integerpoet wrote: ↑01 Dec 2023
Assuming you are right, which I am inclined to do, this kind of nullifies the advice Izotope gives for using their ditherer: Make sure Ozone is the last thing in the signal chain.
I found the page I remembered reading way back whenever:
https://support.izotope.com/hc/en-us/ar ... -dithering
Here's the important poop:
For (Ozone) dithering to work, it must be the absolute last edit performed on an audio file, except for the final conversion to 16-bit depth. This means that any effect applied after dithering, even a slight gain adjustment, or a sample-rate conversion, can undermine the positive effects of your dithering. For this reason, it's important to make sure that no changes are made to your mix between dithering and the conversion to 16-bit CD format, and that nothing changes this file afterwards - it needs to be written to CD exactly as it is, with no added gain adjustments or fades.
So, if you're using Ozone dithering, your fades need to occur before Ozone, which means you can't do them with the master
fader. In the master
section, one could insert
before Ozone an RE which has a gain fader or knob and automate that control to perform the final fade. Of course, that would mean Ozone's output would measurably differ — in ways other than gain — as input gain decreases. But probably no one cares about that during the final fade unless it's conspicuously weird.
However...
Some hosts may reserve a special slot for dithering plug-ins to reside in, and are designed so that no fades, mixes, or gain changes can occur after the dithering plug-in is applied.
Reason ain't got such a slot. So I guess my next mission, should I choose to accept it, is to read about Reason's signal path between the output of the master section and the output file. I have a feeling it is not completely unobstructed
even if the master fader doesn't move
and Reason's dithering is disabled.
Or I could just make sure Ozone dithering is disabled, which seems to the default anyway, and let Reason do it. Because can I hear the difference? And, if I could, would I think enough other people can? Is this a cork-sniffing bat-ears consideration? Probably.
Or, because I'm still on Ozone 9, I could just use the stand-alone app. But because Ozone 10 drops the the stand-alone app, that's not a future-proof strategy.