Dither checkbox greyed out

[jeffythedragonslayer]

I've noticed that in the Change Audio Format window, the Dither checkbox becomes greyed out when the New Bit Depth is set to 32 or 64.

However, I can simply set the bit-depth to 16 or 24, toggle the checkbox, and then change it back to 32 or 64 as a workaround.

What is the purpose of greying out the Dither checkbox when it is so easy to bypass?  Does anyone ever use dither when converting to a higher bit-depth?

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Jeff Linahan

[msmcleod]

32 bit and 64 bit are floating point.

16 bit and 24 bit are integer.

Dithering only makes sense when switching to an integer bit depth. 

[John Vere]

It’s doing this to protect you from your self😬. Dithering is only needed for reducing the depth not increasing 

[jeffythedragonslayer]

2 minutes ago, John Vere said:

It’s doing this to protect you from your self😬. Dithering is only needed for reducing the depth not increasing 

Well, in that case it's not doing a very good job as it has an easy workaround.

[scook]

21 minutes ago, Jeff Linahan said:

Does anyone ever use dither when converting to a higher bit-depth?

The DAW will not dither in this case.

Dithering is only possible when bit depth is reduced.

[John Vere]

Tried to tell them that but they didn’t seem to believe me. 
 

Cakewalk works with 32 bit by default. So if you choose 32 bit why would you want dithering ?  And if you choose 64 why would you need dithering?  If you reduce to 24 or 16 then you might want to dither. personal choice. 
 

It might help if you take a few minutes to look up what dithering is for then you might understand why our answers are as such. 

Edited January 16, 2022 by John Vere

[jeffythedragonslayer]

2 hours ago, John Vere said:

Tried to tell them that but they didn’t seem to believe me.

Well you can add me to the list of people who believe you 😄

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Cakewalk works with 32 bit by default. So if you choose 32 bit why would you want dithering ?

Ok.  I'm not saying I want this - I'm just curious about why the UI works this way and whether anyone has exploited it.

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And if you choose 64 why would you need dithering?  If you reduce to 24 or 16 then you might want to dither. personal choice. 
 

I don't see why I would at 64.  But maybe someone else would want to in order to create some cool effect unknown to me.

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It might help if you take a few minutes to look up what dithering is for then you might understand why our answers are as such. 

I understand everything written here except for scook's message (see below.)  I'm just confused about why the UI works the way it does (it looks like a bug to me) and if anyone has found a use case for dithering when going in the opposite direction.

3 hours ago, scook said:

The DAW will not dither in this case.

Dithering is only possible when bit depth is reduced.

So this is a Cakewalk limitation.  (I suppose someone can add noise to a signal with low bit depth being converted to high bit depth if they want, but if my understanding is correct here that wouldn't typically be called "dithering."  I might just call it upsampling followed by adding noise.)

Edited January 16, 2022 by Jeff Linahan