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Some info about dither
Thought some people here might be interested in this.
A few years ago I produced some audio examples of different types of dither, so that people could more easily hear what dither does and what a couple of different dithering options sound like. As there are even more options for dithering algorithms these days, I figured it was time to update my examples and talk a little bit about what seems to be one of the more confusing aspects of music production for people. You can download all of the audio examples and graphs I’ll be talking about here:
http://innerportalstudio.com/new-dither-examples/
For these examples, I used a 24bit sample of a ride cymbal with some reverb applied. I then converted this to 16bit wav files in various DAWs using the dithering options they offer. Specifically:
Rectangular, Triangular, POW-r1, POW-r2, POW-r3 from Ableton Live 9.
The only dithering option in Presonus Studio One.
UV22HR from Apple Logic Pro X, though it also offers the same POW-r options that Live does.
Goodhertz dithering from Audiofile Engineering Triumph.
In addition, I also created a 16bit wav file version using no dithering at all, this is called truncating.
The next step was to cut off the all but the very end of the reverb tails of these files, and normalize the remaining portion to -0.5dBFS. This was done because dither noise is extremely quiet, with all but it’s very peaks around -96dBFS, well below the noise floor of most playback equipment. Boosting only the tails of the audio files allowed me to raise the overall level of the files to make the dither noise itself audible at normal listening volumes. These files are located in the folder called “Dithered Ride Tails”.
I recommend listening to the truncated version first, so you can hear what it is we’re trying to achieve with dithering in the first place. At the very end of the truncated sample, you can hear what sounds like digital noise as the least significant bit toggles on and off trying to replicate the very quiet end of the reverb fading out to silence. By adding dither noise, we make this last little bit of fade out much smoother and more natural sounding, at the expense of a very tiny bit of noise.
Remember, in these examples I’ve boosted this noise A LOT just to make it audible, in normal use, it’s so quiet as to be almost completely inaudible. Plus there’s some tricks with dithering to reduce how much of it we hear even more, which I’ll talk about shortly.
I included the full length ride samples without trimming or normalizing as well, in case anyone wants them to hear how dither sounds in more real world situation. You’ll find them in the folder called “Original Rides”. Though I highly doubt that many people will be able to hear the dither at all, even on what is arguably one of these best examples for demonstrating it’s purpose. It’s just extremely quiet, just imagine trying to hear it on a full mix!
In addition to the ride cymbal sample, I also created a 24bit sample of nothing but silence. This was also converted to 16bit using the above dithering options, but in this case it was so I could provide FFT analyzer images of just the dithering noise itself for visual comparison. I used DMG Audio’s Dualism plug-in for the FFT analysis. The scale was set from 20Hz to 20kHz, and from 0 to -144dBFS (effectively 24bits) to make the shape of the dithering algorithms easier to see. Keep in mind that a 16bit file has only a range to -96dBFS when you look at the graphs, so anything below that will be discarded. All the graphs are unsurprisingly located in the folder labeled “Graphs”, and you can also see them on my site:
http://innerportalstudio.com/new-dither-examples/
Why are they shaped differently? That’s one of the tricks I mentioned earlier, and it’s called noise-shaping. Rather boring and predictable name, I know. Since our ear is most sensitive around the 2kHz range, the dither noise in the various algorithms is created to be stronger in the frequencies away from this sensitive area. Most of the time it’s boosted way up by 20kHz, beyond the range of most human hearing, but the actual shape and slope of the boost varies depending the algorithm.
Each manufacturer has what they consider the ideal way of doing this, sometimes, in the case of POW-r, with different options for different kinds of music. You can hear this in the subtle tonality of the noise in some of the different dither examples, as well as seeing the exact shape in the graphs I provided. Some of the options like Ableton’s Triangular and Rectangular dithers are almost perfectly flat, however that doesn't mean they are less effective.
Ideally this gives the producer the flexibility to choose the dithering that best suits their material on a song by song basis. But again, this noise is so incredibly quiet that for most music, you’ll never hear it. Which is ideal anyway, as dither was created to be as inaudible as possible in the first place. I’ll admit that as a mastering engineer, even I rarely audition different dithers, since with most material there’s no audible difference anyway.
Once in awhile I’ll get a very dynamic song with lots of quiet passages, certain ambient or even orchestral songs fit this category. In those cases I might try out a few different dithering options, though even then the differences can be almost impossible to hear, even in my studio.
The point of all this is make you realize that while dithering does fulfill a useful role in the audio production process, it’s arguably the least important aspect and isn’t something people should worry too much about. Certainly add dither if you can when you’re rendering your mixdown or master to a 16bit file at the end of the writing process, but don’t lose sleep over which dithering option is the best. The differences are incredibly subtle, even to those people with well-trained hearing, and in almost all cases the dither is so far below the noise floor of any playback chain that no one will hear what dither you used, or even if you used it at all.
I hope this helped you not only understand why we use dither, but also highlight some of the differences in the various options available to us.
Peace and beats,
Tarekith
Comments
Thank you for sharing. Will check this out tonight.
Thanks a lot for this. Something I have been wondering for a while but never got around to reading up on. Very insightful
Thanks @Tarekith, as a designer I was already familiar with dithering in image compression, at least conceptually. My guess was that sonic dithering was a similar beast. But knowledge beats a guess every time, so I really appreciate you taking the time to lay it all out so nicely.
