LIVE dithering

masturfader · Post by **masturfader** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 6:10 pm

hi, does anyone know the dithering process that occurs in LIVE when bouncing down a session to 24 or 16 bit mix and within the session itself, is there quatization happening?

it is interesting how live can handle different bit depth files within a session that is 32 bit which leads me to believe that there is some sort of quantization happening somewhere but theres no mention in the manual.

is dithering and quatization even happening on bounces and in sessions?

thanks

donnydonny · Post by **donnydonny** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 11:12 pm

i could be completely wrong on this, but i've been led to believe is that there are no bit-depth conversions happening when importing audio into a session. exporting an XX-bit file on your bounce is where the bit-depth conversion happens.

i usually master my tracks in Cubase mainly because it has the post-fader insert option. so on my master buss, i'll throw on an L2 on the 2nd/last post-fader insert resulting in the most accurate dithering possible (given the tools available).

i hope i somehow answered your question.

radeon · Post by **radeon** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 12:00 am

There is no dither with the ableton live

and its not said in manual anywhere that dither should be using when makings the 16 bit file. So professional of ableton NOT

you must use plugin but to tryand find one that do good dither cheap is not so easy so really ableton must have this in version 6 or they only want money and sing to peoples who do music for hobbyies

huffcw · Post by **huffcw** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 2:50 pm

I would like to see this implemented in 6 as well.

In the meantime, if you want to do the mix in Live, render at the highest bit depth used in your project (there are no worries when going from a lower bit rate to a higher one). Then take the output file and convert it in a program like Sound Forge (which has dither and noise shaping options for the conversion). If you don't have Sound Forge, you can pick up an older version at a very reasonable price on Ebay (or let me know you are interested, because I have an older version I am looking to sell at the moment.) It's a good program to have anyway if you want to do any complex audio file editing.

By the way, I have also heard that Sonar handles bit conversion excellently.

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 3:28 pm

Definitely a FR for 6.

djsynchro · Post by **djsynchro** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:17 pm

Mailed support, and it's true: Live doesn't dither.

They said for highest quality, render to 32bit and dither down to 16 in another app. Good to know. I think it should be in the manual.

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:20 pm

djsynchro wrote:Mailed support, and it's true: Live doesn't dither.

They said for highest quality, render to 32bit and dither down to 16 in another app. Good to know. I think it should be in the manual.

Thanks for that, and yes I agree that needs to be stated somewhere for the benfit of those who don't know.

Like most people I guess, I render at 32-bit anyway, and then "master" using Adobe Audition before dithering down there.

Michael-SW · Post by **Michael-SW** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:26 pm

Speaking of that, I actually have no clue of what bit depth Live actually play audio at - and no way to set it.

You can set default sample frequency fine, and set eg recording to 24 bits. But when playing directly from Live I have no way of knowing if Live plays in eg 16 or 24 bits.

(Not that it probably matters that much.)

huffcw · Post by **huffcw** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:40 pm

You don't really need to render to 32-bit unless you have 32-bit files in your project (it wastes hard drive space for no reason). As I stated earlier, render to the highest bit depth you used in your project (there are no worries going from a lower bit rate to a higher one) - then do the bit conversion with dithering in a program such as Sound Forge. If there is some reason why Ableton would suggest always using 32-bit regardless of the files in your project, I would like to know what the reason is for this.

If you don't have an audio editing program already and don't want to spend a lot, you can pick up an older version of Sound Forge pretty cheap on ebay (and I am actually looking to sell an older version as well - so let me know if you need it).

In some ways it's not a huge deal if dithering is not included in Live because you most likely would want to use a program like Sound Forge to put some finishing touches on your rendered file from Live anyway. (I don't think Live was ever intended for mastering - and even users of applications such as Sonar and Cubase will often use a program like Sound Forge to do the final edits and converstion to 16-bit before burning to CD - even with dithering built in to these other applications).

IMO, it's more important for Ableton to focus on improving the sound overall within the mixing path.

chrispnyc · Post by **chrispnyc** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:45 pm

I have to say, I think it matters a whole lot. Live already stretches and crunches the bejesus out of digital audio, most likely leaving a lot of quantization errors to begin with...really, you should even use dither and noise shaping when going from 32 to 24bits. Its kind of weird that you can't even tell it to render audio at a specific bit rate.

huffcw · Post by **huffcw** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:49 pm

Michael-SW wrote:Speaking of that, I actually have no clue of what bit depth Live actually play audio at - and no way to set it.

You can set default sample frequency fine, and set eg recording to 24 bits. But when playing directly from Live I have no way of knowing if Live plays in eg 16 or 24 bits.

(Not that it probably matters that much.)

My guess is that Live automatically sets it according to the record setting and/or the files in use within your project?

Michael-SW · Post by **Michael-SW** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:54 pm

huffcw wrote:You don't really need to render to 32-bit unless you have 32-bit files in your project (it wastes hard drive space for no reason).

Probably very true from a practical point of view.

But since VSTs output in Lives internal 32 bit floating point, your processed audio will probably have a 32 bit resolution even if you only put 16 bit audio in. Even just mixing 16 bit samples in 32 bit fp might create higher resolution audio if you move the faders from unity gain.

Not that I think anyone will be able to actually hear it though...

huffcw · Post by **huffcw** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:55 pm

chrispnyc wrote:I have to say, I think it matters a whole lot. Live already stretches and crunches the bejesus out of digital audio, most likely leaving a lot of quantization errors to begin with...

So what you are suggesting is real time dithering - which isn't necessary as long as Live is playing back at the bit depth that matches the maximum bit depth used in your project. Also, don't forget that when you dither you are actually adding noise to the signal - so it may not be best in all cases.

Maybe it is something other than dithering you would be looking for - but that's probably already there to a certain extent to keep the sound as good as possible while streching the audio (but maybe it could be improved to make Live sound better in the mixer path??)

chrispnyc wrote: Its kind of weird that you can't even tell it to render audio at a specific bit rate.

You can't? That's not true. When rendering you can select the bit depth of choice.

Michael-SW · Post by **Michael-SW** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:57 pm

chrispnyc wrote: Its kind of weird that you can't even tell it to render audio at a specific bit rate.

Render you can set in any bit depth you like (Render to Disk -> Bit Depth), and the rate will be the same as the entire project (Prefs -> Audio).

But not playing. Which is kind of strange.

chrispnyc · Post by **chrispnyc** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 10:03 pm

I thought that when rendering you could only choose 24 or 16...i'm not in front of it now, so I may be way off.

In the preferences, when you set the bit depth, that is for recording correct? My understanding was that all calculations in the audio engine took place at 32 bit float...

Man, I wish Ableton would put out some real documentation about this.

Has anyone gotten any official correspondence from them about the math in Live? Even Digidesign, the masters of 'trade secrets' put out some info on this...

wait, doesn't digi own Ableton now (via M-Audio)?