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[masterhse]

Matt_G wrote on Mon, 19 March 2007 09:54

It's part of our nature & part of our job to 'listen' & want to discuss the finer details of our craft. Only then can we truly decide between the creative & technical aspects of mastering. i.e. whether the music benefits from truncation distortion or dithering noise, what dither sounds best with that style of music or mix.

I don't disagree, but when debates seem to repeat themselves over trivia versus the larger picture I have to wonder.

Personally I would find the techniques that DC uses to reduce the level of noise in his analog chain down to 100db much more interesting and significant than arguing over dither in the 144 dBFS range.

[Matt_G]

masterhse wrote on Tue, 20 March 2007 00:07

Matt_G wrote on Mon, 19 March 2007 09:54 It's part of our nature & part of our job to 'listen' & want to discuss the finer details of our craft. Only then can we truly decide between the creative & technical aspects of mastering. i.e. whether the music benefits from truncation distortion or dithering noise, what dither sounds best with that style of music or mix. I don't disagree, but when debates seem to repeat themselves over trivia versus the larger picture I have to wonder. Personally I would find the techniques that DC uses to reduce the level of noise in his analog chain down to 100db much more interesting and significant than arguing over dither in the 144 dBFS range.

True that, I guess when you've been around these webboards for so long & DC has been around them longer then me, you do start to get tired of seeing the same topics come up time & time again. Dithering is one of those topics because many people don't understand it & it's not the easiest thing to explain. The other topic I'm sick of seeing is the whole 'clipping' or 'how do I get my mixes as loud as...' type posts.

So anyway, yes DC how do you get your analog chain noise free down to 100db?

Matt

[Ed Littman]

Quote:

So anyway, yes DC how do you get your analog chain noise free down to 100db? Matt

....Maybe the off switch.
Ed

[Phil Demetro]

Ed Littman wrote on Mon, 19 March 2007 10:48

Quote: So anyway, yes DC how do you get your analog chain noise free down to 100db? Matt ....Maybe the off switch. Ed

That's his plug in chain!

Better built & remoted PSU's (Reduced hum induction). Balanced power.

Dave did share with me once that he has each unit housed in a 1 inch thick Mu Metal casing. (He reluctantly admitted that It did make for cumbersome EQ'ing, though)

[Tomas Danko]

Matt_G wrote on Mon, 19 March 2007 13:39

Tomas Danko wrote on Mon, 19 March 2007 20:28 Since the mixing engine is 48 bit double precision it seems each plug-in instance that does calculations using more than 24 bits (since that's the TDM "window" when sending audio in and out of plug-ins in PT) should cater for the dithering on its own before returning audio to PT. As long as third-party programmers do this, there should be no reason for the PT mixer to dither anything except for downmix to the final 24-bit master. This is left up to the plug-in designers descretion whether to dither the output of their plugins or not. There is only a handful that do this.

This is what I described.

But in the end, what I meant was that IF a plug-in is doing calculations using MORE than 24 bits it should dither prior to output.

Cheers,

Tomas Danko

[e-cue]

Are the Rockster guys the "Prepare to be redefined in 2006" guys?

[tom eaton]

compasspnt wrote on Mon, 19 March 2007 09:26

dcollins wrote on Mon, 19 March 2007 02:15 Actually with all the posts over the years, I'm surprised it gets so much play. People have to worry about something other than their music. It takes the pressure off.

well...many of us get paid to pick nits so that out client's recordings sound as good as possible.  curiosity about the design and implementation of elements of our DAW is pretty responsible as far as i'm concerned.  re-chipping a console ain't making music either, but it sure can make the music SOUND better.

i don't think anyone here believes that dither is more important than ANY element in a recording, however, when we've got everything else right we have to worry about something.  or have lunch.  maybe we should just have lunch.

t