# Bounce every track to audio



## seaofwine (Jan 6, 2021)

At the very beginning of my occupation with homemade recordings, around 2005, a good friend and studio engineer spelt me this unwritten law:
_Always bounce to audio before mixing._
I kept it as god's verdict type of input, even if I never asked him the reason to do so or maybe I did, but I can't remember his answer. Maybe CPU and ram saving or significant difference in the quality of the effects added on audio tracks. So, from then and on, whenever I am just before the stage of mixing I have in front of me always only audio tracks, mono or stereo. 
The only reason I keep doing it is that I want the flat sound of instruments in order to apply my favourite effects to all of them and, likely, achieve "realistic" sonar homogeneity. The in-built effects or rooms of every vsti or sample library have a unique ambience and acoustic components that make the orchestra more unreal, I would dare to say.. plastic! 

Let's put it simply: I want the illusion to think as if I recorded them in the same studio. Utopia!!

I would love to read your thoughts and your experience on that matter


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## cornelisjordaan (Jan 6, 2021)

I have also found that the process of mixing goes far better when I have bounced everything down to audio, be it individual instruments or mix groups/stems. Clearing the mind of the temptation to fiddle with midi is very helpful. Little benefits like individual clip gain, being able to align (or misalign) transients more easily, etc. are also a big plus.


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## Beat Kaufmann (Jan 6, 2021)

*Do I mix audio tracks or VST instruments?

To rethink*
Many sample users create great and enormously complicated templates. Unfortunately, they never produce audio files from their projects. Attention: The more complex templates are, the more vulnerable they are. How quickly do you buy a new computer, soon are standarts outdated, licenses invalid, software obsolete. Try loading a song that you last saved 5 years ago and the problems begin. *If you want to save your valuable projects for a longer period of time, then create an audio file for each instrument.* Save these audio files as far as possible without any effect.

Further...
Every now and then I get too lazy and mix a song directly out of the VST instruments. But then I notice that I often change something in the composition, then again in the mix and then again in the audio master. Somehow I never really finish such pieces of music. 
To separate composition, mix and master, has for me also something to do with the decision that now one step is finished and the next now can follow.

And also
When I'm ready with the music, it's annoying to wait 1000 hours just to load millions of samples until I can finally do the mix or to "repair" a little thing in the mix. Also: When I know that there are millions of samples loaded in the background, I'm still afraid that the machine might crash. That's actually stupid of me, because I haven't had a crash in a long time. But I'm still influenced by the past. I really love just having some audio tracks loaded for the mixing process. Somehow the feeling is just better... 

All this means for my working process:
1. composition / music (mostly even with midi instrument only)
2. implementation with samples and readout into audio tracks
3. mix 
4. mastering

This is how I have been working for years.

Beat


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## AudioLoco (Jan 7, 2021)

Like others here were rightly saying:

-Future backup compatibility
-Mixing only mindset
-More powerful and intuitive audio editing

Bounce to audio before mixing indeed!


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## JohnG (Jan 7, 2021)

agree -- it is a good practice.


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## el-bo (Jan 7, 2021)

seaofwine said:


> The only reason I keep doing it is that I want the flat sound of instruments in order to apply my favourite effects to all of them and, likely, achieve "realistic" sonar homogeneity. The in-built effects or rooms of every vsti or sample library have a unique ambience and acoustic components that make the orchestra more unreal, I would dare to say.. plastic!
> 
> Let's put it simply: I want the illusion to think as if I recorded them in the same studio. Utopia!!


It's a good practice. However, I'm not really sure the Logic behind what you have written above.


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## Jerry Growl (Jan 7, 2021)

I agree.

On the con-side there are (more than a few) new hazards awaiting when mixing or starting a mix.

In personal experience, I sometimes prefer my first original mixdown in it's muddy, creative cradle form. Sometimes it's just little balance things that match perfect in the original VST rough mix and that are easily lost in a more elaborate mix. Having this original mix somewhere in your mix project as a reference is a good idea.

To a less experienced ( or maybe less talented ) mixer (like myself) it's easy to over-do things in a mix. It's pretty hard to keep a clear and fresh ear and keep creative fiddling out of your mixing process (for the most part).

I'm in the process of re-mixing a couple of tracks I made last year.
Really like the batch export (multiple files) and direct offline processing options in Cubase Pro. Saved me a lot of time already!

