What the Heck is Dithering? Maya Hauptmann 11/17/2025

Most DAWs work at a pretty high bit depth for maximum quality audio. High quality audio files take up a lot of storage space, and sometimes you need to make them smaller to upload them somewhere or put them on a CD. Unfortunately, making the files smaller (by reducing the bit depth) introduces some faint quantization distortion which causes aliasing and makes the audio sound a little worse. This is when you use dithering.

Dithering is literally just noise. It's noise added at such a low level that it's inaudible and serves only to blur the very lowest dynamics in the bit depth you're working with, so that there's less dissonant aliasing. That's it. If your audio is rendered at an appropriate level, you will certainly not hear the dithering when listening at a normal volume.

You only need to add dithering to audio if you're taking it from a higher bit depth to a lower one.

Sometimes DAWs will give you different options for dithering. These are almost always just ways to change the frequency balance of the noise. Often, changing the balance of the noise to avoid midrange frequencies can make it even less audible while it prevents noticeable ailiasing just as much.

Thanks for reading.

-Maya