Dithering options in A.Live

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1

Yes, I’m on a roll with my questions but hey when it rains it pours.

Is it possible you guys can explain the absolute best way to render final tracks in Live?

I spoke to Ableton’s tech support regarding the conversion of all samples to 24 and 32bit. Most samples like Vengeance are 16bit, but the track is set to 24 or 32 bit format. This means Live it has to convert all imported sounds to match up evenly before it bounces down. They said the following below…

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"Thank you for your e-mail.

For sample rate conversion, I’d suggest the freeware sound editor Adacity:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ "

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How does this work in the chain of events and whats it’s relation to all the dither options? Can you explain these two aspects further so I’m clear?

Thanks SA

Mo

2

Not sure if this is going to help but jon_fisher posted a small article about dithering here in the forums not so long ago although its not specific to Ableton Live it may help get your head around some of the principles which can be adapted to Live.

[url]http://www.sonicacademy.com/forum/Topic7683-8-1.aspx[/url]

3

I’ll check it out. Thanks. I really want to know specific to live because thats my main bag. Thanks again for the reference.

4

from experience moving your sample rate up has never caused me any problems.



i.e. going from 16bit to 24bit.



coming down from 24bit to 16bit however may cause a few artifacts.



you need to get a dithering plugin to handle this usually most mastering suite limiters have a dithering option on the output to support this.



my advise would be, if you are using 16 bit samples, there is no point in making your project any higher than that



unless you REALLY feel you are benefiting from the higher quality recording of audio. that is if you are recording in some external sounds , guitar / vocals etc at 24 bit or higher.



cd is 16 bit,

most samples are 16 bit.



just stick with 16 bit :wink:






5

i think using 24bit has advantages… as bry says theres not prob going from 16bit to 24bit and you only need to dither to 16bit on the master out.



I use 24 bit as it theoretically gives you more headroom when your using plugins.