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H
HP5DDA
Participant
May 21, 2021
Question

Dithering option seems to be working in the opposite way.

  • May 21, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 1287 views

Hi there,

Tried both dithering options (i.e. with "Enabled" and "Disabled") through
File > Save As > Convert Sample Type > Bit Depth > Advanced > Dithering.
But the saved output file with the 'Dithering' option looks like working in the opposite way (i.e. dithering is disabled when "Enabled" is selected and vice versa).
Notice that I’m currently using Adobe Audition ‘Build 14.2.0.34’ (the previous versions look the same though) and tried 48KHz/16-bit generated tone with extremely small gain (-90 dB) just to see the effects of dithering more clearly.
Additionally,
Close/Reopen the file is required to check out the changes only when Dithering is “Disabled” (but actually dithered). No need to reopen it if “Enabled”.
And the last setting is gone (indicating "Disabled" always) when I revisit the menu again (just to make sure which option I've selected, right before saving it finally) which is not pretty intuitive and confusing.
Hope the GUI get revised, if applicable.

 

Thanks,
HP Lee

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

SteveG_AudioMasters_
Community Expert
SteveG_AudioMasters_Community Expert
Community Expert
May 21, 2021

I don't think it's anything like as simple as that, I'm afraid and there are some background conditions that you need to be aware of. The most important one is that tone is generated as 32-bit FP dithered whatever you've got the file set to. This was best explained by one of the developers in this thread (just ignore the background griping and read the answer marked as correct). Nevertheless I think that the 'save' bug he mentioned is still present...

 

I will try at some stage to see if we can get this looked at again, because I don't think it's particularly helpful the way it works at present; it needs to be clearer, at least. I strongly suspect though that it will become a 'back burner' issue...

H
HP5DDAAuthor
Participant
May 21, 2021

Hi SteveG,

 

Actually, I did recognize the thread you mentioned before posting my query here to wider experts. 🙂

Notice that "extremely small gain (-90 dB)" is actually coming from there. But looks to me still not working as it says (but in the opposite way). 

 

"I think what you're looking for is to get a signal that is quantized to 16-bit or 24-bit PCM without dither.  I tried this out a few ways, and I think I came across what I would agree with is a bug. Nonetheless, you can accomplish what you want. Here's the two paths where I think it makes a difference:

 

(A) Create a new file, but choose the bit depth to be 16-bit. What this does is automatically choose "16-bit" when you do File > Save, for the data type of the file, but also shows you 16-bit-quantized sample values in the vertical ruler (shown above). When you then Generate Tones, the signal will always be generated with 32-bit floats (we don't know what the user will save as later or what sort of processing they want to do, so we choose the highest precision we have).  Upon saving, or even File > Save As... and checking that dither was disabled, I noticed that the resulting file still seemed to be  dithered. I would consider this a bug when doing File > Save As... and explicitly checking that dither was disabled.

 

(B) Instead of creating a new file labeled 16-bit, just choose 32-bit Float (I agree that this is non-intuitive). Then save as you wish (or use Convert Sample Type) and ensure in either case that dither is disabled. In this workflow, we honor the no-dither setting and I end up with 16-bit quantized sample values when I generate a 440 Hz sine wave at -90.308998699194359 dBFS (about 15-bits of precision). I end up with what I think you're going for."

 

Thanks,

HP Lee

 

H
HP5DDAAuthor
Participant
May 27, 2021

Just to be clear, see below screenshots why I reached to conclusion that it's working in the opposite way.

Dithering Enabled (@ Audition)

Dithering Disabled (@ Audition)

 

Notice that Y-axis in ‘sample value’.

 

Thanks,

HP Lee

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