Dither up!

I have an upcoming session where this client has a dat from another studio with just the music and no vocals.My question is this--Since the dat will most likely be 16 bit can I dither up to 24 then dither down or just keep everything at 16?(the whole point of this session is to add vocals and whatever else on my digi,then mixdown etc.---and yes I will be using the spdif jacks for the transferring of the signals) Thanks, Parlour

Dither is a form of random noise that is introduced at very low levels to eliminate quantization error when converting from a higher bit rate to a lower one. That being said, you cannot (and probably would never want to) Dither "up to" 24 bits". I would suggest you go ahead and use a 24 bit session for your overdubs. When mixing down to a 16 bit DAT machine, simply create a Master Fader, instantiate the Digidesign Dither plug-in and set at 16 bit. Brent

Thanks! Now forgive me for being stupid,but can I have both16&24 bit in the same session?