Thoughts on dithering.....

[elwoodblues1969]

Thanks for all of the great advice guys-much appreciated.As I found out,my Tascam 2488neo will serve me very well...provided that I bypass the built in effects & of course,do away with dithering & leave that for Audacity.
Audacity has really become the single most important tool in my studio and in relation to processing great sounding MP3's...I changed the default sample format to 32 bit,left the dither setting at their default positions & changed the kbps rate to 256.
With the latest song I converted in this manner,I actually could not hear a noticeable difference between the sonic quality of my MP3 & my WAV files.....makes me really wonder if OGG is really all that much of an improvement over MP3's?

-Thom

[rharv]

Wyatt

If I was 'forced' to mix or master any song with only one plugin (be it a mastering job or a multitrack mixdown) Ozone 4 is about the only one I would even consider.  The single best plugin I have ever experienced.
Many excellent tools built in, you don't have to use them all, and and you can route them in any order.
Its not only the amount of tools ( there are a lot), its the quality of the tools that are included.  So much control is available.
One awesome piece of kit.
Free 30 day trial, but then you suffer from withdrawal afterwards (unless you buy it).

Even if you don't try it, it is worth reading the Ozone mastering guide and the dithering guide linked above.
They explain things in an understandable way..

[Oren]

Audacity has really become the single most important tool in my studio and in relation to processing great sounding MP3's...I changed the default sample format to 32 bit,left the dither setting at their default positions & changed the kbps rate to 256.

The folks who develop Audacity have my greatest respect. Although I do most of my work in Linux with Ardour and JAMin, when things get weird, Audacity will sort it out, every time.

With the latest song I converted in this manner,I actually could not hear a noticeable difference between the sonic quality of my MP3 & my WAV files.....makes me really wonder if OGG is really all that much of an improvement over MP3's?

Ogg Vorbis level 6 has been tested with a group of "average listeners" to be indistinguishable from the original .wav file. MP3 at 256kbits/sec does the same for you. Cool!
Ogg Vorbis is not necessarily an improvement over .mp3, just free software developed by independent programmers with it's source code available to all for tweaking and further development - and designed that way from it's inception.
That makes it important from a "power to the people" perspective.

[Wyatt]

Wyatt

If I was 'forced' to mix or master any song with only one plugin (be it a mastering job or a multitrack mixdown) Ozone 4 is about the only one I would even consider.  The single best plugin I have ever experienced.
Many excellent tools built in, you don't have to use them all, and and you can route them in any order.
Its not only the amount of tools ( there are a lot), its the quality of the tools that are included.  So much control is available.
One awesome piece of kit.
Free 30 day trial, but then you suffer from withdrawal afterwards (unless you buy it).

Even if you don't try it, it is worth reading the Ozone mastering guide and the dithering guide linked above.
They explain things in an understandable way..

Yeah, when this subject came up again, I was afraid it was going to cost me some money.   

I've had my eye on Ozone 4 for a while. I just take forever to actually buy something, because for every thing I get, I have passed up a lot of other possible additions to the studio, and there is nothing worse to me than to buy something that ends up not serving me after all.

Thanks for your recommendation..a helpful one at just the right moment.

As I remember, you got Audition a while back. Have you had a chance to evaluate its mastering suite?  It has many of the same tools.

/////////////////////

I have another question, but I had better do some testing first.

Thanks for your advice.

[Wyatt]

Used to be I wouldn't have bothered being as picky as this, but I have been
trying to improve my sound and my skills lately, so I am having another
run at this subject.

I just made a track in Reason, and exported it three different ways:

1..16 bit [dithered]

2..16 bit [not dithered]

3..24 bit [not dithered]

I cannot say that I can hear the difference, but that is not setting the bar very high.
Perhaps someone else could.

When I loaded these three track into Audition however, I could easily see that there
are *distinct* differences in each one of the waveforms. No Brainer.

Then I made a copy of the 24 bit [no dither] track and converted them both to 16 bit.
On one I used dithering in Audition, and on the other I disabled dithering in Audition.

This time, I did not even try to hear any differences between them, because I could
not see any differences whatsoever in the two waveforms..not even the slightest.
Perhaps because I have always had set Audition's dithering depth to 1 bit, I don't know.

