[sdiy] Dithering 8-bit waveforms (was Re: PPG or Prophet VS waves for class)

[Tom Wiltshire]

On 17 Jul 2012, at 23:08, Olivier Gillet wrote:

> IIRC, you can find them in the Monowave source code eeprom file. There
> is a sequence of 16 waves which are not from the PPG at the beginning
> and somewhere in the middle though.
> http://www.vacoloco.net/synths/monowave/downloads.shtml
> 
> If you are interested in the AKWF collection, a more palatable version
> (for analysis or for integrating in a simple eeprom-based wavetable
> player) can be found here:
> http://mutable-instruments.net/static/downloads/waveforms.zip
> (All AKWF waveforms converted to 128 samples length using sinc
> interpolation, to unsigned 8 bits with dithering, phase aligned)
> 
> Olivier

Does dithering the waveform data give a noticeable improvement, Olivier? Or is it something that's supposed to help but doesn't make much audible difference? (Not that I'm knocking that - a lot of 'good practice' stuff is in that category!)

I've been doing my own 8-bit oscillator design over on Muffwiggler, and if dithering really helps I should include it in the code before I finalise it:

http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=51177

Thanks,
Tom