My mind is now tossing around the sample rate, it's implications, how it effects the sound,
It doesn't.
At least, from a listening point of view, if your sample rate is 44.1kHz or above, it doesn't. 44.1k was chosen as the standard for CDs because it captures every frequency even the most golden-eared human can perceive in normal listening environments, whilst still managing to fit a whole album onto CD media. 48kHz is a common alternative because it aligns nicely with the 24 frames per second used in the film and TV world. The audible difference between the two is zero.
The sampling rate is chosen based on Nyquist's Theorem which, basically, states to fully and accurately sample a signal, you need to sample at slightly over twice the rate of the highest frequency. So 44.1kHz will fully capture all frequencies up to about 22.05kHz. 48kHz will capture up to 24kHz. The practical range of human hearing is around 20Hz to 20kHz and most people are quite a bit lower than this. I bet if we did a test of the forum members, the average would be under 17kHz.
44.1kHz supports up to 20kHz audio with some "wiggle room" that's required for filtering (above 22.05kHz you will get something called "aliasing" which is a quite harsh noise, so this needs to be filtered out).
Note that there is an argument that 22.05kHz is so close to the human hearing range that the aliasing filters have to be quite abrupt, and this could introduce distortion. There is some truth to this, but it really isn't an issue with modern digital filters.
Personally, I prefer 48kHz because of the compatibility with film/TV specs, and because 44.1kHz can be an awkward number to work with. The reasons for having 44.1kHz have largely gone away (who buys CDs any more?).
The problem we have now is that all consumer digital players support 44.1kHz, but not all support 48kHz. There's a similar situation with audio interfaces: whilst many support both 44.1kHz and 48kHz (and, often, many other sampling rates) some only support one or the other. Sometimes the OS drivers for an AI may include internal resampling to make an interface compatible with 44.1kHz for casual desktop use, but this may not work when using drivers designed for audio-production work (e.g. ASIO or native ALSA).
the consequences of playing things together recorded at different sample rates ... starting to feel brain ache 
I think a lot of DAWs will either complain, or automatically resample if you try to import a 44.1kHz file into a 48kHz project (or vice versa). If you do import a file of the wrong sample rate without any resampling, it will simply sound slower or faster than it should, with a corresponding decrease or increase in pitch. It would be equivalent to running a conventional record player faster or slower.
In general, it's best to pick a sample rate for your DAW project and stick with that for the whole project as much as possible. It can be awkward if you have to deal with files or interfaces which have different sampling rates, but it's not impossible. But if you have multiple audio interfaces which support different sampling rates, then it's best to pick one they all support.
Note that most professional recording studios will use much higher sampling rates: 96kHz, 192kHz or above. There are some benefits to doing this if you can, although it will dramatically increase the computing and storage power your DAW uses, so I wouldn't recommend it for home recording. The main benefits are around giving more digital "headroom" to do mixing and to apply digital plugins within.
Once the project is mixed and mastered, there really is no benefit in rendering the project down to a listening format with a sample rate of more than 44.1kHz or 48kHz.
If you are interested in this subject, I direct you to the following video which is presented by Monty at Xiph.org, the authors of various popular audio codecs including the ogg and flac formats, and the speex codec.
https://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtmlCheers,
Keith
Topic: Justinguitarjams (Read 423 times)