My conclusion so far is that I will at the very least disable dithering in Reason.

It makes sense to me to maintain the higher quality audio until the end of the process,
but  since Audition automatically upsamples the 24 bit to 32 bit, I am not sure if I am net
ahead after that extra processing.

If I export from Reason as 16 bit, no dithering, then the track doesn't get upsampled and
then downsampled, so that idea appeals to me, as my workflow is a bit tidier.

But that still leaves me wondering: Would I be better off upsampling and then downsampling
for having held onto the higher quality longer?

How many angels can dither on the head of a pin?  


 

[Fred S]

Wyatt

If I was 'forced' to mix or master any song with only one plugin (be it a mastering job or a multitrack mixdown) Ozone 4 is about the only one I would even consider.  The single best plugin I have ever experienced.
Many excellent tools built in, you don't have to use them all, and and you can route them in any order.
Its not only the amount of tools ( there are a lot), its the quality of the tools that are included.  So much control is available.
One awesome piece of kit.
Free 30 day trial, but then you suffer from withdrawal afterwards (unless you buy it).

Even if you don't try it, it is worth reading the Ozone mastering guide and the dithering guide linked above.
They explain things in an understandable way..

2nd on Ozone. I've not found a mastering tool I like better.

[Wyatt]

Wyatt

If I was 'forced' to mix or master any song with only one plugin (be it a mastering job or a multitrack mixdown) Ozone 4 is about the only one I would even consider.  The single best plugin I have ever experienced.
Many excellent tools built in, you don't have to use them all, and and you can route them in any order.
Its not only the amount of tools ( there are a lot), its the quality of the tools that are included.  So much control is available.
One awesome piece of kit.
Free 30 day trial, but then you suffer from withdrawal afterwards (unless you buy it).

Even if you don't try it, it is worth reading the Ozone mastering guide and the dithering guide linked above.
They explain things in an understandable way..

2nd on Ozone. I've not found a mastering tool I like better.

Thanks Fred!

[rharv]

I *may* be wrong, but here's what I think you are misubderstanding ..

Audition is not 'upsampling' the files to 32 bit.
It is likely using 32-bit floating point method of processing the file while inside Audition.  Many many DAWs do this these days (harder to find one that doesn't) since the advent of 32 bit processing power in the OS being used.

It is different than actually upconverting the file itself.  When it saves the file it will be in 24 bit still, correct?

Every DAW software I own does this.  Standard procedure, even if they don't trumpet it as a feature.

As for 'seeing' the difference, if you read the Ozone dithering guide you will see why this is.  I can 'see' it also, but only judge it by what I can hear.

Every software that does perform dithering during export should let you know it is taking place so you know you have 'finalized' the file.  I am not sying that they all do tell you, just saying that in my opinion they 'should' tell you.

One thing you did not define in your previous post, Wyatt, was whether you original file in Reason was 16 or 24 bit ..

"I just made a track in Reason, and exported it three different ways:

1..16 bit [dithered]

2..16 bit [not dithered]

3..24 bit [not dithered]"

If it was originally recorded at 16 bit, then exporting in 24 bit gained nothing except a ton of 'zeroes' placed in the file .

[Wyatt]

I *may* be wrong, but here's what I think you are misubderstanding ..

Audition is not 'upsampling' the files to 32 bit.
It is likely using 32-bit floating point method of processing the file while inside Audition.  Many many DAWs do this these days (harder to find one that doesn't) since the advent of 32 bit processing power in the OS being used.

It is different than actually upconverting the file itself.  When it saves the file it will be in 24 bit still, correct?

Every DAW software I own does this.  Standard procedure, even if they don't trumpet it as a feature.

As for 'seeing' the difference, if you read the Ozone dithering guide you will see why this is.  I can 'see' it also, but only judge it by what I can hear.

Every software that does perform dithering during export should let you know it is taking place so you know you have 'finalized' the file.  I am not sying that they all do tell you, just saying that in my opinion they 'should' tell you.

One thing you did not define in your previous post, Wyatt, was whether you original file in Reason was 16 or 24 bit ..

