Transcending Music

vaultwit


I need to know whether I need to dither my songs or not. I will be distributing my music online in the form of mp3s, so non-dithering may work, but what if people decide to burn it onto a cd? Then there will be a problem

Which is why I was wondering if songs bought from iTunes, amazon, rhapsody, spotify, etc have dithering or not. Since I'm sure many people by songs from there and burn them onto cd's

Why is it a problem? It's just an MP3 on a CD

Well assuming they burn an audio cd, not an mp3/data cd. Audio cd's require 16-bit (and therefore dithering), no?

vaultwit

Transcending Music

vaultwit


I need to know whether I need to dither my songs or not. I will be distributing my music online in the form of mp3s, so non-dithering may work, but what if people decide to burn it onto a cd? Then there will be a problem

Which is why I was wondering if songs bought from iTunes, amazon, rhapsody, spotify, etc have dithering or not. Since I'm sure many people by songs from there and burn them onto cd's

Why is it a problem? It's just an MP3 on a CD

Well assuming they burn an audio cd, not an mp3/data cd. Audio cd's require 16-bit (and therefore dithering), no?

Dithering is required because of the fact you are reducing bit depth not necessarily because it is on a CD. The 16-bit format however is part of the Redbook standard; to have a standard CD that should be playable in virtually all CD players 16-bit is required. The CD itself doesn't care; it's just a medium. These days though a good amount of players can play CD's that have MP3's on them. People burn MP3's to CD's all the time.  

CJ, Your post is very interesting to me.  Either here or in some book somewhere, I read that I should always use POWR3 if I had the computer horsepower, so I was mindlessly following that.  My music is a bit of an odd mix of Broadway, country, and rock, but definitely not metal, so maybe you are advising me to go with POWR2.  If so, I will try that—although I doubt my ears will pick up the differences yours will.
 
 

vaultwit


I need to know whether I need to dither my songs or not. I will be distributing my music online in the form of mp3s, so non-dithering may work, but what if people decide to burn it onto a cd? Then there will be a problem

Which is why I was wondering if songs bought from iTunes, amazon, rhapsody, spotify, etc have dithering or not. Since I'm sure many people by songs from there and burn them onto cd's

Other peoples methods may differ, but I always take my 24 bit master track and then convert it to 16 bit using dither for CD burning.


The 16 bit version is then used for MP3 conversion

One technical point - dithering doesn't "mask" quantization error, but rather decorrelates the errors from your signal.

And a very important point from the iZotope "Dithering with Ozone" PDF that goes against what many people who don't really understand the subtleties of noise shaped dither recommend:

Last, and not least, the psychoacoustic curves are designed to be effective at the lower thresholds of hearing. If you turn up the level to an unrealistic level to "better hear" the dither, you're undoing the whole point of psychoacoustic shaping. If you convert to 12 or 8 bits, you're also turning up the level of the dither signal into a range that it wasn't designed to be effective at. What this means is that psychoacoustic shaped dither has to be evaluated at normal listening levels -- take your mix, play it at a normal listening level so the full scale part of the mix is appropriate, and then evaluate the dither during quiet parts, fade-outs, etc. without turning up the level. We recognize that it is difficult to hear at this level -- which is the whole point.

My head hurts.

My head hurts.

Hey, if this stuff was easy everybody could do it! Plus we'd have very little to talk about.

CJ, Your post is very interesting to me.  Either here or in some book somewhere, I read that I should always use POWR3 if I had the computer horsepower, so I was mindlessly following that.

LOL, PC horsepower doesn't play a role in deciding what dither to use. Some dithers sound better in certain genre's. This is all personel preference. IIRC POWR3 does take the most power to run, but if you can run POWR3 ,then you can run POWR1. Its like a fly landing on a 100lb barbell. Its not going to add much weight to it and amke the lifter not able to lift it.  Your pc isbnt going to crash or drop out by using a certain dither.

Cj

Page 936 in the Sonar X2 Reference Guide describes all of the dithering types in Sonar.