MOTUnation.com

Hi u'nationers!
I just moved up in the world from 16/44.1 to 24/48 recording. Yes, I am the last person alive to do so. Now I have to dither, and I can identify at least five choices:

1) Quan Jr.
2) Dither in the bounce-to-disk process (which I rarely use, but could)
3) Dither in Waves, but the limiter I have is the much-maligned L1 which I never use
4) Dither in Peak LE
5) Dither in Ozone

Anyone care to comment on which of these would be the best way to go? From a workflow perspective, Ozone would be best because it's always at the end of my signal chain in DP, but if one iof the above options is notably better than the others sound-wise I would use that
Thanks very much

if peak le has POW-r dither that's you're best bet. just make sure in prefs you have the setting set high quality.

never mind. i just checked and peak le doesn't have pow-r. i'd use ozone then.

POW-r dither is why I upgraded to Peak Pro earlier this year (during a promotional -- I think I paid $198).

Not all material benefits the same from each setting, but for most pop material, I found MBIT+ in Ozone to be the most musical, and generally checked the DC Offset flag as well, with normal dither and medium noise-shaping. Some of the differences were subtle, but for me at least, these settings seemed the most transparent. It was another poster here who turned me onto POW-r dither earlier this year, and I no longer use Ozone for dithering as a result.

POW-r dither seems leagues apart from DP or even Ozone, and I can no longer guarantee that I would be able to tell the 24-bit master from the dithered 16-bit master. The differences are there, but are more spurious vs. constant throughout the musical content. My ears verify what the third-party tests have shown (as referenced by several recent threads on the topic in this forum, so it shouldn't take long to find the URL for the POW-r dither article/review).

i wouldn't use the dither in DP as it's not that good they really should update this feature because its fundamental part of modern DAW recording. I wonder when the last update of the dither in DP was, Mmm anyone know? has it ever been updated?
i don't av ozone but by all accounts around these parts, i'd use it.

I'm pretty sure POW-r dither is favored by Bob Katz. That's a more-than-reasonable endorsement, I think.

I use POW-r dither in Peak Pro too, and it hasn't failed me.

Granted though, I've ears of copper, not gold.

Hey, copper ain't cheap!

POW-r dither is the way to go.
I'm so happy with the way it gently converts my mixes.
Sometimes I prefer the POW-r to the original.

MegaDPuser wrote:Hi u'nationers!
I just moved up in the world from 16/44.1 to 24/48 recording. Yes, I am the last person alive to do so. Now I have to dither, and I can identify at least five choices:

Consider also that just because you've got 24 bits doesn't mean you need to mix that way. DP's own internal resolution is 32 bits, which covers you from input to output (not inclusive), and the dither is one fantastic reason to mix at a resolution which does not require dithering at the end.

Shooshie

Hi Shooshie, ...are you saying I should convert audio files to 16 bit before editing them in DP so as to avoid having to dither at the end? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of recording 24 bit? I'm not sure I understand, but I'd welcome any further clarification. Thanks.

I think he was referring to staying at 32-bits (that is, routing an aux channel or some other buss that may be processing the 24-bit audio tracks at 32-bit resolution, to an on-disc file), but I'll have to check later on whether DP supports bouncing to disc at that resolution.

I'm noticing some of the high-end stereo audio editors support 32-bit mastering, so if it isn't a current save feature/format, it probably will be soon. I'll have to check and see which formats support 32-bits.

MegaDPuser wrote:Hi Shooshie, ...are you saying I should convert audio files to 16 bit before editing them in DP so as to avoid having to dither at the end? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of recording 24 bit? I'm not sure I understand, but I'd welcome any further clarification. Thanks.

You should use dithering you refer to as a bounce-to-disk process when down-resolving 24-bit audio to 16-bit audio.

When audio files are down-rezed from 24 to 16, the waveforms get truncated. In a way, it's analogous to compressing a full-rez photo to a smaller JPEG photo. Data is "averaged out", and resolution is diminished.

Good dithering applies a specific variance (kind of like a smart noise) to these waveforms, making them sound smoother. It's a fix-it trick, of sorts. It fools your ears in a positive way.

So --

Do work in the highest bit rate your system can handle (i.e., 24-bit). This will allow you to track and process the best-sounding source material.

Then, use DP MW Limiter or third-party option like Ozone, Peak or similar to bounce your 24-bit mix to 16-bit.

******

Now, to clarify Shooshie's comment --

When DP applies effects or destructive edits to audio files, it actually does so in a higher bit rate than 16- or 24-bit. It works in 32-bit, giving the calculations extra headroom.

After calculation, it is, of course, down-rezed to the bit rate of your project, be that 16 or 24. You can apply internal dithering, so that this 32-to-24 down-rez sounds smoother. This is done via the Dither toggle in DP's menu.

Because of this, I always leave this dither toggle on.

So --

DP's internal Dither toggle does not effect your bounce-to-disk mixes. The only effect native to DP that does this is the MW Limiter.

******

My advice:

Leave the DP dither on. Use the best third-party dithering app you can afford when bouncing 24 to 16.

Cool?

Good clarification on the internal dithering flag. That may be mentioned in the SOS article from last month, but I still have that sitting on my desk waiting to read in depth. After a fair amount of confusion over the years, I think the DP dithering flag is now finally fully understood .

Interesting. FYI, it seems that Apple may be moving to UV22HR dithering. I say "may" because Logic Pro 7 uses POW-r, but the new version of Soundtrack uses UV22HR (at least I see no entries for POW-r anywhere in the STP2 documentation).

Since no one has mentioned it, are there any opinions on UV22HR dithering? I haven't had a chance to use it yet because I'm still using POW-r, so just curious.

And yeah, MOTU does need to address dithering in the next release of DP.

I didn't know that Logic is using POW-r dithering. I've only heard the other one mentioned once and don't remember what I read about it. But I guess if Logic takes dithering seriously, DP should as well. It didn't matter much to me because my workflow pushes that out to the mastering stage, where I use dedicated stereo audio editors.

Are there any plug-ins that have Pow-r that can be used in DP?

Thanks