Export, Dithering, advice requested

[Cactus factus]

My project settings are 32/48 in preferences. I have about 8 tracks, most are virtual instruments ,a few are audio tracks at various sample rates and bit depths. How should I mix down to final master wave track? I want to have a high quality wave file and high quality mp3. Do I first export to a master track with no dither. Then with that 32/48 wave file dither to other formats like mp3 or 16/44 . Am I missing anything here?

[Tarekith]

If you're working at 32bit, you can dither down to 16bit while you render the master in Live. No need to do that as an extra step later on if you're not going to be applying any more mastering processing in another app.

[jlgrimes]

My project settings are 32/48 in preferences. I have about 8 tracks, most are virtual instruments ,a few are audio tracks at various sample rates and bit depths. How should I mix down to final master wave track? I want to have a high quality wave file and high quality mp3. Do I first export to a master track with no dither. Then with that 32/48 wave file dither to other formats like mp3 or 16/44 . Am I missing anything here?

Your best final format would be 16/48 (if you are recording at 48000) for mp3.

16/44 if you plan on doing CD.


Depending on what DAW you are using going from 48000 to 44100 can producer some artifacts. I think old version of Live used to be pretty bad even to the point the manual recommended not using Live to do this. Somewhere in version 9 they improved their SRC algorithms, so there are much less artifacts now. There is a website that compares DAWs sample rate conversion quality somewhere. But the bottom line is whatever sample rate you originally record at is going to be the ideal sample rate of the released format. So for a CD 44.1 khz would be ideal (88.2 khz would be an alternative recording medium as it is a perfect double but on modern AD converters 44.1 khz should be fine). For movies 48 khz or 96 khz would be ideal. You can get artifacts if you convert to a samplerate that is not a perfect double. Somewhere in version 9 they improved their SRC algorithms, so there are much less artifacts now. There is a website that compares DAWs sample rate conversion quality somewhere.


As for going to 16 bit, dither helps restore some of the dynamic range of 24 bit. Dithering should be done at the very final stage of the pre-mastering process (after limiting) and should only be a one time process.

[Cactus factus]

Thanks Tarekith for explaining that extra step is not needed if no other apps are used, But if I used Ozone 7 in stand alone then would I first render at 32/48 in Ableton, then import 32/48 wave to ozone and then apply different dither options there? Thanks for the excellent advice. I assume dithering should only be done once for each format.

[Tarekith]

Yes, if you're going to do your mastering in Ozone after you export from Live, then skip dithering in Live and applying dithering in Ozone instead. Their MBIT+ dither is very well done too, my usual go to for dithering.

[ZaBong69]

As for going to 16 bit, dither helps restore some of the dynamic range of 24 bit.

Hi,

is this true, and if so, how does this work? Now I am really confused... dithering is adding a bit of noise, that should not increase dynamics...

Best,

Karsten

[fishmonkey]

As for going to 16 bit, dither helps restore some of the dynamic range of 24 bit.

Hi,

is this true, and if so, how does this work? Now I am really confused... dithering is adding a bit of noise, that should not increase dynamics...

Best,

Karsten

it is true. here are three good explanations (i'm posting three as sometimes reading a few different explanations makes things clearer):

http://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_dithering.php

http://www.darkroommastering.com/blog/d ... -explained

http://www.earlevel.com/main/1996/10/20/what-is-dither/