Reference Manual

580 Audio Fact Sheet

33.3.4 Dithering

Whenever rendering audio to a lower bit depth, it is a good idea to apply dithering in order to

minimize artifacts. Dithering (a kind of very low-level noise) is inherently a non-neutral proce-

dure, but it is a necessary evil when lowering the bit resolution.

Please note that Live‘s internal signal processing is all 32-bit, so applying even a single gain

change makes the resulting audio 32-bit as well — even if the original audio is 16- or 24-bit.

Dither should never be applied more than once to any given audio ﬁle, so unless you are mas-

tering and ﬁnalizing in Live, it is best to always render at 32-bit and avoid dithering altogether.

33.3.5 Recording external signals (bit depth < A/D converter)

Recording audio signals into Live is a non-neutral operation if the bit depth set in Live‘s Prefer-

ences window is lower than that of the A/D converters used for the recording. This is not recom-

mended.

33.3.6 Recording internal sources below 32 bit

Audio that is recorded via internal routing will lose quality if the recording is made at a bit depth

below 32 bits. To ensure neutral recordings of plug-in instruments and any audio signals that

are being processed by effects plug-ins, internal recording at 32 bits is recommended. Please

note, however, that if the source audio is already at a lower bit depth, internal recording at that

bit depth will also be neutral (assuming that no effects are used); internally recording an unpro-

cessed 16 bit audio ﬁle at 32 bits will not increase the sound quality.

33.3.7 Consolidate

Consolidating clips (page 84) in the Arrangement View creates new audio ﬁles, which are

non-neutral in comparison to the original audio data. Speciﬁcally, the new ﬁles will be normal-

ized, with their clip volumes adjusted to play back at the same volume as heard prior to consoli-

dation. Normalization is a gain change, which is a non-neutral operation. Also, the new ﬁles will

be created at the sample rate and bit depth set in Live‘s Preferences window, which may differ

from those in the original audio ﬁles.