[Andy De Rosa]

Hi all,

first time posting here as instructed by Bob Katz. So please be gentle with me 😉

Having watched the latest video Bob posted (https://youtu.be/f-uxZwc6Ec4) entitled “Noise shaped Dither with Monitor Controllers & Processors”, I have the following question:

“Hey Bob! Thanks for educating us on the noise shaping algorithms. Now my question please: where do we get these from and can they be imported in any DAW?”

Thank you very much and hope this helps the community too.

Cheers!

[Victor Garcia Gruartmoner]

Hi Bob! How can I noise shape dither my monitor output permanently? I’m a Samplitude Pro X7 user and my rig run through a Merging Hapi + Anubis

Thanks!

[Bob Katz]

As Bob O. mentioned, you can use POWR dither (available in the preferences) in Samplitude. I don’t know if it will apply across the board and include the monitor output. You’re going to have to do some clever sleuthing to determine if the monitor output is dithered. For example, feed AES/EBU out and back in and record it and you’ll know by examining the return from the monitor with the Bitter plugin.

[Bob Olhsson]

Pow-R is a noise shaped dither in Samplitude.

[Victor Garcia Gruartmoner]

Yes, I use Powe-2 every time I bounce a master to 24 or 16bit; but. For monitorimg listening? How you guys manage that?

I use Meeging Anubis for monitoring and the volume knob (if I am right) is a digital trim. So it would be good to find the way to get a noise shapped dither all the tine while listening ( as the Crane Song Avocet has the 16bit listening button)

Am I right?

[Bob Katz]

Well, the 24 bit dither you should use does not have to be noise shaped. But I don’t have enough choices in Sequoia so I choose Powr-1 which is minimally shaped. You should be able to do that in the preferences in Samplitude. And there’s a way of testing if it’s working if you can think “outside the box”.

[Bob Katz]

Hi, Andy. Welcome here. We’ll be gentle! This is a good question, basically a general question. The answer of course is it depends on the DAW. Pro Tools does not have built in dither so dithering has to be done with a plugin WITHIN the daw. But I just learned from a friend that the export function (Command-Shift-K on MacOS) will apply noise shaped dither to the export if you choose a fixed point export. I don’t recommend going to 16 bit with that export in PT because there are no choices of noise shaping or no noise shaping in that export menu and there will certainly be better choices using external tools. But if you choose 24 bit export, then noise shaped 24 bit dither may not be your preference but in my professional opinion it’s harmless and potentially more beneficial than truncation. PT does not give you any choice of truncation in the export, this is the first case I’ve seen of a DAW dithering “behind the scenes” and doing something beneficial without user intervention. Since it’s ONLY on export I don’t see any harm in this algorithm. People can bitch and moan about it being noise shaped but at 24 bits, any HF noise due to the shaping is going to be inaudible. And if it’s being sent to mastering, even if the M.E. jacks it up a zillion dB it’s still very very very very likely to still be inaudible and inconsequential. And if the user doesn’t even want to chance that possibility, then they can export to 32 bit float (which will not dither it) and the M.E. better be capable of handling a 32 bit float file for mastering.

Some DAWs give you dithering choices. In Sequoia, in the preferences (which I object to from an ergonomic standpoint), you can choose no dither, dither multiple outputs or only dither the main 1/2 outputs. You can choose Pow-R 1, 2 or 3. If it’s set to the main outputs you can choose 16 bit if you wish, but again, you have to remember the ergonomics and turn that off when you are finished with the 16 bit task. Very unergonomic. It will default to 24 bit if you turn it on and you are set to communicate 24 bit to your interface. That’s where I leave it so it will 24 bit dither (I use POWR-1 in that case) all outputs to external devices, etc.

Then there are plugins: You have Good Hertz dither, PSP X-Dither, Stillwell Audio PsychoDither. Google the rest 🙂

I also recommend you get a free plugin called “Bitter” from Stillwell audio. Put in in various places in your session to examine what’s happening to the wordlength and you will soon get educated on the signal flow and calculations within your DAW.

Hope this helps. Experts on other DAWs will hopefully chime in.

[Andy De Rosa]

Hey Bob,

thanks ever so much for your fully comprehensive reply which I am sure will benefit the wider audience.

It is super clear thanks and FYI I master using Wavelab 11. Thanks for pointing me to “Bitter” I will definitely download it and have a play with it in Logic X. Cheers, have a good weekend!

[Bob Olhsson]

I believe Wavelab 11 comes with MAAT LINpro which offers a variety of noise shaped dithers. https://www.maat.digital/lin/

These include:

1st Order Noise Shaping
2nd Order Noise Shaping
3rd Order Noise Shaping
5th Order Noise Shaping (improved E-weighting)
8th Order Noise Shaping (modified ITU 486)
8th Order Noise Shaping (modified UEN)
9th Order Noise Shaping (F-weighting)

They also quote my old advice about avoiding noise shaping that I’m now rethinking!

[Andy De Rosa]

Hi Bob, yes indeed the MAAT LINPro is included – And you are right there are 9 options. The problem is to know which one to use as giving best results. I guess I need to do a lot of testing, or double-check with Justin Perkins 😉

[Robert Bristow-Johnson]

The problem is to know which one to use as giving best results.

If it sounds good it is good.  I think Duke Ellington said that.

I think most of these noise shaping functions (E and F weighting) steer it from the bottom 5 or 6 octaves into the top octave.  But less so than Alexey’s crazy MBIT+ thing which really steers it up into the half octave above 15 kHz.

[Oliver Masciarotte]

In LINpro (the plug–in and OEM version), we provide the higher order options for workflows where you are delivering HRA elements. Each setting does sound different so it’s worth taking some time to familiarize yourself with what setting sounds best with what material.
BTW, LINone is a basic TPDF dither for DAWs that have problems with that.

[Bob Katz]

Dear Oliver: It’s great to see you here! (hear) 🙂