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Old 09-15-2014, 01:18 PM   #1
The Telenator
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Default JS PsychoDither, S7S PsychoDither, Render's Dither -- Which

Just noticed that there's a nifty edition of PsychoDither over on the Schwa & Stillwell website ...


But then, Reaper comes with some version of PsychoDither ... and what sort of quality is in that dither option that shows up on the Render dialogue? It offers shaping.

So ... any advantage (as in audible, meaning: will I ever hear a difference?) in buying the Schwa/Stillwell version? And what is the dither in the Reaper's own render process. Is that the JS version PsychoDither?

Anyone know the details differences in these?

[edited to add] Part of the reason I'm asking is that basically ZERO details are provided with any of these. I like specs. Also, thread title was supposed to read "S&S PsychoDither", not "S7S".
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Old 09-15-2014, 01:29 PM   #2
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The dither that comes with Reaper (in the render window) basically is psycho dither, improved. Schwa can tell you more.
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Old 09-15-2014, 01:33 PM   #3
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQ9IXSUzuM

Watch it and maybe it'll give you some perspective as to what to do with your dithering.
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Old 09-15-2014, 02:12 PM   #4
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Oh, I know 'what to do with your dithering'. But dithers clearly vary quite a lot. Some DAWs didn't even come with on-board dither until a couple of years ago. At least one still doesn't.

The Schwa idea of 'shaped and shoved up beyond hearing range' sounds like a great idea. Personally, most dithering sounds about the same to me, and meanwhile I know a few users who refuse to even use any.

I guess what I'm asking here is, Do you think Reaper's dithering is plenty good enough? I'd just as soon not add another plugin to deal with something like this.
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Old 09-15-2014, 03:04 PM   #5
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probably I am the wrong guy to chime in here, but to be honest, I never ever heard or experienced any differences in using dithering or not and in no way differences between various ditherings.

what let me get again sleep at nights was that Bob Katz said about dithering (from 24bit to 16bit), that it doesnt matter if you dither or not, do what makes you feel good. means for me: dithering is overrated and I book it under "expectation bias" if someone says he can hear the difference.
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Old 09-15-2014, 03:12 PM   #6
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Found this via googlez: http://www.stillwellaudio.com/forums...c.php?f=18&t=4

Thx for pointing me to this plug in.
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Old 09-15-2014, 03:43 PM   #7
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Thanks all for your input. Some time ago I came to about the same thoughts as whiteaxxxe has expressed here, so my question was perhaps in part an academic one. I particularly like his "dithering is overrated and I book it under 'expectation bias' ". Let's also keep in mind as well that, unless we are working a lot with large or noisy live recording acts, especially ones with noisy amps and such, that today's experience of recording much while ITB means a lower sound floor much of the time.

I always enjoy looking at a track meter to see it is reading numbers like -97, -103 and so on (not muted, of course!). That was one of the first delights switching to digital recording -- HUGE signal-to-noise ratios. I suppose any project done properly that is totally ITB could go happily without dither, since there is almost no other noise in the recording already, so what little noise going to 16 bits creates might actually be welcome to keep things from sounding too sterile.
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Old 09-16-2014, 03:23 AM   #8
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According to Bob Katz it lays a very faint veil on the music, but it's better than quantization noise.

Dithering your CD master as a last step is a good idea. Everything else can be disregarded.

Btw, Toneboosters makes an excellent dither plugin that's easy to demo too. It can make 8-bit audio very listenable. So if you're making 8-bit WAV files as a final master, there's your tool .

I was certainly surprised how much difference dither could make at that bit depth.

Dither won't make your music sound better, but it'll prevent it from sounding worse when lowering the bit resolution.
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Old 09-16-2014, 01:45 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Telenator View Post
I guess what I'm asking here is, Do you think Reaper's dithering is plenty good enough? I'd just as soon not add another plugin to deal with something like this.
What I tried to show is that dithering is a tool used to lower your STNR and any dither you wish to put there (shaped or not) is supposed to be so much below the signal (-96dB or more) that you're not really hearing it. I always use high resolution spectrum analyzer as a tool to put dither in my songs. Not my ears.

And if your song is loud enough, then you might not even need it at all.

Last edited by Icchan; 09-16-2014 at 02:09 PM.
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Old 09-16-2014, 03:03 PM   #10
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That xiph.org video was worth wheeling-out anyway Icchan -it was about due its six-monthly airing...


>
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