Helpful ReplyA serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio output...

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parco
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/19 17:23:30 (permalink)
THambrecht
I guess the problem is that SONAR creates floating point samples with the 64-Bit Double Precision - and FLAC cannot convert floating point samples.
FLAC FAQ writes:
In some cases it is possible to losslessly transform samples from an incompatible range to a FLAC-compatible range before encoding.
So the FLAC converter generates crackles although SONAR generates accurate samples, but unfurtunately with floating point samples. Then it is possible that different versions of the FLAC encoder generates different results.
 


But bro...... huh...... do you really think the Xiph.Org Foundation and Mega Nerd can really afford patent royalty fee of POW-R dither and truncate inside LibFlac/LIBSNDFILE? Do you really understand what I really mean guys?

#31
parco
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/19 17:29:15 (permalink)
bitflipper
pacor: this effect is not the same as letting analog hardware clip a signal for added color. For that, use a digital clipper. It will give you the desired distortion while assuring that individual sample values remain within the valid range.
 


that's what izotope ozone limiter does.
#32
parco
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/19 17:34:03 (permalink)
azslow3
Taking usefulness of such clipping apart (I do not think "a little bit well controller colored clippings" should look like digital overflow presented in the screen-shots, but as correctly commented that is not OP topic... I mean I agree we should separate possible processing bug from any particular content and its fidelity), could someone reproduce that?
 
I have tried with several settings in X2 without "success" (I mean the result was expected).
 
In case you can not publish an example (no one asked for copyrighted material, I think you could produce just one second of any clipping sound and in your environment buggy conversion should be reproducible), can you at least exactly specify:
* Driver settings. 64-bit precision check box.
* Project settings. Sample rate and BitDepth.
* Export audio: Sample rate, Bit depth, Dithering algorithm, Sub format.


what driver do you mean?
#33
azslow3
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/19 18:19:20 (permalink)
parco
azslow3
Taking usefulness of such clipping apart (I do not think "a little bit well controller colored clippings" should look like digital overflow presented in the screen-shots, but as correctly commented that is not OP topic... I mean I agree we should separate possible processing bug from any particular content and its fidelity), could someone reproduce that?
 
I have tried with several settings in X2 without "success" (I mean the result was expected).
 
In case you can not publish an example (no one asked for copyrighted material, I think you could produce just one second of any clipping sound and in your environment buggy conversion should be reproducible), can you at least exactly specify:
* Driver settings. 64-bit precision check box.
* Project settings. Sample rate and BitDepth.
* Export audio: Sample rate, Bit depth, Dithering algorithm, Sub format.


what driver do you mean?

Sonar Preference has only one "Driver settings" section.
 
PS. so far could not reproduce under Platinum as well. I have tried several settings, but it will be simpler in case you specify exact settings with which you observe the effect.

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#34
Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/20 03:51:47 (permalink)
parco
That is just a remastering work for a music with copyright already, so I just processed the most works in some single track softwares else and only decreased bit size in SONAR, and thus I didn't keep any SONAR project files for that.
 
I have that processed 44100Hz 64bit wav file in my hands, but due to the problem of copyright, I'm not allowed to post that file here. Would you mind if I send to you by PMs?



You should be able to repro the problem with any music content at similar gain levels. In any case if its hard to do, you can PM me a link to the original file that causes the problem with instructions on how to reproduce the problem.

Noel Borthwick
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#35
Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/20 04:20:53 (permalink)
bitflipper
Not likely. The encoder does not modify the samples it is given, they must already be integer data. You can illustrate this by attempting to use the standalone FLAC encoder on a floating-point file. The encoder aborts with an "unsupported format" error. SONAR knows this and converts the sample data accordingly into a temporary file that's then passed to the encoder.
 
Any samples exceeding 0dB simply cannot be converted to integers. They can exist within SONAR only because floating-point data allows bigger numbers than the number of bits would otherwise accommodate.
 
Trying to convert >0dB values to FLAC is an exercise in futility. Blaming it on the encoder is like pouring 12 oz. of water into an 8 oz. glass and saying it's the glass' fault for getting your feet wet.


