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Post by cyrano on Aug 31, 2019 6:13:25 GMT -6
Just curious, as I thought dithering only theoretically mattered, if the digital word length was being shortened, e.g 24=>16? If not, if 24=24, how does dithering benefit ? The algorithms are doing *something*, but their methods are generally proprietary. Certainly not. Dithering, as a mathematic principle is old and completely in the public domain. There's only a few choices. Of course, that didn't stop marketeers from making it "better"... In fact, dithering depends on randomness. And the quality of randomness is decided by your OS. As a programmer, you can decide to do better, but it's usually not easy. Filtering and such shouldn't even be in there. |
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Post by cyrano on Aug 31, 2019 6:19:51 GMT -6
Something wrong with the quote function? Seems to eat text...
"PT does apply dither when you import/export a file!"
And that's exactly what it's supposed to do. On export, at least. There's absolutely no reason to do it on import.
When bouncing to disk, it's not needed and probably unwanted. If you'd dither every channel and mix, it could result in excessive noise. Dither IS noise. So you only need it on final export.
As for effects, these are usually added to please the marketeers. And these effects have nothing to do with dithering an sich.
Do the test: listen to dithered and undithered export. I wonder if you can hear the difference.
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Post by cyrano on Aug 31, 2019 6:26:29 GMT -6
A good analogy for dithering is this:
Consider a classic Egyptian pyramid. And consider an American, stepped pyramid.
To turn an American pyramid into an Egyptian one, you could use dithering. Just sprinkle some fine sand over the stepped pyramid and it will look more or less like an Egyptian one.
The parameters you can change are the size of the grains of sand, the amount and the randomness. Not much else.
This is an oversimplified example, but I hope it helps understanding how dithering works. And how little it does really.
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Post by viciousbliss on Aug 31, 2019 8:40:28 GMT -6
From what I remember reading in all these dither threads was that Bob advised to dither anytime you’re losing bits. Like on a limiter that works at 48-bit internally. Maybe I’m not remembering right. I just did a bunch of dither research a few weeks ago. Pro Tools needs a dither plugin when bouncing to a smaller bit rate.
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Post by Staffan Karlsson on Sept 1, 2019 9:56:47 GMT -6
Ok! PT dithers when exporting. Thank you soooooo much!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2019 3:47:56 GMT -6
Personally, I use iZotope dither or NotjustanotherCD and NotjustanotherDither (for export float -> 24bit). On final exports at the moment I prefer the combination of NotjustanotherCD (and finalcd for SRC, although SRCs are generally quite good in all DAWs nowadays, I seem to like this external one better somehow ...)
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2019 4:11:47 GMT -6
As for dithering in the whole dsp chain, it is optimal to take what you get, import it into your DAW, where the (normally 24bit or rarely maybe 32bit) integer sampling stream is converted to 32 or 64 bit DAW internal float format. Then keep everything in this float format if possible (some DAWs have options to save intermediate audio files in FLOAT format, which is very nice!) and dither once to the target format,which is the bit depth of your DACs (24bit normally) for all signals going out to external, like hardware inserts and monitor or 16bit for CD and 24bit for hd content. Some DAWs handle the need of dither for the physical outs internally, so the user has nothing to care about. In these cases you can assume these are TPDF dither, which is perfectly fine until last export. The quantization error is distortion, so leaving out dither, where it technically has to be applied to prevent this error, can add up in the distortion level, therefore dither is not optional and should be applied where it technically is supposed to be used. Good plugins should always handle the need of dither inside their dsp themselves.
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Post by Blackdawg on Sept 2, 2019 16:04:54 GMT -6
Ok! PT dithers when exporting. Thank you soooooo much! Just to clarify. You are printing. So I'm assuming once you have you printed file in the track you do one of two things. 1) cmd+k which is Export File. This exports any selected file. 2) Bounce to Disk. This renders any open tracks to a file in either real time or offline. In version 1. I think it dithers. In 2, it does not. |
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Post by Staffan Karlsson on Sept 3, 2019 0:57:04 GMT -6
Yes. I use export file. Somehow I think Bounce to disc doesn’t sound as good. But I’m probably wrong. Anyway. Best keep it the way I’m used to until someone opens up a new important door. As the dither door...
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