llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Thu Nov 09, 2023 9:16 am
Mason wrote: Fri Aug 19, 2022 9:18 am
PaulWide, we'll worry about the name later, is a dither plugin.
You know you should be applying dither whenever you're reducing wordlength, right? Which includes every time you render an output file, even a 24-bit one? and also every time you send something OTB to an outboard effect?? Motherfuijcker???
For real that is literally true though. All the DAW calculations are being done at a greater wordlength, so if dither is absent even at 24 bits you get truncation distortion. (For sending things to outboard effects I would use something like
TapeDither instead). But for real, if you take nothing else away from this post, get a dither plugin and leave it as the last thing on your master. Obviously not critical when you are sending preview mp3s to the homies but technically in that case you'd dither to 16 bits (and indeed 16-bit is usually the one place people think of dither). And when you are sending the files to your mastering engineer you'd slide it to 24 bits.
Word!
Relevant to that and possibly decent as a closing note: a lowkey entertaining and illuminating Airwindows plugin is
Ditherbox, a now-incomplete collection of his dithers that you can scroll back and forth through. It really helped me appreciate these ultra-ultra-minute things AW specializes in getting right. Especially as someone who ignored all his dithering stuff at first because it was boring/seemed too golden-ears for me. It's not like you can hear a song in the wild and correctly guess what type of dither was applied. But I've loved playing with Ditherbox because it really is like "if this is so microscopic and golden-ears and who-cares, then why am I able to notice the differences and how am I developing preferences?" And indeed I've figured out I prefer, unfortunately not Chris' non-dither reducers like NJAD/Dark, but the "Paul" (as in Frindle) family which I think is PaulDither, DoublePaul, and PaulWide. Of course, there is obviously still a big "who cares" element in terms of every other part of the process being more important, which is why I've settled on PaulWide and am kind of not going to think dither stuff for the rest of my life ideally.
Hope this helps someone!
Damn my brain is already hurting this morning.
I record in Reaper 96/24. I just record, play, and do basic edits there. Everything in Reaper is pretty much always at unity gain except for the odd track automation. It goes out to a 16 i/o into a 32 channel live sound board, where I patch in outboard, monitor, and balance. Sometimes I insert outboard effects thru Reaper so I can free up gear. The master out of the board goes back into the i/o and Reaper for rough mixes. Lots of cables.
Do I need to care about dithering?
Your DAW is going to have its own internal dithering turned on by default. So, you can safely never think about it again.
If you simply insert an airwindows dither (or any other plugin-based dither) as the final plugin on any exported track - like say the master track when you are exporting it as a wav - then you will be dithering twice! This is probably not great. In this case you would want to turn off your DAW's dither so that the plugin dither is the only dither.
Exception - when you are sending out from a track or tracks from your DAW to external hardware, your DAW will most likely not dither the sends. You might need to check with the DAW you are using, or whether or not your DAC (in your interface) has a dither turned on for just these purposes. If nothing is dithered on the sends automatically, then you might want to add a dither plugin as the final insert on the sent track or tracks before they are sent. There is a lot of disagreement as to whether this is necessary however. My top tip - try both and see what you like the most.
One of my research students is writing her thesis on dithering, and we had a very fun time in her last presentation. She converted a 24/96 wav down to 16/44.1 with no dithering, and the truncation distortion was obvious. Then, she re-exported the downsampled 16/44.1 file with a variety of different dithers, and we (the examination panel) sat there listening to all of them. They were all airwindows dithers, and she must have had seven of them at least, including Dark, NJAD, and so on. The unanimous fave? Paul Dither!
Track was Ride Across the River by Dire Straits.
Make of this what you will : )
Said student is writing her own dithers because she has super powers