Setup guide

Pro Tools|HD Setup Guide108
For this reason, we offer both types of mixer
plug-in. You may want to use the standard non-
dithered mixer in most applications because of
its greater efficiency (allowing you to mix more
channels without running out of DSP power), or
the dithered mixer because of its theoretical ad-
vantages.
A Note About Dithering to 16-Bit
and Dither Plug-ins
The Dithered mixers provide 24-bit dither at
their summing points. When creating a final
mix that results to 16-bits (for example, for CD
mastering), final dithering should still be han-
dled by plug-ins that provide dither. To properly
dither the final mix result, insert a dither plug-in
on the post-fader inserts of a Master fader. De-
tails about dither and proper usage of the dither
plug-ins can be found in the Pro Tools Reference
Guide.
Mixer Plug-ins
Pro Tools|HD systems come with four different
mixers: Stereo, Surround, Stereo Dithered, and
Surround Dithered.
The standard Stereo and Surround Mixer plug-
ins are installed by default. When you run your
Pro Tools Installer, a copy of the Stereo Dithered
and Surround Dithered mixers are placed in the
folder “Plug-ins (Unused).”
Plug-in Features
Standard Surround and Stereo Mixers
Both the Surround and Stereo Mixer plug-ins
provide the following:
• 24-bit digital output, from an audio inter-
face output or Bounce to Disk. Mix level
scaling stores 48-bit results, using a 56-bit
accumulator for maximum precision.
• 48 dB of mix headroom.
• Output clip indication.
• Multichannel mixing formats for surround
(Surround Mixer only).
Surround Dithered and Stereo Dithered
Mixers
Both the Surround Dithered and Stereo Dithered
Mixer plug-ins provide the following:
• The same features as the standard
Pro Tools|HD Stereo and Surround mixers, with
the addition of non-correlated dither to any out-
put or bus send.
When using Dolby Digital encoders or
Dolby E, you can only use the non-dithered
mixer. The Dithered mixer will not allow
proper playout of Dolby Digital or Dolby E
out of an output.