If I load a limiter into the master section, obviously I cannot change settings on a per-clip basis. All of the songs would have to have the exact same limiter settings.
If I load the final limiter into every single clip, and I dither within the limiter plugin to 16-bit, I can set limiters differently for every song. My question though: If I do this, is the signal path completely transparent from this point all the way to the final master section output? This way, I can trust there will be no artifacts added or anything after final limiting within clip fx?
Seems like it would be transparent as long as the bitmeter shows it’s still 16 bit at the final output (and not turned into 32 bit float by gain or something else after the clips). If you only want to deliver at 16 it seems reasonable, but if you want to deliver at 24 bit in the future, it would be more flexible if you turn off the dither in the limiters and use a dither plugin (to 16 or 24) in the Master Section dither slot.
I would definitely agree with Bob that dithering would be best on the master section (either global or montage master) for a few reasons, but defiantly quicker to adjust globally to 24-bit than doing each clip. I prefer using the montage master section because it saves automatically whereas the global master section requires an extra step to save/load settings.
Either way, it think a global dither would be best vs. on each clip effect because this way, the dither can be part of the spaces between the clips and also will not have to keep starting and stopping with each clip during renders.
The auto blanking is also useful in the MBit Dither.
Ok thanks… I can see why it would make sense to use dither in the master section. I was mainly just concerned though with overall transparency if using the final limiter as a clip Effect. I’ll mess around with it more and do some tests also.
Yeah, I would render some files and do a null test by loading them back into the montage which should be easy since all your FX are on clips.
I would say it should be transparent as long as absolutely no gain change or processing is causing the audio to become 32-bit float which is easily be checked with the bit-depth meter.
You can also quickly verify sameness of different setups over the entire duration of the clips by rendering to temporary files (uncheck create named files), and using the File Comparator on the temporary result files. I also find the creation of Delta difference files in the File Comparator very useful.