waves master dither.

[^Tripper^]

heya all. question regarding dither on the waves masters plugs.

the manual recommendes leaving dither on. and i would if it was the final plug in the chain. however, what if i plug say LinEq followed by Lin multiband? do i have to enable dither on LinEQ? the manual sorta recommeds so, but thats assuming if the plug was the last in the chain. and if i slap on L2 on the end, that would mean three stages of dither. dosent sound kosher..

dont want to keep adding dither to the signal for obvious reasons. anybody and ideas?

much obligied.

[Allan Speers]

Good question. The answer is that Waves recommends leaving dither on, but set to 24-bit.

Since the TDM bus is 24-bit,you should leave dither on and set to 24-bit (the default) on all plugins except the last in line. On the last, set it of course to 16-bit.

Most plugins that dither their outputs back to 24-bit don't offer NON-dither as a choice. Since the Waves' stuff gives the option of 16-bit dither, it makes sense that they incorporated both dithers into one control.

However, perhaps they should not have included "none" as an option.

[Mark Haliday]

Interesting question !

Normally 24 bit dither should be left on.

However some of us are using the dithered mixer plugin (downloadable HERE )
I suppose that in that case the waves dither can be done without(in theory)

Guess I have to test in depth...
[img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[Alécio Costa]

Mark, I use 5.1.1 on here and seems I only have the 24 and the 16 bit optimized mixer. So, the download most of you have done many time ago is the one on June 2001 5.1.1 b2 dithered mixer, right?

I work at semi direct out mode, insert plugins inside pt, but use a console for controlling each session´s track ( console :02R). will It really be worth? Digi?

thanks
[img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[^Tripper^]

this has made me wonder to no end...

well, the plugs work at 48bit , double percesion apprently..so if linEQ is processing something, and i spit the output back out to lin MB, which also works at 48bit, it seems the dither would not be necessary....

consider this, linEQ does its number crunching at 48 bits, dithers it back out to 24, linMB, the next in the chain, works at 48 bit also and dither it back out at 24 again... seems kind pointless to dither the output of lin EQ to 24 if linMB is gonna work at 48 also... am i making sense?

following this line of reasoning, it would seem apporiate to let LinEQ do its thing at 48, and spit that 48 bit signal out to LinMB. no dither whatsoever.

unless the output of Lin EQ goes back to the TDM bus, which is 24, then to LinMB.

dang... why do i think of such things???

beer anyone? [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Mark Haliday]

Mark, I use 5.1.1 on here and seems I only have the 24 and the 16 bit optimized mixer. So, the download most of you have done many time ago is the one on June 2001 5.1.1 b2 dithered mixer, right?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Yes it is. But IMHO it is mainly useful if you mix inside Pro tools. in "semi direct" mode it might not be that obvious but you should try it.

The down side is that it consumes DSP power more or less proportionally to the amount of plugins you have active. This has led me to max out my mix system to seven cards... [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img]

But well worth it in my opinion
[img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[Mark Haliday]

unless the output of Lin EQ goes back to the TDM bus, which is 24, then to LinMB.
dang... why do i think of such things???

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Somewhere in the duc lies a *huge* thread on the subject, that went very technical about this question.

I seem to remember something about whether you span or not over several DSP. you go back to 24 bits in one case and stay at 48 in the other or something of the sort.

I have settled this question in a very simple fashion. I like the dithered mixer, and the waves 24 bit dither with moderate shaping suits my ear as well.
So I use both and I stopped worrying for now !

By the way, after years of doing some serious mastering on a Windows PC with good Waves native plugs, I started recently doing all the processing in protools TDM with Sony and Waves REN and Masters plugs, and man, what a difference !
So Pro Tools can't be as bad as they say... [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[waterboy]

unless the output of Lin EQ goes back to the TDM bus, which is 24, then to LinMB.

Yeah, that is exactly the case and the reason why you want to leave dither on the FIR comp and eq. Waves may be able to see further down the development road than we can so the option of turning off dither may foreshadow a true 48 bit superhighway?! This is a topic that has sparked a lot of spirited (rancorous?) debate.

[^Tripper^]

thanxs for all the informative replies guys... a real 'should I, shouldnt I?" question...

the beauty of DUC, the debates that rages on around here... informative, and sometimes funny...

looks like i gotta use my ears...havent done that in awhile.. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

later all!

[Corey Shay]

It's really quite simple actually. The TDM inserts are restricted to 24 bits. This means that all plugins must have both a 24 bit input and a 24 bit output. This does not mean that the plugins can't process internally at higher rates however. Ideally for plugins that process internally at 48 bit, it would be best for them to be able to simply pass that 48 bit signal on to each other, but this is impossible in a TDM system, so you must dither or truncate back to 24 bits every time you come out of the plugin (it's just that the masters plugins give you a choice). However, most native plugins work at 32 bit floating point and the native DAW's also are always set at 32 bit everywhere, which means it allows plugins to pass their 32 bit floating point signals to each other directly.

In theory in PT, the dither should be left on, but you just listen and pick what you like best.