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[Ross Hogarth]

Do you ITB mixers in PT use the dithered mixer plugin or the standard mixer plugin ?

[Etch-A-Sketch]

dithered, always.  They really shouldn't even allow you to use the non-dithered mixer.  I can never figure out why they still do that.  Years ago the dithered mixer would put such a strain on your computer that some mixes would be tough to play through without any "computer too slow errors".  But for the last couple years it seems stupid for them to even include the non-dithered mixer with protools.

[KB_S1]

I mostly mix to 24bit anyway so no dither.
For rough bounces I will insert the PowR plug-in.

[Berolzheimer]

KB_S1 wrote on Wed, 23 April 2008 11:24

I mostly mix to 24bit anyway so no dither. For rough bounces I will insert the PowR plug-in.

You should probably use the dithered mixer anyhow.  The I believe mix bus & some of the TDM processing is done 48 bit & gets truncated down to 24 when it goes into a channel,  The dither goes into effect then.  I always mix & cut at 24 bit also, & I've found a big difference in the depth of my mixes with the dithered mixer.  I agree it should at least be the default; as it is it seems like hardly anyone even knows about it.

[Ross Hogarth]

i use pow r2 in general for mix bounces to mp3 or cd ruffs

[Berolzheimer]

Yeah, I'll usually add IDR or Powr for roughs out to 16 bit.  Sometimes it seems like a strange idea to have dither at so many points along the signal path but hey, it sounds noticeably better so as they say, WW.

[Etch-A-Sketch]

yes, correct.  The Dithered mixer does not just add dither to the master output of a mix.  It dithers the whole system as needed.  

If your aux send on bus 1&2 is post fader, then you are sending a 48bit signal into a 24bit bus (all bussing and inserts in HD are 24bit), and so you need dither.

Sometimes you will only notice a subtle difference, other times you will notice a big difference... but regardless, you should try using using the dithered mixer unless there is some reason you would need to do otherwise.

[Berolzheimer]

It's a little cumbersome in PT actually- I find I have to record back into a track ( I know it's controversial but in the listening tests I've done the BTD function just didn't sound as good), either with a dither on on the master fader or then process the recorded mix with an AS dither, so then I have a 24 bit mix with 16 bits of information & 8 bits of zeroes, & then export that as a 16 bit interleaved file.

[j.hall]

i use the dithered mixer and have since i bought my HD rig in '04

i also record my mixes back into PT, but that's cause i come out of PT to my Sontec and SSL 384 for the final 2buss processing.

[Chris Moore]

j.hall wrote on Wed, 23 April 2008 15:23

i use the dithered mixer and have since i bought my HD rig in '04 i also record my mixes back into PT, but that's cause i come out of PT to my Sontec and SSL 384 for the final 2buss processing.

Do you find that doing this sounds better than just putting the Sontec and SSL in as hardware inserts on the master fader, and then bouncing to disk?

[Ross Hogarth]

i always think that recorded audio sounds better than bounced

[Berolzheimer]

Ross Hogarth wrote on Wed, 23 April 2008 13:10

i always think that recorded audio sounds better than bounced

Me too, as I mentioned previously.  I have to dig through some old PT manuals, I'd swear they used to say that BTD compromised automation tracking & overall fidelity...

[grantis]

c17 wrote on Wed, 23 April 2008 15:09

j.hall wrote on Wed, 23 April 2008 15:23 i use the dithered mixer and have since i bought my HD rig in '04 i also record my mixes back into PT, but that's cause i come out of PT to my Sontec and SSL 384 for the final 2buss processing. Do you find that doing this sounds better than just putting the Sontec and SSL in as hardware inserts on the master fader, and then bouncing to disk?

J pointed out to me before that bouncing to disk narrows your stereo image a bit.

And I agree.

[Bob Olhsson]

My understanding is that bouncing can change automation tracking because it's more accurate. The problem is that automation has generally been set by ear and nobody cares if the level of a fader reads a tenth different than what it's actually doing. My experience has been that this is less of a problem with newer more powerful computers however the advantage of being able to compare mixes using playlists or punch in mixes outweighs any imaginable advantage to bouncing.

And yes, I find mixes made with the dithered mixer can sound less crunchy. I've called people up a number of times and asked them to check if they had the dithered mixer installed and if not, run their mix again with it. I've never been wrong about it not being used although I'm sure there are probably many times I haven't noticed.

[overlordofanalog]

Can some explain how I might achieve using the dithered mixer?

No one has ever brought this to my attention before.