All About Dithering

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chater-La
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I've got the Waves Ultramaximizer and Izotope Ozone for mastering and dithering on my DAW, but compared to some outboard gear, do you think something like a (BBE?) SonicMaximizer and a high-quality rack parametric EQ could get the job done as far as mastering goes? Of course with high quality far fields, acoustic treatment, etc. etc.
 
This is a great Thread. I learned a lot about dithering... Awesome thanks!
 
DJ Spinn said:
The sound is not being degraded (so-to-speak) like it does when going from 96Khz to 44.1Khz.
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There is scientifically no difference between 96k and 44.1k during playback.

If a function x(t) contains no frequencies higher than B hertz, it is completely determined by giving its ordinates at a series of points spaced 1/(2B) seconds apart.
Click to expand...

The Nyquist-Shannon Sampling Theorem

That basically says, a signal with frequencies ranging up to 22khz will be perfectly modelled by a signal that has a sample rate of 44khz or higher (44.1).

So no. 96khz does not sound 'better'. The only time there is a difference is during DSP.
 
I can't hear the difference between dithered and non-dithered audio. I tested myself on some of my tunes to find out. I also tried to test the difference between noise-shaped dither and regular dither. I used 32-bit float source files of a 1 kHz sine wave slowly fading linearly from 100% to 0% over a few seconds. For each type of dither I rendered a different 16-bit file.

At low volumes I had to crank up the volume really super high to hear anything at all. Honestly, many of the noise-shapings sounded worse than non-shaped.

Ultimately I gave up on all of that stuff. I used to do everything by the book until I realised that in most cases I can't hear the differences and when I can hear the difference, I prefer the non-shaped usually, even for triangular TPD which is supposed to be the best.
 
Dither only when required (i.e. just before truncating the bit-depth). There's no point in adding dither after limiting (I still don't understand why so many limiter come with a dither option).
 
i never really understood dithering. I think its one of those things that you can go through music production and never really understand.
 
dithering isnt much of an issue if your using the right programs
 
I always use dithering

---------- Post added at 08:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:11 AM ----------

It should always be used lol

---------- Post added at 08:15 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:12 AM ----------

yeah but when u record vocals you should always use it

---------- Post added at 08:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:15 AM ----------

I don't understand it either but its makes the final mix sound good
 
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