Actually SONAR does pass raw floating point data to LIBSNDFILE (when the export bit depth is 24, 32 or 64).
Internally libsndfile would be doing the conversion to integer before passing it to the FLAC encoder.
Based on the OP's observations it would appear that something is going wrong when LIBSNDFILE converts the float data to integer before doing the FLAC encoding.
 
From SONAR's point of view the code looks like this:
 
long CLibsndFile::Write( char* pSamples, long cSamples )
{
 // Figure out the sample width and call the appropriate API to write the samples
 DWORD dwSampWidth = m_pwfx->wBitsPerSample / 8;
 switch (dwSampWidth)
 {
  case 2: // short
   return (long)sf_writef_short( (SNDFILE*)m_hf, (short*)pSamples, cSamples );

  case 3:
   // The assert below shouldn't fire because the caller should have disallowed a 24 bit source format
   // and upconverted to 32 bit instead - libsndfile doesn't support 24 bit as a source to encode from
   ASSERT(FALSE);
   return 0;

  case 4: // float
   return (long)sf_writef_float( (SNDFILE*)m_hf, (float*)pSamples, cSamples );

  case 8: // double
   return (long)sf_writef_double( (SNDFILE*)m_hf, (double*)pSamples, cSamples );
 }

  return 0;
}

 

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#36
parco
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/20 09:16:15 (permalink)
azslow3
parco
azslow3
Taking usefulness of such clipping apart (I do not think "a little bit well controller colored clippings" should look like digital overflow presented in the screen-shots, but as correctly commented that is not OP topic... I mean I agree we should separate possible processing bug from any particular content and its fidelity), could someone reproduce that?
 
I have tried with several settings in X2 without "success" (I mean the result was expected).
 
In case you can not publish an example (no one asked for copyrighted material, I think you could produce just one second of any clipping sound and in your environment buggy conversion should be reproducible), can you at least exactly specify:
* Driver settings. 64-bit precision check box.
* Project settings. Sample rate and BitDepth.
* Export audio: Sample rate, Bit depth, Dithering algorithm, Sub format.


what driver do you mean?

Sonar Preference has only one "Driver settings" section.
 
PS. so far could not reproduce under Platinum as well. I have tried several settings, but it will be simpler in case you specify exact settings with which you observe the effect.




OK, here're for you:
 
The one second crackle sample:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!ANdgTSeq042ThFk
 
The driver settings:

 
 
 
The project settings:

 
 
The Export settings:

 
 
 
And the subformat:

#37
parco
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/20 09:32:36 (permalink)
Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
parco
That is just a remastering work for a music with copyright already, so I just processed the most works in some single track softwares else and only decreased bit size in SONAR, and thus I didn't keep any SONAR project files for that.
 
I have that processed 44100Hz 64bit wav file in my hands, but due to the problem of copyright, I'm not allowed to post that file here. Would you mind if I send to you by PMs?



You should be able to repro the problem with any music content at similar gain levels. In any case if its hard to do, you can PM me a link to the original file that causes the problem with instructions on how to reproduce the problem.




 
Just sent you a PM message, please check.
#38
azslow3
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/20 11:34:42 (permalink)
So, my observations. All settings as in your dialogs, except specified explicitly:
1) Original signal mixed heavily over 0dB
1.a) "Export audio" dialog "Bit depth" 24  : FLAC has not digitally clipped the signal (also over 0db), heavy digital "bugs" in the waveform, of 2(!) types:
 I) one is already mentioned big +-
 II) DC shift of sample groups (like to +6dB, so completely out of +-0 region).
 
1.b) "Export audio" dialog "Bit depth" 16 : FLAC IS digitally clipped (no signals over 0db), but no bugs in the waveform
 
2) Original signal mixed in general under 0db, but one time it is over 0 db : the same is 1.a, so the waveform is buggy
 
3) Original signal mixed strict under 0db, no problems.
 
Note: when analyzing previously posted screenshots or reproduce that in Sonar, keep in mind that Sonar is drawing strain line on the border of visible area (f.e. 0db). Zoom our dB scale to check that the signal is really clipped there or in fact cross the border.
 
My conclusion: with 16bit setting, exported material is digitally clipped at 0db. With 24bit setting the signal is somewhere (Sonar, libsnd, flac?) normalized to allow saving over 0db and something in this procedure is buggy (the signal is destroyed not only on limit).
 
