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hi this is justin coletti of sonic's

goop thanks for joining me for this

week's episode of the sonic scoop

podcast and today we're going to be

answering another

audience question this time about

dithering

i think i'll call this episode something

like what's the deal with dithering

or maybe dithering demystified for those

of you don't know i do have a

full-length course called mastering

demystified that you can check out at

masteringdemystified.com and we discuss

dither a little bit but it's a confusion

point for a lot of people

it's a nerdy question but one i think we

can de-nerd and demystify and make you

understand so that you don't forget this

stuff going forward

it's gonna seem a lot simpler this whole

world of dither

a whole lot a lot less mysterious once

we get through with it so let's get

right into it before we do

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okay right into the question of the day

dither

what is dithering justin does it really

matter do i have to avoid dithering

twice

if i'm sending you files that i worked

on at 32 and i'm sending them to you at

24 should i dither them et cetera et

cetera et cetera

all right dither for those of you who

don't know

is just a way of masking the

errors the quantization errors that can

happen

at the very quietest frequencies and

these quantization errors if you were to

put them under a microscope

by cranking up your speakers all the way

when there's practically silence going

on

could sound a little staticky

like it's not perfectly clean noise

so what dither is is to take this kind

of

staticky distorted artifact-y noise

floor

and put basically prettier sounding

noise over it

that's what dither is it's relatively

pretty sounding noise

that is masking bad sounding noise or

really replacing

bad sounding noise and there's a few

different ways to dither

you can have dither that's basically

like pink noise or white noise

or you can have dither that is shaped

and shaped digger will often try to push

this noise into the areas that are

less audible to the human ear you've

probably heard of the fletcher munson

curve which basically means our ears

hear better

in the mid-range than at extreme lows

and extreme highs our

hearing is not completely linear so some

types of shaped dither

will try to push the noise way up into

the highs and into the lows and try to

keep it away from the mid-range so

when is dither necessary some people

will tell you whenever you're exporting

a 24 or 16 bit file

you should be applying dither some

people will tell you

you should only ever apply dither once

some people tell you that you should

only be applying dither

when you're going from a bit depth like

24-bit fix to a 16-bit fixed

then you're going to apply dither what

are my thoughts on this

my thoughts on this are that it's not

that big of a deal

and people do give conflicting advice

because it doesn't really matter that

much

and if it did matter that that much

well people would hear those differences

for themselves and it wouldn't be much

of a question

people would just be like oh when i do

it this way it clearly sounds bad and

why do it this way it clearly sounds

good

or well it's a matter of taste you know

it kind of sounds

okay this way if you like that sort of

thing but i think it sounds better this

way that's not what's going on

what's going on with dither is that the

noise that's being added

is so incredibly quiet that basically no

one is ever going to hear it ever pretty

much

the only cases in which anyone would

ever hear it

is if you're listening to the quietest

section of a song like

the orchestra has just finished playing

the last note

is just finishing ringing out and it's

pretty much

complete silence now and the last tiny

tale of the reverb

has basically gone below your threshold

of hearing we're talking about

lower than like 60 db below

zero dbfs it's dropped off to where you

really can't hear it anymore

then take your volume and crank it way

way way way up

so loud that like you'd blow up your

speakers if you played the full

orchestra

then listen for dither and maybe you can

hear it

i'll link to some places where you can

hear different types of death and some

people like it when i do

audio examples on this podcast i don't

really do audio examples in the podcast

because i figure most of you

listening to a podcast are doing the

dishes

driving in a car mowing your lawn these

are the kinds of things i do when i

listen to podcasts that's what i figure

but right now i'll give you an audio

example this is what dither sounds like

this is what a shape dither sounds like

okay for those of you are not watching

the video version i did that with my

mouth

so if i were to play you actual dithered

files the dithered audio would be so so

so so quiet

you would never hear in this context and

i'd have to jack it way way way way up

but that is the way that you'd evaluate

different types of dither

you could listen to if you have multiple

types of dither in your limiter and your

dither plugin

you could listen to that way basically

crank it up all the way and see which of

those

sounds of dither you like but we're

really talking at this point about

how you like your noise floor that

you're never going to hear

how you like that to sound and the

answer is

with 16-bit audio and with 24-bit audio

it doesn't really matter that much

with 24-bit audio yeah

you like if you actually heard the noise

for you could hear

the absence of dither potentially but

you're never going to hear the noise

force if you forget to dither a 24-bit

file

no one's ever going to know but you and

you might not even know

and with 16 bit that's pretty much the

case where the noise floor is

96 db down basically

so no one's really ever going to hear it

but it still is a best practice to apply

it

and a lot of people say it's a best

practice to apply it only once

that said if you end up applying dither

twice

guess what no one's ever gonna know but

you

and you're probably maybe arguably

better off applying it twice than not at

all

because what will happen if you apply

dither

twice is you'll get a tiny bit

denser noise floor but you'll know that

you're masking up those

artifacts those quantization errors and

those truncation errors

so long story short a lot of people

advise

dither only once so if you're sending a

24-bit

file to a mastering engineer who's then

going to

convert it down to 16 bit and dithering

it shouldn't really matter

that you do or don't add dither there's

people out there who will tell you don't

add dither so that you're only dithering

once

there's some validity to that if you're

sending a 24-bit file

to a mastering engineer you can dither

it or not dither it

they'll apply dither when they're going

from 24-bit down to 16-bit

if you are releasing a 24-bit file you

should probably apply dither to it

if you're just going to print off that

20-bit file 24-bit file and put it out

there you should probably apply dither

to it just because

if anyone ever heard the noise floor

instead of hearing artifact quantization

errors

they'd hear kind of like a prettier

sounding white noise

