Sample Rates

For the Rivendell Radio Automation System, the most common and recommended sample rates are:

44.1 kHz — traditional music/CD workflow 48 kHz — broadcast/video standard and generally preferred for modern radio

Rivendell itself supports multiple PCM sample rates, but the important thing is that the entire chain matches:

audio interface JACK/PipeWire Rivendell audio store GlassCoder & GlassGUI/BUTT/DarkIce/Liquidsoap Stereo Tool streaming encoder

The System Sample Rate should be chosen before importing audio and should not be changed later on an active system.

Recommended setups

Modern FM / streaming station

Use:

48 kHz 16-bit or 24-bit PCM

Why:

Native rate for most broadcast hardware Matches AAC, Opus, and most streaming pipelines Avoids resampling when using JACK/PipeWire and modern processors Better interoperability with video/social content

Legacy music library/CD-focused workflow

Use:

44.1 kHz Mainly if your source material is overwhelmingly CD rips

This avoids resampling imported audio, but modern broadcast chains generally benefit more from 48 kHz consistency.

What NOT to use

Avoid:

96 kHz 192 kHz

They dramatically increase:

CPU usage JACK/PipeWire overhead storage network bandwidth

...with essentially no listener benefit for radio broadcast or streaming.

Best practice for Rivendell systems

A very stable modern chain is:

Rivendell audio store - 48 kHz JACK/PipeWire - 48 kHz Stereo Tool - 48 kHz Liquidsoap internal - 48 kHz Streaming encoder - 48 kHz input Final MP3/AAC stream - 44.1 or 48 kHz

For most setups, keeping everything at 48 kHz end-to-end will minimize:

xruns resampler artifacts clock drift unnecessary ffmpeg processing