For the "usefulness" discussion: since in 24bit mode the signal is not clipped but scaled, even when the bug is found and fixes there will be no sense to use that approach. I mean the effect is the same as just lowering master output volume and than write in the file header "maximum level is thought to be +5dB instead of 0".

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#39
Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/20 12:07:59 (permalink)
As I mentioned above we don't normalize inside SONAR - were passing the raw float data to Libsndfile which handles all the encoding tasks.

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#40
interpolated
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/20 12:19:05 (permalink)
I think this has become a bit overly convoluted. Essentially the lower bit depth the more quantisation (squaring) of analogue signals will happen. 0dB is silence or your reference point from what we determine is louder and quieter. 
 
With 0dB in digital is essentially a limit of the equipment or process you are using, so if you are using an "analogue process/algorithm" . 24-bit is essentially that and 8-bit of floating point information. Some DAC use double-precision floating point to counteract aliasing and clipping.
 
24-bit is a a good resolution however as most consumer equipment is 20-bit sound/4-bit noise does it really matter.
 

I have computer stuff.
 
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#41
azslow3
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/20 12:44:46 (permalink)
Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
As I mentioned above we don't normalize inside SONAR - were passing the raw float data to Libsndfile which handles all the encoding tasks.

I also do not produce any music... I just send it to SONAR and wonder why most of the time it produce very strange sounding result
 
Back to serious. How libsndfile is going to work is controlled by "sf_command", including clipping processing, normalization, etc. And that should be set by Sonar.

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#42
bvideo
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/20 16:04:20 (permalink)
Where is the dithering done when sending float to libsndfile? I.e. the objective is to write 24 bits after dithering from float. So is dithering done in the float-to-24-bit conversion? Therefore inside libsndfile? Or some other way? Seems dithering was not implemented in some earlier versions of libsndfile.

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#43
azslow3
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/20 17:32:51 (permalink)
bvideo
Where is the dithering done when sending float to libsndfile? I.e. the objective is to write 24 bits after dithering from float. So is dithering done in the float-to-24-bit conversion? Therefore inside libsndfile? Or some other way? Seems dithering was not implemented in some earlier versions of libsndfile.

Really good question... Pow-R is "Platinum only" feature, I also do not think that happens in the libsndfile.
 
Also "Bit depth" influence the export, unclear which part of the software is using this setting (and how).
 
PS. I am almost sure that I will never be able to recognize dithering effect when converting from 32bit project  to 24bit, especially from material recorded at 24bit and processed by 64bit engine  

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#44
Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/20 18:07:28 (permalink)
The only time SONAR's dithering will kick in for FLAC export is when you pick 16 bits as SONAR's export bit depth.
This is because all other formats are treated as float. For 24 bit export via LIBSNDFILE we pass through 32 bit float to libsndfile since it doesn't handle 24 bit input.
IOW in all the OP's use cases no dithering is being done in SONAR at all. I just checked it and it doesn't execute the dither code.
In the case of LIBSNDFILE encoders, the bit depth and other bounce settings from SONAR's export dialog are applied prior to the audio being sent for encoding. In most cases you will want to set those to match the project settings. i.e float, stereo and same sample rate as project. That way you leave it to LIBSNDFILE to do the final conversion to the destination format once.

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#45
Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/20 18:27:30 (permalink)
azslow3
Back to serious. How libsndfile is going to work is controlled by "sf_command", including clipping processing, normalization, etc. And that should be set by Sonar.



We don't use sf_command to set any of the obscure LIBSNDFILE options today. We only use it to query properties.
They apparently have a SFC_SET_DITHER_ON_WRITE now for which there is zero documentation :)
The params for it show some rudimentary dither support.
 
Today most likely the default LIBSNDFILE behavior is to truncate data which is likely whats causing the noise.

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azslow3
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/20 19:10:57 (permalink)
Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
azslow3
Back to serious. How libsndfile is going to work is controlled by "sf_command", including clipping processing, normalization, etc. And that should be set by Sonar.


We don't use sf_command to set any of the obscure LIBSNDFILE options today. We only use it to query properties.
They apparently have a SFC_SET_DITHER_ON_WRITE now for which there is zero documentation :)
The params for it show some rudimentary dither support.
 
