I'm not clear about something here. When I looked in the Sonar8 documentation, I didn't see anything that impled to me separate "export" and "system" dither that are 2 different processes. The section of the manual  and help file discussing dither under Options-Audio (what people here have been calling "system" dither) states:

"When this option is turned on, SONAR uses dithering when you export a higher-bit file at a lower resolution, or lower the bit depth of a project's audio files by using the Tools-Change Audio Format command, or when you "render" audio (bounce, freeze, or apply effects)."

Is everyone here sure the dither options in the export/bounce dialogs aren't just temporary overrides for the setting on the audio page?

drewfx

rhythminmind


Ok I just made a video demonstrating that "system Dither" & "export Dither" are independent.

Dither Video WMV - (Play with windows media player)

...

A couple things aren't clear to me here:

1. How come when you normalize, you don't get a peak reading of 0.0dB?  

2. I tried a similar test, and dither (set only under Options/Audio) gives me a 0.0dB normalized peak, even with no external insert and import/export at either 32bits or (!) 64bits.

This is getting even more confusing to me...

drewfx

Rhythm, I agree with you on the "low level so it doesn't make that big a difference" issue. I'd just like to understand what's going on here/how Sonar implements dither.

What suprised me, was when I tried to replicate your test without an external insert, I still got dither (unless I screwed up somewhere - always a possibility). I expected to confirm your test by showing that the dither in your test was due to the external insert. But I got dither anyway, even when exporting to a 64bit file. That seems wrong to me...

drewfx

For me, I do not use freeze or bounce; I do use efx on audio tracks, and I am using some unrendered softsynths.

Call me crazy(!) - but I do hear a difference when enabling system dither to triangular, setting export dither to none, and using Elephant's dither vs. the same approach minus the system dither.

And . . . really, this issue is a bit less straightforward than it might seem.

rhythminmind


Jose,

You will want to leave it on.. You want to Dither at any point bitdepth decreases.
In my example the system dither is used to convert 64bit audio path to a 24bit external audio interface. If you leave it off bits would get truncated.
Remember dither level is different depending on the bitdepth.
Going from 64 to 24bit the dither noise is around -140. So now the audio path is a 24bit audio steam. When it comes back into Sonar it is 24bit audio. If I then wanted to export a 16bit mix from that I would still need to apply 16bit dither. (-90 or so)
& yes stacking noise shaping isn't recommended. That why for system dither you should use triangle & then at export noise shaping.

 
No, I was just talking about turning system dither OFF during exporting only.  Otherwise, I do agree it should be left ON.
 
I say this because then you get system dithering on top of noise shaping dithering, which to me doesn't seem right when exporting to a 16 bit file.

So, you support the view that the settings should be:

system dither = triangle - ON all the time

Export dither = choose as appropriate

pdarg


So, you support the view that the settings should be:

system dither = triangle - ON all the time

Export dither = choose as appropriate

Yes, this is reasonable.

But, keep in mind that the system dither is going to be at such a low level as to never be audible under normal conditions anyway. In order to hear a difference, you would need to amplify the system-dithered signal significantly. And if you system-dithered repeatedly (due to converting between 64/32/24 over and over), system dither noise might accumulate enough to become audible, and you may be better off turning it off for this reason. But most of the time (in the real world), I wouldn't expect system dither to make an audible difference either way.

Of course the people who can hear butterflies in China will tell you it makes a huge difference.

drewfx