To Dither or Not to Dither(that is the question)

[halipino]

Hello.
Since I am so new to Pro tools I was hoping to get some pertinent information on dithering...
I have read the Manual and do as it suggests by inserting the Dither plug-in on the Master Fader which seems all well and good, but where my concern is when I am working in sections and creating a main "composite" session of all the other sections previously recorded.

What I would like to know is there a case of "too much dithering"..?
As I have been "bouncing" all of my sections with the Dither plug-in on the Master Fader as well as on the final "bounce" with all sections in place within the composite session I also have the Dither plug-in on the Master Fader.

Should I not bounce the separate sections and save the dither for the "final" composite session or is what I am doing in my state of blissful ignorance okay?

I suppose this is another topic for another day but which dither plugin is in favor by most,
the POWr Dither plugin or the standard DigiRack plugin?

Looking Forward.....

[KingFish]

You do not need to dither, until you leave the higher resolution.

While you're in a session, working 24bit, bouncing tracks, importing and exporting audio, to be used in the session, at the same resolution, there is no need to dither.

In fact, if your session is set to 48k 24bit, you might as well NOT insert a dither plugin in your master rail, monitor, edit, and start to mix your work, monitoring at 24 bit.

really, until you are going to master a final, for CD or a reference mix, there is no real need to dither until the mastering process.

Working in the studio, I'll take the higest resolution mixes (same resolution as my chosen work environment) to the mastering engineer.

When I'm mastering myself, demo's, independant records, etc.... I finish mixing, without dithering, then, at a later time, when I begin mastering, I'll dither my final output, and monitor my mastering through the dithered path.

if you're bouncing compiled tracks, through the master fader, and re-importing the bounced tracks back into the session as your 2-mix representation of the multiple tracks you just bounced, you do NOT want to dither them, you're bouncing / or / recording them, and re-importing them, at your session resolution.

Don't just slap a dither plugin on your master fader when you're doing your work, bouncing parts, editing, overdubbing etc.... use the dither process to turn a higher resolution session mix, into a CD or standard resolution playback file.

[JFreak]

dither as the last stage before burning to cd. if you're going to further process ("master") your audio files, leave them 24bit and dither after everything has been said and done. then burn.

[halipino]

WOW, thanks for such great information and I truly appreciate the expediance in your replies...

In summary, it seems that one should not dither at all until mastering or at the very least a "bounce" to burn the song to a CD or making an MP3 for the web.

Thanks again!