Today most likely the default LIBSNDFILE behavior is to truncate data which is likely whats causing the noise.

I put the latest libsndfile into platinum, no changes.
 
From my observations, the problem is that it does not truncate data by default. At least not for FLAC. So:
* export to WAV 24 bit - digital cliping
* export to FLAC 16bit (in dialog) - probably cliped in Sonar during dithering
* export to FLAC 24bit (in dialog) - no digital cliping but destroyed waveform at random (but reproducible) places
 
May be SFC_SET_NORM and/or SGC_SET_CLIPPING explicitly can solve that?
 
PS I want repeat that the effect is always reproducible for me. Not that I am ever going to export clipping projects into FLAC, but it is better to solve that to avoid confusion
 
PSPS exporting to 24 WAV, so truncated data, is as I understand "desired" OP effect. The noise produced by the bug is completely different kind...

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#47
bitflipper
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/21 00:56:16 (permalink)
Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
 
Actually SONAR does pass raw floating point data to LIBSNDFILE (when the export bit depth is 24, 32 or 64).
Internally libsndfile would be doing the conversion to integer before passing it to the FLAC encoder.
Based on the OP's observations it would appear that something is going wrong when LIBSNDFILE converts the float data to integer before doing the FLAC encoding.
 
From SONAR's point of view the code looks like this:
 
[code]long CLibsndFile::Write( char* pSamples, long cSamples )
{
 // Figure out the sample width and call the appropriate API to write the samples
 DWORD dwSampWidth = m_pwfx->wBitsPerSample / 8;
 switch (dwSampWidth)
 {
  case 2: // short
   return (long)sf_writef_short( (SNDFILE*)m_hf, (short*)pSamples, cSamples );

  case 3:
   // The assert below shouldn't fire because the caller should have disallowed a 24 bit source format
   // and upconverted to 32 bit instead - libsndfile doesn't support 24 bit as a source to encode from
   ASSERT(FALSE);
   return 0;

  case 4: // float
   return (long)sf_writef_float( (SNDFILE*)m_hf, (float*)pSamples, cSamples );

  case 8: // double
   return (long)sf_writef_double( (SNDFILE*)m_hf, (double*)pSamples, cSamples );
 }

  return 0;
}



Thanks for the clarification, Noel. It would appear that the standalone FLAC encoder does not itself use LIBSNDFILE, thus depriving itself of the ability to accept floating point data directly. I guess the author wanted to minimize external dependencies - even though libsndfile is universal, free under the GPL and can handle just about any data type you can throw at it.
 
A look at the code (flac.c in libsndfile) reveals some interesting math (e.g. multiplying by 0x7FFF to convert float to int and then calling lrint() to round it.), but I don't understand it well enough to say if it could result in overflows and misplaced sign bits (the code is almost completely devoid of comments). 


All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to. 

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#48
Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/21 02:35:05 (permalink)
azslow3
I put the latest libsndfile into platinum, no changes.
 
From my observations, the problem is that it does not truncate data by default. At least not for FLAC. So:
* export to WAV 24 bit - digital cliping
* export to FLAC 16bit (in dialog) - probably cliped in Sonar during dithering
* export to FLAC 24bit (in dialog) - no digital cliping but destroyed waveform at random (but reproducible) places
 
May be SFC_SET_NORM and/or SGC_SET_CLIPPING explicitly can solve that?
 
PS I want repeat that the effect is always reproducible for me. Not that I am ever going to export clipping projects into FLAC, but it is better to solve that to avoid confusion
 
PSPS exporting to 24 WAV, so truncated data, is as I understand "desired" OP effect. The noise produced by the bug is completely different kind...




I can try SET_CLIPPING and see if it improves the results with the OP's file. 

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#49
parco
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/21 08:27:18 (permalink)
Then I wonder that...... where does the POW-R dither be done? inside SONAR or libsndfile? As what I know....... the patent user license fee of POW-R is not cheap so far...........
#50
interpolated
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/21 08:31:57 (permalink)
I presume pow-r will happen just befire the final output stage as it is not exclusively part of any codec more like a propriety dithering process.

