Hello everyone.
I do my recordings and my mixing in Sonar. It is using 32 floating bits. If plugins are used, some are having 64 bits of internal processing, others less. I am most often just saying to myself: "Ok, well done - 64 bits of precision, the plug actually sound quite good compared to that old thing". But it does not interfere with my intentions music-wise. It does not restrict me to use only "this" or "that".
I find the mixers internal mathematics to be similar to a continuously expanding formula. I know it happens. I am aware.
BUT.
It is not: "Oh god, I just automated a fader, the calculations have expanded, I'm lost in truncation."
Instead it is: "Oh well, I just automated a fader, the calculations have expanded, it had to be done, the music needed it."
I've mixed down without any dithering before. Records have been released.
Now I have used flat dither, triangular, 24 bits, no noise shape on my mixbus, when mixing down and out-putting everything to a fixed 24 bit file. This has been the only 24 bit dither used in a project, since everything else float around in 32 bits. I tell myself there is slightly more depth in the result. And there is slightly less grain. Especially when it's later converted to 16 bits, using another, maybe noiseshaped dither.
So for me, it's all about evaluation. Not until I hear my new, mastered CD-project, I can tell if the 24 bit dither took my compositions further to where they were when swimming in the 32-pool. But I tell myself the effort will probably be worth it. And if it is, I'll continue to dither my huge 32 floating bits to 24 fixed ones.
Until then, I hear only music, not much noise. And the power, variations, message and body of the mix is far more important than truncation at levels belo -110 dB.
Evalution.