Mastering In The Box?

[Patsquatch]

Hi, I've been getting in to mastering lately and have a question about bit rates.

Starting with the 24 bit mix I open up a 24 bit protools session. Create 2 audio tracks and an Aux track. have the mix buss out of its track into the aux then into the empty audio track. I insert Ozone 4 on to the aux track and perform my EQ, limiting and Dither. I then would record the mastered mix onto the empty audio track running it through Ozone 4. After it is bounced I then export the mastered region out of the session via the export file as option (Shift, command, K) as a 44.1/16 bit file tweakhead.

Because I am recording it back into a 24 bit session is the dither actually doing anything or is it just adding noise. Should I really be recording it out of protools into another recording system?

[MoreSpaceEcho]

i would leave the dither off at first. do your eq and whatever in ozone. save that as 24 bit. do the fade in/out, put the dither on when you export to 16 bit.
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www.oldcolonymastering.com

[Patsquatch]

Ok so I should process the dither using the audio suite after I record off the track. I'm still left with a 24 bit file with dither on it until I export it out of pro tools. The other idea i had was to apply the dither when I burn the final PMCD. In other words leave it as 24 bit until I burn the final master or create the DDP.

[Bro Shark]

I was told by an employee at Avid that shift-command-K automatically applies dither. He said you would only use a dither plugin if you are doing a realtime bounce to a different bit rate.

[Patsquatch]

If thats true I wonder if there is a way to select which type of dither you would like to use. If it is only the DigiRack version that's terrible.

[Bro Shark]

Yeah, I don't even know if it's true. I don't have the patience to pore through the documentation, so take it for what it is: unverified info.

It would make sense though, since it's generally better IMO to record to a stereo track in the same session than bounce, and you want to apply dither only as a last step, when converting to 16 bit. For what it's worth, that's how my mastering guy works.

[Dakota]

Agreed. Leave all dither off while doing this kind of thing. Only dither at the very last step, the final trimmed file when it goes to 16 bit.

Voxengo R8brain is very good for final conversion and dither.

An aside you might consider: when I'm mastering, even if the source mix is 44.1k, I import to a 88.2k 24bit session so any plugs used run at high resolution. This does make a favorable sonic difference. Then down-convert only at the last step.

[kslight]

[Bro Shark]

[kslight]

[/quote]

Everything you said, except don't apply dither. If what I was told is correct, when you ctrl-shift-K and select 16 bits (from 24) then PT will automatically apply dither while it's converting the file.[/quote]

Is there any meaningful difference between the dither from Avid versus that on the Waves plugins?

[kslight]

Hmm I get nothing when I try to CTRL-shift-k... When I do file export to AAF/OMF I just get a million or so different files...not one wav.

What am I missing?

[Bro Shark]

[Patsquatch]

[Patsquatch]

So I tried recording my mastered mix with out dither and then apply dither after I trimmed the head and tail. I then exported the region via shift command k. It sounds like it's missing a lot of the detail. did I do anything wrong or am I just hearing the 24 bit and 16 bit difference.

[Bro Shark]