In Reply to: Dither as a last step? posted by midimaniac on December 31, 2010 at 22:31:20:
Your suspicions are correct, the dither step is not in the correct place, it certainly is not last. "Dither last" is also not always the most accurate rule to follow. A better rule for dither, is dither after any reduction in word length. All audio processing increases the word length.
Are you recording at 24 bit to begin with? If not, the work flow is not technically correct.
You should dither AFTER the sample rate conversion, because any processing done to audio will increase the word length. Currently when you resample your 88/16 file to 44, it becomes 44/24, not 44/16. You can see this happen with any bitmeter plugin.
This is what I'd suggest, based on the fact that a software resample process may not be very high quality either. Avoid a resample process if you can, those processes can be most destructive to audio quality. Also, when using a peak limiter like the L1, I'd recommend setting the highest peaks for maximum of -2 or -3 dBFS to avoid distorting DAC's on playback (see TC Electronic white paper on DAC overload http://www.tcelectronic.com/media/nielsen_lund_2003_overload.pdf)
Record your LP in at 44/24. Process with whatever you want. Dither to 44/16 for CD. If you want a high res version, instead record at 88/24, process, resample to 44/24, then dither to 44/16 for CD. If you have no need for high res, don't bother with SRC and do it the first way, it's tradeoff is probably not better than the benefits of processing at 88 kHz.
www.digido.com and Bob Katz's book Mastering Audio will illuminate dither for you, I suggest you have a look there for more info.
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Follow Ups
- RE: Dither as a last step? - brew 12:57:38 01/20/11 (1)
- RE: Dither as a last step? - midimaniac 18:56:29 01/20/11 (0)