Mixing to disk

[snoopy]

This is a pretty basic operation but I would like to know for sure the best way to do this while maintaining the highest quality. I want to mix down to my hard disk, then burn the mixes right to an audio CD.

Obviously I choose bounce to disk, but what are the best options from there? 16bit (for CD), should i be converting to AIFF, etc? Also, if I were to get the apogee plug in for dithering, is it just used as an insert on the master fader? will it affect the settings used in bounce to disk?

Thanks for any advice.

[blairl]

If you're burning a disc without doing any further processing then use 16 bit settings. If you are taking the files somewhere to be mastered then use 24 bit settings. I would use SDII files and not do any conversion after bounce unless your session is at 48KHz. If your session is at 48KHz then you will need to convert to 44.1KHz as part of the BOUNCE options. If you are not doing any further mastering or processing then Yes you should use some type of dither on mixdown whether it be Apogee, Waves IDR or digidesigns dither plug-in. You should apply the dither as the last possible insert on the master fader. Dithering should be the last process you do to any session.

[blairl]

If your session is already 16 bits then when you do any type of processing, (volume change, eq, compression etc...) these digital processes add bits to your session (48 or 56) so you should still add a dither plug-in to the master fader. If all you are doing is editing and not changing any volume etc.. then there would be no need to add dither. The same would apply for 24 bit sessions. Any processing in 24 bit sessions will also add extra bits but currently there is no way to dither the 48 and 56 bits back down to 24 bits so you can't do anything there. However, if you use 24 bit files then YES the last process should include a 16 bit dither plug-in to make it compatible with 16 bit Red Book CD's.

[This message has been edited by blairl (edited 10-25-99).]

[snoopy]

Well, when I do somethign professionaly, I don't end up doing anythign mastering wise in protools which is why this is new to me. Im just trying to make a demo CD for a friedn right now and this is my first time actually going right to CD in protools. SO if I understand this correctly, if I insert a dithinging TDM on the mix buss and select 16 bit ouput for bounce, protools will see that it's already 16bit and not try to do any dithering on its own?(everything is 44.1) I'm sure these seem like pretty obvious questions, but I jsut want to be sure. Also is there a prefered dither plug-in? Thanks for the info

PS - I was also considering mixing to 2 24bit files, opening a new session with just the left and right mix, then performing the dithering stage there (this could also help if I'm low on DSP). Are their any potnetial problems with this method?