Re: Dithering + bouncing confusion

@thcilnnahoj wrote:

Say I have a limiter plug-in that has a dither algorithm built in, and I want to make use of it directly inside Podium. Please help me see through this confusing stuff! 😉

Let’s say I set this very last plug-in in the chain to output 16-bit (dithered). Podium will still render a 32-bit file (or even 64) from this, right? Does this simply leave the other bits unused, or what happens here?

The float values should ideally be value-quantized by the dithering plugin so that a later conversion to 16 bit integer values (by Podium) just removes/truncates unused bits. It’s important to not apply any processing or gain-scaling after the dithering plugin.

If I would then use the export file dialog to create a 16-bit file from the master bounce render, won’t this essentially do the bit conversion twice – the second time just by truncating…?

You can open the sound properties for the master bounce file, and change it from floating point to 16-bit integer. That way it is not needed to do the bit conversion when you later export the arrangement as a wav file. But it is ok to just leave the master bounce as a float file.

Is there even a way to do this right currently?

Once Podium supports dithering natively, it will be an option in the export dialog. It will probably also be a global option for the audio interface, so that dithering is automatically applied each time Podium outputs audio to the audio interface, ensuring that realtime monitoring also is dithered. Of course, if you are using a dither plugin as the final step in the master chain, you should then not enable the native Podium dithering.