Dr Bill I apologize two times....

I think I now can say its near impossible to make a general statement about what gear works - to measure up the expectations.

I also had the opposite situation with doing a rock ballad.
I was surprised how good it worked with plug ins when I ABd with my favorite rock ballad tracks.

To me its like love and hate.
I bite on my tongue from now on  - I will never make a general gear statement again. 
That was a big lesson to me today....

I think you really need to compare YOUR mix with plugins to YOUR mix with hardware.  When you have both and can compare back and forth, that's where it gets real black and white.  One way or the other.  Apples to Apples comparisons.

There's several reasons why I prefer hardware to plugins.

1. I don't have an unlimited amount of hardware and it makes me approach mixes in an "old school" fashion - instead of unlimited instantiations of dozens, and dozens, and dozens of plugs.

2. When instantiating a plugin, I think yes, that's doing the job - EQing or Compressing.  All good.  And then if I drop in a REAL 550A or 1176....things change quick.  BAM.....the whole thing opens up on the top end.  Why?

3. Plugins flatten a mix for me.  The more I add in an effort to "make it sound analog, good, or whatever" the flatter it gets.  Hardware blows the top off and lets things breath and breathes dynamically with the track in a way that plugins don't.  At least the hardware I'm using.  There is a more open top, and the mix becomes more 3D than with plugins which do an adequate job most of the time.  But I'm not after "adequate".

4. I've been blown away lately as I've been remixing a bunch of stuff for a new record company launch.  I was proud of my old mixes that are just 3-4 years old on the same system I'm using now.  Now....honestly....I'm kind of ashamed of them. There's no comparison for me.  The only difference?  A bunch of plug ins vs. 5 Silver Bullets and a bunch of hardware that's EASILY instantiated via inserts in PT (64 i/o now - going to 80 in a couple months because when it's EASY to use, it gets used).  That's the secret for me - easy instantiation.

5. Inspiration.  Hardware inspires me and it's got blinky lights , and inspiration is worth however much I can afford to pay.

All that said, I do use plugins - mostly for delays, modulation effects, etc..  Oh and for verbs - aside from the Bricasti.  But the more I use plug-ins, the less happy I am.  Another thing that has REALLY been instrumental in making the hardware sound significantly better for me - proper use of a really great dither before anything leaves Pro Tools.

But use what you got.  If it inspires you, that's 99.9% of the solution.  And music is creativity and inspiration.  Thanks again for the kind words, but really, not necessary - you didn't say anything wrong.  Cheers,  bp

Doc, what dither plug do you use?

Thanks drbill

So let's say I have 64 outs from pro tools...do I put a dither on each one?

How does dither affect Digital to analog conversion and why does bob O or drbill use dither before entering the analog realm? ( eager to learn thanks )
If you are sending 24bit audio to the DAC does the added noise combine with the analog noise and cancel it making a greater signal to noise ratio? I just understand in my feeble brain why adding noise to equipment that can be prone to noise if not gain staged properly, be beneficial for the audio and result in a better sounding final mix/ master... yes I'm going to test this new phenomenon for myself and see what I think/ hear 👂 However any feedback in advance would be great! Thanks

Everybody knows Bob Katz?
"If a signal is summed digitally (mixed within the DAW), usually you should capture to a 32-bit float file. If you must capture to a 24-bit file, the output feeding that file should usually be dithered, except in the rare cases where the mix engine is internally dithered, as is the case of Pro Tools HD’s dithered mixer. If the signal is mixed via an external analog summing box, each output of the DAW should be dithered on its way to the summing box, unless the mix engineer never changes gains or adds any plugins on the way to the summer (a very rare occurrence these days). Refer to the file names at the right of the mix section for the possibilities of your particular DAW. In some cases it is optimum to mix to a 32-bit file, in others a 24-bit file is adequate. Again, there is no harm in mixing to a longer wordlength than necessary, but the reverse is not the case!"

