Hi Guys & Gals,
 
Having recently purchased some Waves Plugins, I was led down a road to get to know what Dithering is.
Check out this YouTube Video if you think your knowledge of Dithering is vague or maybe non-existent.
He uses a "Bit Level Reducing" plugin, in combination with a "Noise Generating" plugin to give a dramatic visual effect of the result of applying a Dither to audio... (As is normally done when creating your Master into the standard 16bit format).
 
I'm glad I'm getting a few smarts in this aspect of music production.
Because of my USB sound which is limited to 16bit recording, I have found that I have been unnecessarily applying dithering in the Sonar Export Audio process. Now I know that Dithering is only enabled when converting to a lower Bit Rate. (<-- EDIT: Sorry, I meant Bit Depth. - Thanks PeterL)
 
Anyway, enjoy the video and share with your pals if you think they could benefit.
 
here are some other links to read up on.
http://www.earlevel.com/main/1996/10/20/what-is-dither/
http://www.darkroommastering.com/blog/dithering-explained
 

Thanks!

AdrianNewington
Now I know that Dithering is only enabled when converting to a lower Bit Rate.
 

You meant Bit DEPTH, right? Terms can be confusing and often get casually used incorrectly. Dithering pertains to bit DEPTH, which can be thought of as amplitude resolution of the audio data. Bit depth and dithering is not related to bit RATE, which describes how fast bits are transmitted with various audio encoding and transmission schemes. Another way of thinking of it is that while bit DEPTH is the amplitude resolution of a signal, the bit rate is the time resolution of a signal being transmitted. In both cases, higher bit depths and bit rates result in higher quality audio ... to a point where one can no longer perceive the effects of additional increases.

Excellent demonstration!
 
I wonder, though, if it might leave people with a lot of questions. It doesn't address, for example, why random noise is better than quantization noise. Just showing the noise graph flattening out on a spectrum analyzer doesn't explain why that's an improvement. Or how dither noise still does the job after being skewed toward higher frequencies, or why different dither algorithms exist.
 
Still, I give the guy high marks for showing how you can explore these things for yourself, using tools you already have. One's DAW can be a great educational sound lab.

A couple of technical points:
 
1. The noise which is used to dither (which is not necessarily white noise) does not mask the distortion - it randomizes the quantization error so that the error essentially becomes noise instead of distortion.
 
2. You should never choose which noise shaping/dither algorithm to use while listening to quiet parts at unusually high volume. This is because the specific frequencies that the noise is moved to by the noise shaping is based in large part on the sensitivity of our hearing at a particular listening level. IOW, noise shaping is carefully optimized for our hearing at a reasonable listening level where the noise itself is very quiet, and if we listen at a louder level then our hearing changes and that careful optimization is lost.

Hi PeterL...
Yes you're right... Bit Depth was what I really meant.
My mistake. I got entangled in terminology.

I found some more interesting videos on this topic for your edification and viewing pleasure.
 
This one is an in depth explanation from an engineer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQ9IXSUzuM
 
Dither—The Naked Truth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCyA6LlB3As
 
Audio Dither Explained.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWpWIQw7HWU#t=299.345259