best plug-ins for DP??

[Phil O]

If you ever find yourself in need of dithering, I like iZotope's Ozone for that. It's got a bunch of other plugs as well that are very good, but it's dithering really shines.

Phil

[Tonio Ruiz]

If you ever find yourself in need of dithering, I like iZotope's Ozone for that. It's got a bunch of other plugs as well that are very good, but it's dithering really shines.

Phil

I have never understood why would I need a dither plug-in, I know it's a very newbie question but, could you explain it a little bit???? thank U

[Kubi]

You need a dither plug-in when you reduce the bit depth from 24bit to 16bit for i.e CD. Dithering should be the very very last step. You usually put it on the master fader, after your master compressor, EQ etc. If you have your master fader set at anything other than 0dB, be sure to place the dither post-fader.

PS: The dither option under the audio menu is slightly different from this. See this explanation from Magic Dave:

"Dither under the Audio menu is applied when DP creates an audio file. There is a difference between DP creating an audio file or that audio file being created by MAS. For example, recording, rerecording, or bouncing is a MAS function. Pitch shifting, creating crossfades, printing a destructive effect, or merging audio are all DP functions. When DP creates an audio file directly, it is going from the floating point number to either a 16 bit or 24 bit fixed integer sample. Rounding happens automatically. The only difference between the dither in the Audio menu and the dither in the MW Limiter is that the Audio menu dither doesn't have the sub-option of noiseshaping."

[ahimmel]

PSP makes some very good plugs as well. Their plugins range from very nice sounding Mastering plugs to very weird fx. Download a demo and I am sure you will like them.

[Phil O]

Kubi beat me to it, but one more thing. There are several techniques used for dithering and everyone seems to think theirs is the best. Here's one shootout:
http://www.24-96.net/dither/
I just happen to like the way Ozone handles it. That's why I brought it up.

Phil

[mattymac1000]

You need a dither plug-in when you reduce the bit depth from 24bit to 16bit for i.e CD. Dithering should be the very very last step. You usually put it on the master fader, after your master compressor, EQ etc. If you have your master fader set at anything other than 0dB, be sure to place the dither post-fader.

PS: The dither option under the audio menu is slightly different from this. See this explanation from Magic Dave:

"Dither under the Audio menu is applied when DP creates an audio file. There is a difference between DP creating an audio file or that audio file being created by MAS. For example, recording, rerecording, or bouncing is a MAS function. Pitch shifting, creating crossfades, printing a destructive effect, or merging audio are all DP functions. When DP creates an audio file directly, it is going from the floating point number to either a 16 bit or 24 bit fixed integer sample. Rounding happens automatically. The only difference between the dither in the Audio menu and the dither in the MW Limiter is that the Audio menu dither doesn't have the sub-option of noiseshaping."

I record in 24bit and I've never used dither (unless it's doing it automatically). Everything sounds exactly the same in the 16bit bounce as it did running 24bit in DP. Will it sound "better" if I dither?

[miguelmrq]

My list of plug-ins that i believe to be great and fully functional with DP.

1. Sonnox Oxford Plug-ins - Get the Elite bundle because it will stay cheap, or buy all 7 through a retailer and you have greater discount. They excel in everything.

2. Abbey Road Brilliance Pack and Abbey Road TG 12413 Limiter - Really nice sounding plug-ins, they all have a nice character. The latest brilliance pack isn't working with DP but if you stick with 1.03 it will work fine. Really nice support too!

3. Overloud BREVERB - Really nice reverb, works great and sounds great. Great for those Lexicon type of reverbs (i believe it's inspired in 480L)

4. Altiverb - As everyone mentioned, really great plug-in for creating spaces and stuff like that.

[Kubi]

I record in 24bit and I've never used dither (unless it's doing it automatically). Everything sounds exactly the same in the 16bit bounce as it did running 24bit in DP. Will it sound "better" if I dither?

Well, I can't hear your files, but over here I can hear a definite difference when bouncing from 24 to 16, with or without dither. The more dynamic and broad-band the material is, the more audible is the difference. The low-end loss and slight "roughing up" of the sound that happens anyway when going from 24 to 16 bits gets a good bit more pronounced when leaving out dither.

But regardless of dither, in most cases I'd say you should be able to hear a difference between the 24bit and 16bit files. Are you working entirely from 16bit loops and samples? If so, then the difference may be virtually inaudible, since your mix is largely 16bits deep to begin with... Or maybe your monitoring environment isn't quite detailed enough?

Regardless, when delivering a 16bit file to the end user, it's a good idea to dither as the last step in going from 24 to 16 bits. If you deliver for further processing (i.e. to a dub stage for a final mix, or to a mastering engineer) you usually should keep it 24bits deep and dither free.

[csiaudio]

If may say, It won't get a lot better than MW EQ as far as EQ is concerned.

OMG yes I beg to differ also. Try working with the Neve 88RS Channel strip from Universal Audio or most any of their EQ's...in a total different league than the MW EQ.