I have been doing a lot of testing & have some new information regarding dithering that I‘d like to share. First, I apologize, standard dithering (1 bit without DC offset removal) is very hard to hear & most wouldn’t hear the difference. When I brought this topic up & said it was a huge difference I was referring to my settings:
OZONE Plug-in
DC offset = ON
Dither = type 2 (triangular on this plug)
Shaping = OFF
# of bits = 2
Auto blanking = ON
DC OFFSET = Turned on, 24 outputs to analog consol;
Was almost HALF of the difference I was hearing. I don’t know where the DC came from, probably a little from everywhere – processing & pre-amps? A little here & there adds up. Also, it is highly recommended to remove DC offset before dithering.
That said, when I tested Samplitude with the exact same settings minus the DC offset & auto blanking, the dithered song sounded better on playback.
BITs = I’ve been applying 2 bits of dither. Most dithering plugs don’t even give you an option & you’re stuck with 1.
This is where I feel I made a pleasant mistake. I don’t care if it adds more noise – it sounds really good – adding a smoother/richer feel & nice separation to the contents of the mix. To me it’s a lot more real & “analog” sounding.
Who knows, I might have come up with a killer new trick. For me & my setup I’ll be using it a lot. BTW, the more you turn up the mix, or compress/limit for final mastering, it becomes very obvious – in or out of the computer.
Here is what Nika said concerning # of bits:
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KHStudio wrote: Am I on the right track with the Ozone plug & settings I mentioned earlier?
Nika wrote: I think so. But it's 2 bits of dither? That's not right. It won't do any harm other than add more noise than necessary. It should be 2 quanta of dither.
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Quote: |
KHStudio wrote: Nika, If you used Nuendo, knowing that it was 32 bit float & your converters were 24 bit:
Would you apply dither to the final outputs or not?
Nika wrote: If I were a Nuendo engineer and I had to design this product I would always have dither on the trip out to the converters and would also have dither always on when bouncing to 24 bit fixed point files. The dither I would use for this would be TPDF dither with a maximum amplitude of 2 quantization steps and a bit depth of something like 24 bits (so that dither is added to bits 24-48 of the fixed point version of the signal prior to truncation).
If I were an audio engineer using this product and this was not done automatically then I would find a tool that could do it and I would add that tool at the output or the bounce to 24 bits.
KHStudio wrote: And why?
Nika wrote: In order to maintain linearity.
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Hopefully the information in these threads will be beneficial to someone besides me.
I have a better understanding of what’s going on & have learned a lot.
Thanks
KHStudio