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RE: Another surprise, this time in Wavelab

Posted by Jim F. (A) on December 16, 2009 at 12:49:53

In Reply to: Another surprise, this time in Wavelab posted by Jim F. on December 15, 2009 at 15:15:04:

You know, I seem to have read somewhere that the Steinberg-specified
VST ("Virtual Studio") plugin standard for DAWs is **always**
32 bits in and 32 bits out.

I guess DirectX is not so standard.

Therefore, I suppose if a plugin in a DirectX chain is doing its
thing at 32 bits or whatever internal precision and then needs to pass
data to the next guy in the chain, it needs to read a global setting from
the DAW to decide whether (and how much) to bit-depth-reduce
the data before sending it on.

I would hope, however, that any such plugin will at least dither
when reducing the bit depth. (**Gotta** be true, right? ;-> ).

So I suppose in the case I described there would only have
been a subtle (and arguably not audible) deterioration in sound --
the original 16 bit data having been level reduced by about 6 dB and
then dithered back to 16 bits.

In fact, this almost exactly complements the mistake I made
with Audition. By saving the files in Wavelab as (dithered) 16 bits
formatted to 32-bit float, and then reading them in Audition
as "16.8" floats, I was essentially getting back the (dithered)
16 bits (rather than a "24.8" file **truncated** to 16.8, which
would have been worse).

I've also discovered that the Burwen Bobcat DX processor always
outputs 24 bits (also presumably dithered, after whatever
internal bit depth it uses). So it's not necessary to save
those files as 32 bits to preserve maximum precision.

I had always just assumed that professional DAW effects chains
were at least 32 bits in and 32 bits out. But even if it's
true with VST, it ain't true in general. (And, of course, with
effects chains in something like Foobar or Winamp, all bets
are off.)

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