One question, how does Auria's dithering on Mixdown compare to the desktop algorithms you tested? IIRC, you just get a dither or don't dither checkbox. That's separate from all the FabFilter plugins, of course, but I always check the dither option. Can you think of any scenarios where you wouldn't dither an Auria mix?
Thanks again for sharing, I appreciate any opportunity to read from the Book of Tarekith (sounds like the title of an old Deep Purple album
Helping to puncture the ball of my considerable ignorance and thank you for that...
Appreciate the share @Tarekith! Very informative.
As far as I can see, Auria doesn't have dithering built in? I always use the Pro-L one myself in Auria, so I might just be missing it. Here's a graph of the Pro-L dither for comparison though:
http://postimg.org/image/kqe6aqz27/
"Dithered Ride Tails” is a brilliant way to go about examining/sharing this!
Gah! Got my app menus scrambled. Will definitely take a look at the Pro-L pic. Thanks
EDIT: Yeah, I confused Auria's Mixdown with AudioMaster's process file page:
This, my bad:
@eustressor As I'm always saying to Mrs. Goodyear Defeat doesn't finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's finished when he quits.
(That Mister Nixon knew a thing or two....)
And then he quit
(That Mister Frost found out a thing or two ...)
@JohnnyGoodyear, thank you as always for the timely words of encouragement!
@eustressor Sad as it is to say, the 1972 presidential election is probably the thing I would have to choose as my specialist subject if I ever went on Mastermind and I have an opinion of RMN not dissimilar to that HST had.
Oh, and for the record, he was a crook
Huh?
Does the dithering choice have ramifications if the end consumption of the programme material is streamed vs mpegged vs broadcast: dab vs fm, vs cd vs traditional media (such as 8 track cartridge, I suppose that’s what the kids are using now, probably?)
IMVHO it doesn't have any ramification ever, unless you're making extremely dynamic music with long extremely quiet passages. Ideally manufacturers would just apply a dither of their choosing whenever needed and not bother the end user with decisions like this. It really is the very last thing people need to think about when writing music, we're talking about noise that's more or less at the absolute noise floor of digital audio in the first place.
Excellent, that’s good news for my latest composition comprising entirely of digital noise floor, called In The Hall Of The Delta Sigma Quadrature. It’s 4m33s but I’m trapped in a cage trying to avoid plagiarism.
Silly Cages, they get you every time
Good to know, appears that's kind of what the FabFilter and AudioMaster folks have done. Which is fine with me, my music's pretty loud, anyway. Thanks again for sharing!
well you do mastering, so -96dBFS may be a thing for you, but for the rest of the world -96dBFS is just not audible, who cares if it shows up in the spectrum? I can't hear it.
You needed to do a lot of trickery to make it audible ...
besides i can't hear anything above 18khz anyway and the chances that other ppl above the age of ten can is minimal too, so to me its useless information I see in measurement-tools nobody hears ...
i did some tests with single drum sounds @ 24 bits and converted them to 16 bit without dithering - I could not say which file was which in a blindtest; so this is a very theoretical topic ...
oh i forgot to say a very well known mastering engineer (robert babicz) just filters away everything above 18 or 19 khz ...
Welcome to exactly the point I was trying to make, nice of you to join us
@tarekith great post, dithering is one of the things I haven't really ever looked into. This was a great rundown
^^ I found this quite irritating.
OK, that's great to know. Is it less irritating if it's not in bold and typed like this:
"I hope this helped you not only understand why we use dither"
nah, im not trying to argue with you just to have a discussion ...
if i sum it up it says its technically better to dither, but you can't hear it if you don't ...
so why bother with dither?
thats why "why we use dither" is irritating, peace
Because there's no downside to just getting in the habit of always using it when you can. It might not be something that makes a difference 99% of the time, but there is a legitimate reason it's there too, to mask truncation noise in the rare instances it can be audible. It's a very trivial thing to worry about the way some people do, but as long as people realize this and just use it by default, that's all the thought they really need to give it.
im not so sure if thats always the way to go
u c, lets say you use a lot of downsampled drum sounds - then all this high freq. stuff sums up and may eat all the energy in the mix ... and then you sit there wondering why shit doesn't bang ...
You're free to use it or not as you choose, that's not for me to decide. Though since you yourself just said that it's not audible since its at almost -96dBFs, not sure why you think it's going to affect how things "bang"?
because a compressor or some other dynamic tool may react to stuff out of my listening range
with dithering we are creating new artifacts
thats why the general advice is to only use dither at the very end of whatever you are doing
there is no right or wrong here
Why would you be compressing something after dithering, it should be the very last thing you do when creating a song? Even if for some reason you were to redither a finished song, you could probably apply it 20 times or more before it would be something you MIGHT have to start worrying about becoming audible.
Sorry you're not understanding the concept or the scales of loudness involved. If you think truncating is the better way to go, by all means go for it.
go back to my down sampled drum sound example ...
lots of pitched oneshots in a sampler with whatever dynamic fx after it ...thats not to exotic is it?
you only see this topic with your mastering hat on
besides you never said only use dither as the last step, thats what I said
have a nice day