To Dither or Not to Dither?

[TheElement]

Thanks guys. Great read!

So I think what I will do in the future is to use dither when mixing down to CD or mp3. I use 32 bit float in my DAW.

I was wondering why the CD I had done by Discmakers sounded sonically better than the homemade one I burnt for a library lately. Now I know! however I did remaster and sent to the library a better quality CD. but it was still 16 bit. dont know why they require a CD when a 32 bit float wav can be downloaded.

I want the highest of quality so will make sure to dither the master before burning.

[Russell Landwehr]

can most people hear it under normal circumstances?...............

but its what we do cause the golden eared people have figured it out.

hehe! I bet YOU can hear the difference!

[Len911]

If you are not mastering, or if you are preparing hi-res stems that are 24 bit, there is no reason to dither. As the session format is going to be at best 24 bit.

if you have a DAW that allows 32 bit depth, check to see how its doing it - as there are very few AD convertors on the market right now that capture at 32 bit depth. You might just be making the session files 25% bigger (over 24 bit) for absolutely no gain. (no pun intended...get it.....gain...anyways).

Cubase 5 agrees with you Andy, they say it is not required to use 32-bit float when recording or required even with the use of effects, (including a level change or eq setting), it recommends you should consider using 32-float, because Cubase processes audio internally at 32-bit float, and recording in the same format keeps the audio "pristine". In other words, any internal 32 bit processing will be truncated if you keep your 16 or 24 bits. So bigger files is not really much of a problem today, So no gain yes,lol, but what about pain ?

This is my take, I like so many other's, don't remember why necessarily I do some things, but if I can consider all and make settings, set and forget, later on it can save a lot of time troubleshooting.
Dithering seems to be one of those things. Will you notice the odd harmonics going on? Probably not most of the time, that is more a subject of "Psycho-acoustics", but one day the inevitable will occur, you will hear some odd 7th harmonic artifact doodad, and no doubt curse that !@%$#& website for doing something to your music!

I'm with guitargurumike, find a limiter that has the dither button incorporated and forget it, so far we know there's the L2 limiter and the Sonnox limiter.

[andygabrys]

yeah that;s what I am getting at Len911.

When Pro Tools 10 came out AVID (who love a good dog and pony show) were on and on about how great the new mix engine in Pro Tools was.

Well what was really different was that the Pro Tools LE mixer always ran at 32 bit float. It was the TDM mix engine that used to run at 24 bit and it was possible to clip the internal bussing schema.

so in Pro Tools 10 and after - you can set up your session so that Pro Tools records PCM audio at 32 bit depth, even if its only 24 bit AD coming in. So files larger for no reason. You can also record your session at 24 bit, and then flip the session to 32 bit for mixing, and it doesn't resample all the audio, it just runs the mixer at higher resolution.

Sort of what you were saying Len.

And for the record - I have never seen a limiter made by a third party manufacturer that doesn't include dither except for the Final Mix M1 (that I can remember anyways, I have a bunch of them).

But in most DAW's when you are bouncing at 16 bit there is dither that can be applied in the bounce anyways. Logic does this (pro Tools does not) and I recall the last time I used Cubase it had the Apogee HR22 available in the bounce dialogue.

[ochaim]

haha, gain!

[Len911]

And for the record - I have never seen a limiter made by a third party manufacturer that doesn't include dither except for the Final Mix M1 (that I can remember anyways, I have a bunch of them).

But in most DAW's when you are bouncing at 16 bit there is dither that can be applied in the bounce anyways. Logic does this (pro Tools does not) and I recall the last time I used Cubase it had the Apogee HR22 available in the bounce dialogue.

Didn't know that, I was thinking the Alpha compressor was a limiter, it's not, and so I only have one limiter, the Sonnox.
+1 on daws having dither.

[sansharbour]

Interesting topic

I record at 48khz and 24 bit
I also bounce with the same settings

Is this wrong?

Don

[Len911]

Interesting topic

I record at 48khz and 24 bit
I also bounce with the same settings

Is this wrong?

Don

It's not really a right or wrong question as it is about control of the final product. If that is what someone requests, you don't really have a choice. If you do have a choice it's about whom you would trust to make conversions if necessary at a later stage. It's not going to cd like that. It's not going to be played without conversion in my windows media player, because I don't have the codec for 24 bit. If someone converts it to mp3, you don't control whether it will be 192bit or 320bit.

[denalihighway]

I break out the 'ol ditherdoo sometimes also. But there just haven't been many native Australian instrumental listings of late unfortunately.



...Sooooo...anyhoo.... preferably you should dither your master to 44.1 & 16 bit right? (unless its already 44.1 & 16 bit already obviously)

Very helpful thread. And I swear I will go back and read all about dithering

[Len911]

As Andy pointed out before, every limiter has a dither, default dither perhaps, so if you use a limiter, you are and just don't know it. Dither is part of the algorithm for an mp3. So maybe the real question is in dithering decisions, when do I down-bit and when do I dither?? As Andy answered already, and I alliteratively illustrated.
Don't dilly dally with dither, desperately decide and determine the degree daily of how it defines your destiny, don't be deluded or deceived, this is not a drill! I am devastatingly delirious.