The solution is to add dither when you save the file to a lower sampling rate. Some engineers say that even if you don’t actually hear quantization distortion, it makes the music sound harsher overall. The bottom line is that it’s a form of distortion and you don’t want it to be present in your music. Your music usually masks it, but with 16-bit audio, you can sometimes hear quantization error on quiet passages, or when the music is fading in or out. As a result, the rounding can cause something called quantization error (aka “quantization distortion” or “truncation distortion”), which manifests itself as low-level noise or distortion. When your DAW or audio editor quantizes the bits when converting from 24-bit audio to 16-bit audio (or from 32-bit fixed point to 24-bit, or any other such reduction), there are significantly fewer steps available to map the amplitude levels to. In a MIDI sequence, when you take a sixteenth note phrase and quantize it to eighth notes, your DAW has to reassign any sixteenth notes that are not already falling on an eighth note subdivision to the nearest one. This process is known as “quantization.” It’s a different process than when you quantize notes in MIDI, but it is similar in concept.
Izotope ozone 8 dither software#
When you convert a file from a 24 to 16-bit resolution, your digital audio software removes (“truncates”) the last 8 bits and has to round out the data to fit the smaller number of digits available. In terms of dynamic range, each bit is equivalent to 6dB. Sixteen-bit audio can represent up to 65,536 discrete levels of amplitude, whereas 24-bit has the capability for 16,777,216 levels. When you compare 16 and 24-bit audio, the difference in resolution is pretty striking. The higher the bit-depth, the more precise the description of the amplitude will be. It quantifies how precisely the amplitude, and therefore the dynamic range-which in this case can be described as the difference between loudest sounds that can be captured and the noise floor-will be represented when digitized. The bit depth (also referred to as “word length”) refers to the size of each sample, in terms of the number of zeros and ones it can contain. The higher the sampling rate, the greater the precision for reproducing the frequency range. To capture frequencies up to 20kHz, which is the high range of human hearing, the lowest sampling rate commonly used is 44.1kHz (the rate in the CD spec), but these days, rates of 48kHz or higher are also common. Otherwise, distortion called “aliasing” can mar the sound. The general rule, based on the Nyquist Theorem, is that you must have a sampling rate that’s greater than or equal to twice the highest frequency of the audio. The sampling rate governs how many samples your converter captures in a second to digitize the audio, and is critical in terms of the frequency response.
To accomplish that, the ADC captures snapshots (aka “samples”) of your audio at a specified rate and size, which are referred to as the sampling rate and the bit depth.
Izotope ozone 8 dither series#
When audio is digitized by an analog to digital converter (ADC)-say, when you record into your interface-and it gets sent to your DAW, the analog audio signal from your microphone or DI is transformed into a series of ones and zeros that digitally represent your audio. Before we go into the specifics, it’s useful to quickly review some basic concepts about digital audio. Dither noise actually masks what’s called “quantization distortion,” which causes noise and artifacts in digital audio. The concept of dithering might seem counterintuitive, but it’s an effective process. So, what is dither? It’s a form of low-level noise that is intentionally added to a digital audio file as it’s rendered to a lower bit depth.
Izotope ozone 8 dither how to#
We’ve compiled a one-stop shop for understanding when, why and how to use dither.ĭither is one of the least understood words in the music-production lexicon, but it’s an essential ingredient when working with digital audio, and one that you really should understand if you’re involved in mixing or mastering. Dither is one of the least understood topics when it comes to mixing and mastering, but it can actually come in handy.
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