Hello everyone. Had a question about the dithering process and just wanted to make sure I understand correctly. When we dither at 16 bit is our song then rendered at 16 bits? Or is it rendered to whatever bit the file or project is set too? I think I usually use 32 bit float for my project settings. Is the dither so that if we decide to reduce the file size in the future it has the dither on it to in a sense preserve what resolution it can? Any information on the dithering process and important things to know would be much appreciated!
To my understanding, dither is only meant as preparation for bouncing down to a lower resolution so I wouldn’t dither until the very end. If you’re bouncing to 24 bit, make sure your dither is set to 24 bit resolution, if you’re bouncing to 16 bit then make sure your dither is set to 16 bit with some noise shaping. IOW only dither when you’re ready to bounce and leave it off otherwise. Since dithering is adding noise to account for the lost information in moving to a lower resolution and will therefore be printed, you want to be careful to only do it at the end.
I’m sure I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong on this.
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