"I just made a track in Reason, and exported it three different ways:

1..16 bit [dithered]

2..16 bit [not dithered]

3..24 bit [not dithered]"

If it was originally recorded at 16 bit, then exporting in 24 bit gained nothing except a ton of 'zeroes' placed in the file .

Oops..The original file is 24 bit.

[Wyatt]

Audition is not 'upsampling' the files to 32 bit.
It is likely using 32-bit floating point method of processing the file while inside Audition.  Many many DAWs do this these days (harder to find one that doesn't) since the advent of 32 bit processing power in the OS being used.

It is different than actually upconverting the file itself.  When it saves the file it will be in 24 bit still, correct?

Right..that is what I was misunderstanding. That puts things in a new light. So if it isn't being upsampled, it's worth keeping in 24 bit.

As for 'seeing' the difference, if you read the Ozone dithering guide you will see why this is.  I can 'see' it also, but only judge it by what I can hear.

As far as seeing it but not hearing it, my hearing has gotten a bit worse these last few years. I have come to rely to some extent on visual representations, especially of higher frequencies. Because of seeing there was a difference, I inferred that the 24 bit without dithering must be better quality.

Thanks for explaining that Bob; I really appreciate it.

[rharv]

As far as I know there is only one DAW sotware capable of 32bit files, and it is not well liked by professionals ..

to qoute a famous mastering engineer -
"we live in a twenty bit world" 

Out of curiosity, are you using 24/44  24/48  or ?

Most guys seem to agree nothing above 24/48 is worth the extra ...

[Wyatt]

As far as I know there is only one DAW sotware capable of 32bit files, and it is not well liked by professionals ..

I use Audition 3..it give the options for recording and also for mixdown of 16 bit or 32 bit.

Out of curiosity, are you using 24/44  24/48  or ?

Most guys seem to agree nothing above 24/48 is worth the extra ...

In Reason I am using 24/44.1..it will go up to 24/9600.

[Oren]

Audacity offers four dither options: none(my favourite ), square, triangle, and shaped.
 As I understand it...

If the converted file sounds just as good as the original file, without dithering, then none would be the best choice. Don't mess with perfection.

If dithering is necessary to avoid weird audio phenomena when down-converting, and you may want to further process the file at a later time,  triangle (triangular probability density function) will allow some subsequent processing without audible glitches.

If dithering is necessary, and this is the last bit of conversion and processing the file will undergo, then shaped (absolute threshold of hearing - or - noise shaping) would be the best choice.

The folks at Audacity use shaped dithering as their default setting. This is a reasonable choice, assuming the file is not slated for further processing.

[Wyatt]

Audacity offers four dither options: none(my favourite ), square, triangle, and shaped.
 As I understand it...

If the converted file sounds just as good as the original file, without dithering, then none would be the best choice. Don't mess with perfection.

If dithering is necessary to avoid weird audio phenomena when down-converting, and you may want to further process the file at a later time,  triangle (triangular probability density function) will allow some subsequent processing without audible glitches.

If dithering is necessary, and this is the last bit of conversion and processing the file will undergo, then shaped (absolute threshold of hearing - or - noise shaping) would be the best choice.

The folks at Audacity use shaped dithering as their default setting. This is a reasonable choice, assuming the file is not slated for further processing.

I appreciate your thoughts..

Yes, when I cannot see any difference at all in the wave form in Audition, it makes perfect sense to not be dithering around with it.   

Audition has 5 different types of dithering, and when I was using it, triangle was the default. It also defaults to one bit depth.

As for the noise shaping, it has 11 different patterns, and it suits me fine to leave dithering out of the equation, since I haven't a clue, (yet), as to what they are all about.

So as of now, I am turning off dithering everywhere, and leaving it that way unless and until the time comes when I might have a reason to use it.

Thanks for your advice.

As far as sampling rate goes, is there an advantage to using 24/48  over  24/44.1, since my destination is 16/44.1 ?

[Wyatt]

If interested in more, here is another article on it -
http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/OzoneDitheringGuide.pdf

I personally like the dithering in Ozone above some others I own, but  I speak only thru trial and listening; no testing done..

Excellent!!

..hitchhiker's guide to dithering.