while mixing is easy to undo. Whether a recording can still clip on the way in depends on the interface's converters, not the file format, so check its manual before trusting a hot input to 32-bit float.
Is there a size limit for a WAV file?
Yes. A standard WAV stores its sizes in 32-bit fields. The EBU's RF64 specification (Tech 3306) puts it this way: "The reason for the 4 Gbyte barrier is the 32-bit addressing in RIFF/WAVE and BWF. With 32 bits a maximum of 4294967296 bytes = 4 Gbyte can be addressed." After the 44-byte header that leaves 4,294,967,259 bytes of audio, which is about 2 hours 4 minutes of 24-bit / 96 kHz stereo or 6 hours 45 minutes of 16-bit / 44.1 kHz stereo. The calculator flags a result past that line and shows how long one file in your format can run; a longer take has to be split into several files or saved in a 64-bit format such as RF64.