Pro Sound Web: To dither means to add noise to our audio signal. Yes, we add noise on purpose, and it is a good thing.
How can adding noise be a good thing??!!!
We add noise to make a trade. We trade a little low-level hiss for a big reduction in distortion. It’s a good trade, and one that our ears like.
1 comment:
I don’t know much about sound, and I found this very interesting. I think the psychology of perception is very interesting, so it was cool to read about how people manipulate audio based on what people do and don’t notice. The waving my hand in front of my eyes analogy was very helpful for understanding why noise is preferable to the distortion. In terms of how dither actually works, it made more sense after I saw the visuals in the video. It is actually really cool how adding noise to information can actually preserve it just because the variation will stay within a certain range of the original information. It is always great to find a clear explanation of a concept I know nothing about. I’m sure I’ve heard dithering before, but I can’t remember ever noticing it. I’m probably going to start listening for it now, just out of curiosity.
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