hello everyone,

i was playing around with cutting up some 16 bit drum loops in my DAW.
when it came time to mixdown, i hadn't made any volume changes, no
effects. i was simply chopping up the sound files and stringing them
together.

so i habitually applied a dither from "a repectable name brand".

then i did a mixdown without dither.

i swear the dithered one sounds like it added some abrasiveness to the
hi-hats.

since the file started out 16 bit and never got moved volume wise (no
effects either) i thought the dither would in essence have no effect
since it's not trying to recalculate any math.

but i swear i can hear a difference. the non-dithered one sounds
better. i'd have to really listen to this over and over again. but i
was wondering if anybody could comment on this. is it possible that
the dither is making it worse in this example?

xy wrote:

i was playing around with cutting up some 16 bit drum loops in my DAW.
when it came time to mixdown, i hadn't made any volume changes, no
effects. i was simply chopping up the sound files and stringing them
together.

so i habitually applied a dither from "a repectable name brand".

then i did a mixdown without dither.

ie. you truncated? You didn't use any dither.

i swear the dithered one sounds like it added some abrasiveness to the
hi-hats.

since the file started out 16 bit and never got moved volume wise (no
effects either) i thought the dither would in essence have no effect
since it's not trying to recalculate any math.

If the data is really 16 bit already, and you add dither, what you get is
your signal plus more noise. That noise, especially if you are running noise
shaping, will change perceived tonality for reasons I don't really understand.

but i swear i can hear a difference. the non-dithered one sounds
better. i'd have to really listen to this over and over again. but i
was wondering if anybody could comment on this. is it possible that
the dither is making it worse in this example?

If you are not reducing word length, it is.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

xy wrote:
since the file started out 16 bit and never got moved volume wise (no
effects either) i thought the dither would in essence have no effect
since it's not trying to recalculate any math.

Dither is added during the final step of recalculation, so to speak. If you
add it without recalculating anything, it still will be there. Like Scott
said, with use of noise shaping, it can be even worse, and depending on the
(16 bit) material at hand it can be very audible.

If you wanna learn more about it, try Bob Katz' site digital domain, which
contains very useful articles on many subjects, including dither. This goes
to the dither article directly: http://tinyurl.com/2byc7

Luck, Arjan

--
----Real email: news then at then soundbyte then dot then nl----

thanks guys