Help.....! I'm dealing with idiots!!

[Mike H]

(1) Sorry, I'm a little slow, but I don't understand how you are using the HEDD for dither. Say I am working in a 44.1/24 bit Pro Tools session and I have printed the final mix. Now I set the HEDD to 16-bit digital, send the final mix out digitally to the HEDD and return it to the session and print. You are saying that, even though the session is at 24-bits, the last 8 bits are now all zeros, so when I bounce the "HEDD processed mix" to disk from PT, I don't have to dither again with Pow-R? Makes sense, I'm just makng sure I fully understand.

You are convinced that the HEDD dither is better than Pow-R #3?

(2) Why not use Toast for burning the CD? What specific quality problems result, versus Jam or Peak? I have been merrily using Toast for some time, but will change if I can get a better result.

Thanks.

[Mike H]

Somebody please give me the benefit of your experience on one or the other of these questions:
- HEDD for dithering
-Toast for burning CD.

I'm just trying to learn.
Thanks.

[NathanEldred]

Originally Posted by Mike H

You are convinced that the HEDD dither is better than Pow-R #3?

POW-r #1 sounds WAAAAY more natural than the high frequency 'adding' POW-r #3 IME.

[Mike H]

You have/had a HEDD, Nathan. Have you tried the HEDD dither, per discussion above?

Thanks,
Mike

[NathanEldred]

Originally Posted by Mike H

You have/had a HEDD, Nathan. Have you tried the HEDD dither, per discussion above?

Thanks,
Mike

Hi Mike,

No, I never tried it. I don't print dither until after the final step of processing (i.e. from the 24 bit file to the 16 bit CD in one step in Samplitude), which in my case is the Sonic Timeworks Mastering Limiter (same idea as the L2, but sounds bigger and clearer to my ears). The only way I could get away with dithering with any piece of outboard is if no digital processing went on after. I prefer to do it in Samplitude, and I doubt that anything sounds better than POW-r one. Maybe different, but at this point were talking about splitting hairs, then splitting the same hair again.