if you are rendering out a 16-bit file

that is supposed to just go up and be

released

again go ahead and dither it if you're

sending that 16-bit audio file to a

mastering engineer who's going to master

it 16-bit

that's really not a best practice you

know you probably should have been

working at 24-bit and then sending your

mastering engineer

a 24-bit file that then he or she will

dither down

to 16-bit but if you're sending the

16-bit file

with dither applied and the mastering

engineer dithers it again

not really a big deal some people will

say hey just to be safe

whenever you're exporting 16-bit file or

a 24-bit file

dither and that's not bad advice because

if you're releasing the file then it's

dithered you don't have to worry about

someone who's

listening to a section of silence

cranking up your speakers all the way

and hearing

some quantization errors and things like

that

you know that you're going to have like

a decent sounding non-artifacting noise

floor instead so

always dither and always dither once is

fine advice too

as is don't dither let your mastering

engineer do it

that works too both of those pieces of

advice are fine because again

dither doesn't matter that much maybe in

a world where we went to

ended up with like 8-bit audio and

that's the kind of audio files that

people are listening to

then yeah dither would become important

and then we'd all be

connoisseurs of the noise floor because

the dynamic range

of 8-bit audio is something like 40 db

and in that case yeah there'd be a lot

more situations in which people could

actually hear

the noise floor of the digital audio

format so if we were in a world where

audio files were eight bits or lower

then dither would probably

make more of a difference and we'd have

arguments over which

is a favorite shape of dither because

there'd be some occasions where we would

actually hear it but in the real world

we live in with actual 16-bit audio and

24-bit audio

no one hears the noise floor so no one

hears a dither so it's not

that big of a deal all dither is is

replacing

weird sounding artifact-y noise floors

with much more pleasant evenly

distributed noise floors and the noise

floor with dither

is actually slightly louder than if you

left it alone

but it sounds slightly better but again

at 16 and 24 bit

it doesn't matter that much because the

chances of you hearing it are

basically zero in editing this before it

goes live

i'm realizing that i framed all this in

terms of

what other people would recommend so i'm

realizing now some people might ask me

justin what would you recommend okay so

here's what i recommend

work at your preferred bit depth that

should be

24-bit or 32-bit floating point either

of those is fine to work out in your

sessions in your mixes

then if you're working with a mastering

engineer you export them a file

at that bit depth i'd say preferably

no dither and then your mastering

engineer will add dither

at the very last step however

if you dither that 24 bit file and send

that to your mastering engineer

it's really not a problem either and if

you

mess up and dither down to 16 bit

that's not a big problem either in fact

it's probably

better if you dither going from 24 bit

to 16 bit and send that file

rather than did they're not being

applied at all

now with that said ideally dither is the

last step in the change should be the

very last thing that happens after all

processing

right before the bit depth is reduced

best practice work at one bit depth and

sample rate

send that file to a mastering engineer

who will then dither it at the very end

if you are just releasing your tracks

yourself without going to a mastering

engineer

then go ahead dither your final export

because

a dithered file is better to have as a

best practice

one other little tiny thing that i

didn't mention in here is that

dither can actually extend your dynamic

range

even beyond 96 db

at some frequencies so a 16-bit dithered

file

at certain frequencies can actually have

a

even higher effective dynamic range than

96 db

which is kind of neat but again 96 db is

probably more than we need to begin with

so it's not that big of a deal either

way i could get way way more technical

than i have now i feel like could go at

extreme length

on dither but i want to keep this a

relatively short and easy to follow

podcast episode but if there's demand

for it and you guys want to let go

super nerdy we could do an episode

called

dithering remystified where we go into

all the extreme

details that most people don't really

need to know big thing

is for final release

you're going to want to dither your

audio when you're going from

24 bit or any higher bit depth down to

16 bit you're going to want to dither

your audio

and ideally that digger should happen as

the very last thing in the chain

but if you mess up it's not that big of

a deal

and it's not the end of the world and

that's really what i want the key

takeaway from this episode

to be try to follow the best practices

but if you screw up

don't be hyper concerned about it well i

hope that demystifies dither for you

next time someone asks you can tell them

it's

basically prettier sounding noise that

we add

to digital audio files so that if you

ever heard the noise floor

it wouldn't matter that much but it

doesn't matter that much

because in digital audio basically no

one ever hears the noise floor

all right i hope this one has been

useful for if you want to go even deeper

into mastering and it's the fun creative

stuff that actually

really matters and makes a difference

much more than which shape of

dither you're going to use which doesn't

make that much of a difference

then you should check my full-length

course mastering demystified which you

can get at masteringthemystify.com we

talk about things like eq

compression limiting spatial thingies

and all that sorts of good stuff that

actually goes to taking

good sounding mixes making them sound

great or great sounding mixes and making

them sound

amazing and amazing sounding mixes and

make them sound not ruined

so all that more at

masteringdemystify.com or if you want

the free intro primer workshop that's

all about the basics of mastering

totally for free you can get that at

mastering 101

sonicscoop.com mastering101 that's

sonic's group.com

mastering also if you prefer something

on mixing i've got

a full length course on mixing called

mixing breakthroughs but also the

free workshop the five habits of truly

great mixers that you can get at

sonicscoop.com

mix habits last but not least we're

giving away one of these microphones the

bb29 from

jay-z microphones i hope you've enjoyed

the sound of it you can win that one

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big thanks also to soundtoys making some

of my favorite creative effects

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make for free for 30 days at

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and a big thanks to focusrite i'm

speaking through a

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this has been justin coletti of sonic

scoop thanks for hanging out with me

tell me if you hear my dither in the

comments down below

see you next time