If you leave the daw the wordlength gets reduced from internal daw 32 bit (logic pro for example) to 24 bit in the converter.
Even if I mix ITB only, a 24 bit dither plug in is the last one on my mixbus.

Do this... if you are using outboard...

Put a dither plugin last in the chain before you send it out.... in logic I do this in the last slot for all tracks... then I highlight the tracks and can turn all those instances of dither off and on at once, seamlessly.

When you do that.. you can hear what it does... better definition is what I hear.. not huge.. but its there.


I use Airwindows Dither, and I use it on EVERY single pass of DA that is getting recaptured.

cheers

Wiz

I work at 24 bit how does this apply?
I have never used dither when going from digital to analog 😀 and my music sounds fine to ears way more " refined " than mine 😎🤓 In my mind the analog HW noise level is going to be higher than any added dither " shaped noise " to any signal being sent to the HW from the DAC.. theoretical yes 🤓

32 bit float has a sliding scale ( mantissa expressed as an exponent )and is not the same as 24 bit integer... I understand theoretically 32 bit float has infinite headroom however DAC or ADC cannnot reproduce that dynamic range when converting audio. Also why would I want to work in 32 bit float?.. Thanks in advance ...

So is this info incorrect?

"24-bit audio does not require dithering, as the noise level of the digital converter is always louder than the required level of any dither that might be applied. 24-bit audio could theoretically encode 144 dB of dynamic range, but based on manufacturer's datasheets no ADCs exist that can provide higher than ~125 dB."

Airwindows here too ( Pauldither ) when going OTB (following Bob's advice).
@smallbutfine how about staying in the digital realm, eg. when going from Reaper to Mixbuss and back in to Reaper? Would this need dither?

Ya would be nice..... I have a few more questions....

I work in 24 bit and print 24 bit files... 32 bit float is a bit of a fallacy to me if ADC and DAC can't reproduce the audio dynamic range that 32 bit float represents how are you actually working in 32 bit float hearing or having this DR reproduced?

I understand that working internally at 32 bit float then going to HW externally would need dither because the DAC works at 24 bits... I'm cool with dither when changing the bit depth, and this lines up with my understanding / teaching/ learning/ experience...

Dither is not an answer it's a band aid it covers up or masks the QD... it doesn't remove it... then how do you know your dither is " loud enough " to mask the " distortion from errors ".....

How audible are the quantization distortions?
If 24 bit audio needs to be dithered when bouncing and To and from HW, How does masking errors with noise make the top end / clearer? Do the quantization distortion only occur in HF affecting the top end?

A mix imploding on itself? What does this mean? How is shaped noise going to save your mix from imploding?

Ian shepherd recommends/ says to dither when bouncing to disk even working 24 bit source to 24 bit bounce....Dither is a shaped noise used to cover up quantization errors. This is not going to make or break a mix because you did not dither going to your HW... my opinion likes other opinion is you need too.

To quote Ian Shepherd,

Always use dither when saving out to 16 or 24-bit files. That’s it !
The single most misleading piece of advice, which I keep seeing, is “only dither once."

" I do agree you should only use it once within a single DAW application, on the main stereo output – so you don’t need it on every channel, or in-between plugins, for example – but you do need it once when saving your file before mastering, and then again when exporting the final 16-bit master."

"So a better rule would be:
Always dither – unless you’re staying at 32-bit floating point, in which case once is enough.
Other versions of this advice I often see include only dithering when saving to 16-bit, or only at the mastering stage. Again, I disagree. It’s true that the truncation distortion caused by not using dither at 24-bit is much harder to hear than at 16-bits, but it’s there, and it’s horrible.
So when you’re saving out at 16 or 24-bit before mastering a file, especially more than once, correct dithering is essential.
And if you’re bouncing tracks internally, to remove plugins and reduce CPU overhead – you should definitely dither ! (Unless you’re saving at 32-bit floating point)" end quote

This article is 5 years old though and most of the info I looked up is dated and was new in 2013 so I am ill keep researching if others here can't provide any more insight 😀 Thanks in advance 😎🤓