question on bit depth and dithering when rendering mixdown

[elwood88]

Hy,

I need to render my tracks for professional mastering and got pretty confused about my bit depth and dithering..
I read a lot about this and know what it does and what its good for in theory..
I record in Ableton with 24 bit and 44,1 KHz..
My sample libary is made out of 16 + 24 bit samples.

So my questions:

Is Ableton in running on 32 bit??
Is there a change in bit depth when i bounce to 24 bit??
Do I need to dither when i bounce to 24 bit??
Is there a need to bounce in 32 bit when no dithering is wanted??


I couldnt figure this out on my own hope somebody can teach me a little.. THX Chris

[Tarekith]

Typically you only need to dither when going to 16bit, and you never want to add dither if someone else is going to work on the track after you. Your mastering engineer will add the either for you when they generate the master. You should ask the mastering engineer what bit depth they prefer, though most tend to like 24bit.

[elwood88]

many thx... helped me a lot.. this stuff is pretty confusing.. good to hear some recomondations from somebody who works in a mastering studio..

cheers