Dithering, noise shaping, what??

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First off let me say that the style of the music I'm doing is kind of dirty. Record static, saturation etc, I'm not super picky about a really clean, flawless sound. OK. Now, I've been recording and mixing in 24/44.1. When it comes time to print to cd quality, I'm confused by a couple things.

If I use a plug in that has dithering, like waves limiter l2, when I export the song, do I leave it set to 24 bit wav in reaper?
If not, when I export to 16 bit, will it dither twice?
Noise shaping, what are good settings for this, or should I even use it?
*** of course it would be easier to just do it all thru reaper when I export but my brain is saying waves would be better because I paid more for it....
 
I know nothing about Reaper except what I read on the internet, but at least what I do, is to always dither [once] when bouncing to stereo for distribution. (That would certainly include 16-bit PCM for a CD!) I would do it even if rendering 24-bit, but that's me; not everyone would is what I get from the www.

If you're bouncing in order to send to a mastering house, then leave it alone, unless they have a different opinion (so I'd ask).

P.S. The type of music shouldn't matter whether you do it - it's to prevent unpleasant distortion caused by the rendering, not get rid of whatever you've got in there on purpose.
 
First off let me say that the style of the music I'm doing is kind of dirty. Record static, saturation etc, I'm not super picky about a really clean, flawless sound.

Well that simply will not do. ;-)

OK. Now, I've been recording and mixing in 24/44.1. When it comes time to print to cd quality, I'm confused by a couple things. If I use a plug in that has dithering, like waves limiter l2, when I export the song, do I leave it set to 24 bit wav in reaper?

When you go from 24 to 16, you need to dither. All it basically does is fill in the file with slight noise so it sounds better. Yep, that was not an error. Adding noise, and we try so hard to keep it out or remove it.

If not, when I export to 16 bit, will it dither twice?

Ya lost me there.

Noise shaping, what are good settings for this, or should I even use it? *** of course it would be easier to just do it all thru reaper when I export but my brain is saying waves would be better because I paid more for it....

Never trust your brain, always your ears for audio. Check out the pic below for Reaper and if you really want to have a easy to understand explanation on this, check out Ian Shepherds write up "Dither is one of the most widely misunderstood elements of the digital audio chain". He does a great job making it easy to understand.

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You only dither once from 24-bit or higher files to an export to 16 bit. You would never use a plugin with dither enabled, and do it again. There is no need to dither unless you are finalizing a mix to 16bit. Never dither twice. That sounds like a band name... lol. But it would be valid. :)
 
The Ian Shepherd artcle is a good one.

Noise shaping is the idea that after you dither you can move the hiss that it creates out of the midrange where the ear is more sensitive to it. It should only be done once when no further processing will be applied. Noise shaping moves extra energy to the higher frequencies. Some people aren't fond of that. Plus just about everything gets processed after it's released these days. Sometimes instantly. I wouldn't use it.

The noise generated by dither isn't something that can draw much attention to itself anyway. The problem it fixes is a lot easier to hear.
 
Never dither twice. That sounds like a band name... lol. But it would be valid. :)

That is funny. I got this tune in my head now. Maybe their hit single could start something like this.

Dither once but don't dither do it twice
and don't you dither round my wife
cause if you do she gets slapping maddddddddddddd

shes hear the song and she don't like it
there aint no need for you to fight it
16 bits is where you want to beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

adding more is is just a story
cause when you do its gets real gory
don't you dare, dither round my wifeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Now if you want and I aint sayin
someone may just think I am just playin
its better when start your song real cleannnnnnnn

Dont get me started on noise shapingggggggg
cause when I do I go crazyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
don't you dare dither round my wifeeeeeeeee

2017. The Dithering Twice Band. All Rights Reserved as filed with the US Copyright Office. :laughings:
 
Thanks guys. So basically leave it alone until I'm ready to take it down to 16 bit for cd distribution, then choose either the plug in of choice or reaper to do it but not both.
One more, is dithering useful when up sampling? Like if tracks were recorded at 16/44.1 but then converted to a higher rate for mixing and mastering.....

---------- Update ----------

That is funny. I got this tune in my head now. Maybe their hit single could start something like this.

Dither once but don't dither do it twice
and don't you dither round my wife
cause if you do she gets slapping maddddddddddddd

shes hear the song and she don't like it
there aint no need for you to fight it
16 bits is where you want to beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

adding more is is just a story
cause when you do its gets real gory
don't you dare, dither round my wifeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Now if you want and I aint sayin
someone may just think I am just playin
its better when start your song real cleannnnnnnn

Dont get me started on noise shapingggggggg
cause when I do I go crazyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
don't you dare dither round my wifeeeeeeeee

2017. The Dithering Twice Band. All Rights Reserved as filed with the US Copyright Office. :laughings:

LOL, this is actually pretty cool heh
 
One more, is dithering useful when up sampling? Like if tracks were recorded at 16/44.1 but then converted to a higher rate for mixing and mastering.....

The main purpose of upsampling before digital to analog conversion is to move quantization noise far beyond the audible spectrum. 9 times out of 10, you can just run a low pass filter on it and be done. Honestly, that's all I know about it. Someone else may be able to get a little deeper into other details. Like on of my instructors use to tell us, "when you write your answers, I do not need to know how to build the power plant, I just need you to tell me where to plug my TV in".
 
You shouldn't have to dither when upsampling because the process won't truncate anything. Dither is a cure for truncation. Truncation will happen any time you save processed audio to a fixed point file, even if all you do is change a level. Any time you render to a fixed point file without dither, the truncation will become signal and you can't get rid of it after the fact.

If you choose to only dither when going to 16 bit, that's up to you. The noise from dither on a 24 bit file would more than likely still be beyond the thermal limit anyway, so you're not likely to hear it.
 
Did you read my reply to that thread over on the Reaper forum?

ashcat_lt said:
****If you've done anything to the file since you recorded it, you should dither it on the way to any fixed point format.*****
Period
 
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