Mastering with L3 in Audition Dither question

[JonnyS]

I'm mastering some tracks for a CD in Audition that were mixed in Logic -they are 24 bit/44.1 wav files.

I'm using the Waves L3 - and want to use the plugin to also quantise down to 16 bit and dither. So I process the file but having done that and have the new file on screen, the information at the bottom of the Audition edit view screen still says 32bit? And if I save the file it saves as 32 bit. (no option to save as 16 bit)

So what I was doing was converting the file with Audition (Convert Sample Type) to 16bit with NO dither. But although I hear the track fine and can't hear any degradation of the sound - I'm worried I'm truncating?/damaging the file doing this - or maybe it's ok becuase the file has been dithered by Waves and so it's no problem to convert it.

Confused? I am.

Jonny

[Lagerfeldt]

Unless the file info is wrong you're definitely truncating the files - not dithering them.

It's seems like you're not bouncing correct in Audition.

[UnderTow]

You are truncating but as long as the dither for 16 bit has already been applied by the L3, this is fine. The important thing is that you don't do ANY processing of the signal after the dither. And that includes such innocent seeming things as changing the gain. (So for instance, your master fader needs to be at zero). The signal after the dither is applied is not allowed to change at all (not even a single bit) or you need to redither.

If you think about it, this all makes sense. Any dither plugin can only add something to the signal but (at least in most DAWs) can't actually change the bit depth of the signal itself. So that is how most dither plugins work: They just add the dither noise and it is up to the DAW (or the user) to do the actual truncating of the extra bits.

This is used at one of the studios I work at: The L2 in ProTools is set to 20 bit dither and the signal i sent out at 24 bits over AES to a Digi Beta that truncates the signal to 20 bits on tape. This works because no gain change or signal processing heppens between the 20 bit dither being added by the L2 and the truncation by the digi beta tape recorder.

Alistair

[Lagerfeldt]

Just as an extra comment: there are much better dithers/noise shapers than IDR which Waves uses.

[JonnyS]

Ok thanks guys - that's what I thought. Once I have processed through the L3/L2 I don't touch the material - only to drop the bit depth to 16 for the CD by doing a "Convert Sample Type" on Audition with dither NOT enabled. If I need to edit more I go back to the original 24 bit mix and start again.

So not a fan of the Waves IDR - what do you suggest? I use Adobe Audition to master the files. Adobe has its own dither - but I'm not sure how good it is...? I suppose I could use Logic, but whilst I love writing on there, I find mastering on it painful - probably because I'm not used to it for that purpose.

Jonny

[MichaelPatrick]

Originally Posted by Lagerfeldt

Just as an extra comment: there are much better dithers/noise shapers than IDR which Waves uses.

I'm an L2 user who's always looking to improve. What's better?