Alright, so Octatrack likes being on the 16bit 44.1 kHz team & then Analog Four doesnt , it wants to be on the 16bit 48 kHz team.
so WTF??
How do you record these both at the same time into an Ableton session without artifact chaos or the like?
lol
thank you for helping me to get this confusion out of my head
Happy New Year Everyone!
It doesnt make any difference.
Ableton is recording audio signals. Sound is sound. Ableton doesnt care about the internal sample rates of external machines.
If you want you can set ableton to record at 24bit48khz.
44.1khz would work just as well.
Dont worry about it.
so when does it make a difference, only when feeding the external machines audio?
what about when using Overbridge with the Analog Four and sampling on the Octatrack going into and out of Ableton, nothing to worry about there either?
Since the audio from the Octatrack isn’t available as digital stream, I would go for 48kHz to preserve the original data coming via Overbridge.
sample rate only matters when you’re syncing digital signals in the digital domain.
48kHz setting in Ableton? and then just manage the Octatrack samples separately??
recording the A4 via Overbridge and the Octatrack via my Apollo’s inputs into Ableton there wont be any trouble?
So set the sample rate on your Apollo to 48khz, and record the OT’s analog audio output at 48khz.
No conversion needed. No need to manage anything separately. Your A4 is coming in via digital stream at 48khz. Your OT is coming in via analog audio and you can set your project to record it at any sample rate. Best to choose 48khz since that’s what A4/OB prefers.
should I choose to do that, does this mean all my past 44.1 projects will be incompatible moving forward?
No.
Ableton can resample, and/or you can always adjust the sample rate of your interface to suit any project.
does this have anything to do with the 32bit vs 64bit?
Nothing at all to do with bit rate. Completely different and separate.
If you want to understand the difference, there is a lot of literature on it, but this sums it up pretty well: Digital Audio Basics: Sample Rate and Bit Depth
sorry im just confused by all these different numbers when all im tryin to do is record LOL
theres settings on the Apollo interface for sample rate, theres settings in the external machines for sample rate and in ableton.
im just tryin to make sure im not wasting my time by not setting something properly and then having to correct it by redoing everything all over again
i will read that info you linked me to, thanks so much for understanding my confusion everyone
peace, love and synths!
Simple way to get through this:
Set the Apollo to “48000”, inside Ableton’s Preferences / Audio section.
You really needn’t do anything else. Go have fun now, instead! 
alright - everything 48 got it
have a nice day where you are in this world
That’s not right. You can think of a higher sample rate like a higher resolution of an picture. The real differences appear as soon as you start zooming in.
When you compare 48kHz and 96kHz the later contains additional high frequency content between 24-48kHz which can’t be heard with human ears.
But when you pitch down the signal by an octave these content moves into the 12-24kHz region and reveals itself.
On the other hand: when you pitch down a 48kHz signal by an octave there is no real content left in the 12-24kHz region afterwards (just some artifical artifacts).
so were still good at 48, yeah?
Of course.
My posting above was just to debunk the myth that really high sample rates can’t be useful in specific cases.
For all normal use cases you are fine with 48kHz.
if you record an analog signal into a digital device, it only matters on the digital device, and only to the preference of the user.
if you record a digital signal into another digital device via digital signal/stream, the devices need to be communicating at the same rate.
I’m only talking about synchronization, not resolution