32-Bit Floating Point – Huh?

If you’ve spent any time looking around in any recording and/or audio editing software, you’ll likely have come across several options for audio files.  

If you’re anything like me you saw a lot of options and terminology that made you think you’d better just leave everything at the “default” settings until you can understand what some of the gibberish meant.  

One of the terms that really seemed confusing to me at first was the term “32-bit floating point.”  It almost sounds more like a medical condition:).  It is, in reality, a digital audio term (go figure).  

If you’re curious about how bits figure into digital audio, see my article 16-Bit Audio Recording – What The Heck Does It Mean? I use examples of champagne bottles and parties to help get the point across. Who knew bit depth and the explanation of digital audio could be fun?

Here is an article from Emerson Maningo that will help you to understand what 32-bit floating point actually means. He answers questions like “is 32-bit floating point the same as 32-bit recording? That would mean a 32-bit resolution. And the answer is “nope.”

You can find out what the float system is, and why 32-bit floating point is actually 24-bit resolution.

See the original detailed article here.