Har-Bal Users Forum BBS

What is the best "bit" management process when using Har-Bal and Sonar 5 together? Assuming my project is 24 bit, should I export the wav file in 24 bit or 32 bit? Seems like Har-Bal can read 32 bit). And then, once harbalized, should I dither down to 16 bit in Har-Bal or bring it back into Sonar to take advantage of the Powr dithering algorithm?

Thanks!

Michael

Do you mean 24 bit floats and 32 bit integers? In terms of diskspace used there is no difference and in terms of quality you it would be hard to pick one over the other. They both have more than enough resolution to go beyond the accuracy of any DAC available and likely to be available in the future.

Whether to dither in Har-Bal or Sonar is up to you. Har-Bal uses a plain triangular pdf dither so you can get better performance with a good noise shaping dither but be aware that a poorly implemented noise shpaing dither can be worse than plain dither. For my part I'm dubious about the "real" benefit of noise shaped dithers. To my ears it is purely academic as my ears don't hear ther difference at normal listening levels. If I want to go deaf I might be able to pick the difference but I'm not about to do that regularly.

Regards,


Paavo.

Thanks for the reply Paavo. To be honest, I have no idea what kind of 32 bit files they are although the 32 bit one is substantially larger than the 24 bit one (131 mb vs 62 mb). When exporting a WAV file, Sonar 5 defaults to 32 bit on the drop down menu.

Michael

If you want to save on disk space then use the 24 bit files by all means, assuming that Har-Bal handles them ok. Like I said, 24 bit should be ample resolution as all DAC's will be pushing to do better than 20 bit real resolution and even if they are doing better than that the analog amplification is not going to be doing better than that. Not unless it is operating at a VERY low temperature (cryogenic).

Regards,


Paavo.

Hi Earle, Paavo,

I'm afraid I don't understand what you wrote about dithering in Har-Bal.

How would you dither in Har-Bal? I've never seen any sign of dither noise on any file ever processed by Har-Bal down to -110 dB.

I can't see it in the spectrum.

Could you clarify?

Thank you,

FunDog

Hi FunDog,

The dither is only engaged if you render to a lower bit depth file. So if you've got a 24 bit file and just hit record using the default file type no dither will be added (because it is still in 24 bit). If you select the 16 bit PCM Aiff or 16 bit PCM wav then the dither will be added to remove and truncation artifacts from the track.

Regards,


Paavo.

mvthom wrote:What is the best "bit" management process when using Har-Bal and Sonar 5 together? Assuming my project is 24 bit, should I export the wav file in 24 bit or 32 bit? Seems like Har-Bal can read 32 bit). And then, once harbalized, should I dither down to 16 bit in Har-Bal or bring it back into Sonar to take advantage of the Powr dithering algorithm?

Thanks!

Michael

i always dither in sonar ... the pow-r dithering is 'the dogs' ... i just stick to 24bit all the way to be honest, sonar can now export/freeze in 64bit files as well!

just one point about har-bal and sonar. if i have sonar open and maybe acoustica, har-bal wont launch until i close sonar, even though its configured to share its drivers. which it happily does with every other app i use.

is this asio related by any chance?

Most likely. I need to restructure the way I've used the ASIO driver interface so that it will share drivers better. As it is a pretty big jog and is likely to break something I'd rather leave it till a more major release so the changes can be thorough tested.

Regards,


Paavo.

ahhh righty oh!

its quite disruptive situation for the workflow. having found nice creative ways to use har-bal during mixing its a bit of a pain having to close my main sequencer/recorder in order to process a track in har-bal.

its not a massive issue, but it is one none-the-less. anyway, i'm really liking har-bal 2 by the way ... the air effect is definitely a nice feature.

thanks paavo!!

Does your sound device have DirectX (WDM) drivers? If so, I'd suggest using them in Har-Bal instead. Then you'll be able to share the hardware without any problems as DirectX supports device sharing within the driver model and Har-Bal uses DirectX devices in a shared mode.

Regards,


Paavo.