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#51
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/21 11:58:02 (permalink)
Libsndfile is external to SONAR. Dithering is applied when SONAR converts from float to integer. Since in this case we do not convert to integer before sending the audio to libsndfile there is no dithering applied (at least at the SONAR level). So today the only case with libsndfile where dithering would apply would be when you pick 16 bit as the export bit depth in SONAR.

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#52
Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/21 11:58:12 (permalink)
Libsndfile is external to SONAR. Dithering is applied when SONAR converts from float to integer. Since in this case we do not convert to integer before sending the audio to libsndfile there is no dithering applied (at least at the SONAR level). So today the only case with libsndfile where dithering would apply would be when you pick 16 bit as the export bit depth in SONAR.

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parco
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/21 12:47:00 (permalink)
Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
Libsndfile is external to SONAR. Dithering is applied when SONAR converts from float to integer. Since in this case we do not convert to integer before sending the audio to libsndfile there is no dithering applied (at least at the SONAR level). So today the only case with libsndfile where dithering would apply would be when you pick 16 bit as the export bit depth in SONAR.


So are you telling me that there are totally no any dithering done but only truncation while exporting to 32bit or 24bit?
#54
pwalpwal
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/21 12:56:02 (permalink)
parco
Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
Libsndfile is external to SONAR. Dithering is applied when SONAR converts from float to integer. Since in this case we do not convert to integer before sending the audio to libsndfile there is no dithering applied (at least at the SONAR level). So today the only case with libsndfile where dithering would apply would be when you pick 16 bit as the export bit depth in SONAR.


So are you telling me that there are totally no any dithering done but only truncation while exporting to 32bit or 24bit?




and to clarify, this is only when exporting to flac?

just a sec

#55
gswitz
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/21 13:08:25 (permalink)
I suppose with floats you could dither the least significant bit, but the variance of level of this dither would significantly complicate quantifying the benefit of that dither. Also, with thirty two bit bounces where every available bit is used at the loudest moments, humans could never detect the precision on any system.

I believe that what Noel is saying is that dither is never applied to floats. That would mean that internal bounces never get dither, regardless of your settings, since the files created are floats. Noel?

Corollary: changing the setting for dither between internal bounce and export is not necessary.

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#56
bitflipper
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/21 13:50:11 (permalink)
That is correct. Dither is never needed for 32- or 64-bit floats, and usually not needed for 24-bit int, either. libsndfile does apply dither as part of the conversion from float to int. Near as I can tell, the dither algorithm appears to be Triangular. Lest we drift too far afield, let's remember that dither is not relevant to the OP's initial complaint.


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#57
parco
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/21 16:45:47 (permalink)
So.......... does it count towards a lie to SONAR users while the export dialog shows us some dithering choices but actually not using them at all no matter what we've chosen........?
#58
azslow3
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/21 17:33:21 (permalink)
Sorry people, I am noob and probably not getting something right about dithering and the difference in the bit depth.
 
* the first question is theoretical pure: if someone want dithering when moving from 32 to 24 bit, how he/she can test it is really working? I mean for that, that someone need at least 32bit (real DAC bits!) interface.
 
* the second is simple test inside Sonar: export some peace as 24bit WAV and the same peace as 16bit WAV. Import both into 2 tracks (24 bit project and audio drivers) and add Channel tool with flipped phase. Start playback. Can you see or hear SOMETHING? I mean my master bus show -96dB and my speakers/phones keep absolute silence.

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#59
azslow3
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Re: A serious bug from FLAC encoder of SONAR Platinum when dithering out 24bit audio outpu 2017/05/21 17:40:28 (permalink)
parco
So.......... does it count towards a lie to SONAR users while the export dialog shows us some dithering choices but actually not using them at all no matter what we've chosen........?

As long users claim that is VERY IMPORTANT PROFESSIONAL thing, but can not noticed that in the resulting sound... I think that is acceptable
 
So it is working when it make sense but not disabled when it make no sense.

Sonar 8LE -> Platinum infinity, REAPER, Windows 10 pro
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RME Babyface Pro (M-Audio Audiophile Firewire/410, VS-20), Kawai CN43, TD-11, Roland A500S, Akai MPK Mini, Keystation Pro, etc.
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#60
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