Ben Bradley wrote:
(someone wrote)

>>> This doesn't sound right. If you want the best quality possible in
>>>the final 16-bit signal, look into dithering and noise-shaping rather
>>>than doing rounding, and it's best to do all your processing in
>>>floating point (that way you can change the level to any arbitrary
>>>value, rather than only in the 3dB steps that bit shifting gives).
>>> OTOH, the difference can be subtle, and many people can't tell even
>>>under the best listening conditions.

It isn't hard to do other step sized, but I didn't so far.
Just multiply by some number before shifting. Even a 32 bit
int should be enough, but definitely 64 bits.

>>I thought about it, but so far I haven't tried. By finding the
>>peak and appropriate shifting, the quietest parts aren't so far down.

>>It is a recording with a live audience, and the background isn't all
>>that quiet, anyway. It would be nice, though. Do others do it?

> Yes, I'm pretty sure most all audio editing software (everything
> from Audacity to Pro Tools) have been doing it as I described for many
> years now.

This was pretty simple and free. This is personal, and the
budget is low.

> It might be easier to write some script file for an audio editing
> program to do what you want. I don't know what programs have what
> features nowadays, but the old Cool Edit 2000 has/had scripting so you
> could do several automated things with audio files.

If I want to add dither can I use an array of some reasonable
length as a periodic data stream? Generating enough random
numbers for a whole CD might take a while.

-- glen