I also have the bad habit of mastering on the individual master bus per track instead of in a dedicated session. However, when I'm done remixing I promised myself to send unmastered tracks to a (real) mastering engineer and have it done properly... that's my 2021 ambition


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## Ashermusic (Jan 7, 2021)

seaofwine said:


> Let's put it simply: I want the illusion to think as if I recorded them in the same studio. Utopia!!


And I still want to believe that Santa Claus will bring me a pony.


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## X-Bassist (Jan 7, 2021)

Ashermusic said:


> And I still want to believe that Santa Claus will bring me a pony.


Ahhh... I think Alan Meyerson would disagree that this is an unachievable fantasy. And he had to work with many more individual players in worse rooms.

https://vi-control.net/community/threads/alan-meyerson-on-vsl-mir-pro.93635/
You still don’t think it’s possible? Or perhaps you really do want that pony from Mr. Claus. 😄


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## Ashermusic (Jan 7, 2021)

X-Bassist said:


> Ahhh... I think Alan Meyerson would disagree that this is a fantasy. And he had to work with many players in worse rooms.
> 
> https://vi-control.net/community/threads/alan-meyerson-on-vsl-mir-pro.93635/
> You still don’t think it’s possible? 😄


I doubt Alan is mixing scores that are _only_ sample based.


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## christianobermaier (Jan 7, 2021)

I understand and support all the listed reasons for bouncing to audio before mixing. I, however, don't, and here's why:
- I vividly remember the old days when everything was printed to tape and you had to jump through hoops to later transpose that sequencer line out of the vocal range to make room for the latter.
- I don't fall into the "I endlessly change things just because I can"-rabbit hole, because I usually mix towards a deadline which simply prevents this.
- I expect the client to come back with a quick call "Great, but can the high strings here be an octave higher and start 4 bars earlier?" and dealing with a composing- and a mixing-project is not a time efficient way of handling this.
- I rather simply give that piano line a bit more velocity than just pulling up the fader.

After the dust has settled and the thing is on air, tracks can be bounced to audio for the archive.


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## Ashermusic (Jan 7, 2021)

christianobermaier said:


> I understand and support all the listed reasons for bouncing to audio before mixing. I, however, don't, and here's why:
> - I vividly remember the old days when everything was printed to tape and you had to jump through hoops to later transpose that sequencer line out of the vocal range to make room for the latter.
> - I don't fall into the "I endlessly change things just because I can"-rabbit hole, because I usually mix towards a deadline which simply prevents this.
> - I expect the client to come back with a quick call "Great, but can the high strings here be an octave higher and start 4 bars earlier?"
> ...


Which is why I keep the MIDI as a Logic Pro alternative in a project and the bounces to audio in a separate alternative.

But while clients will ask me to make some parts higher/lower volume or add/eliminate. I have _never_ in all my years of composing had one say to me that they wanted something as specific as having the strings an octave higher.


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## christianobermaier (Jan 7, 2021)

Yeah, that already was the output of the Client<>Composer translator....


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## AudioLoco (Jan 7, 2021)

christianobermaier said:


> I understand and support all the listed reasons for bouncing to audio before mixing. I, however, don't, and here's why:
> - I vividly remember the old days when everything was printed to tape and you had to jump through hoops to later transpose that sequencer line out of the vocal range to make room for the latter.
> - I don't fall into the "I endlessly change things just because I can"-rabbit hole, because I usually mix towards a deadline which simply prevents this.
> - I expect the client to come back with a quick call "Great, but can the high strings here be an octave higher and start 4 bars earlier?" and dealing with a composing- and a mixing-project is not a time efficient way of handling this.
> ...


Best of both worlds:
Bounce to audio but keep the MIDI tracks (disabled)
IF there is something that really needs to be changed part-wise it is always possible.
One thing doesn't exclude the other I believe....


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## charlieclouser (Jan 7, 2021)

I've been keeping as many elements as live instrument / MDI tracks as possible for more than 30 years. For me it's the whole point of using synths / samples / sequencers / etc. Even in the years before plugins and mixing in the box I'd have like 4 or 8 tracks of audio (vocals + guitars mostly) running alongside dozens of hardware synths playing live from MIDI tracks, and mix the whole thing on a huge analog console. That way I could adjust a filter cutoff, envelope attack time, or delay feedback amount right up until the last second, or even as the mix was printing. A lot of the time I'd even chop up the audio tracks of vocals and guitars and put the chunks into samplers to get "virtual" control over those elements in a way that was easier than if they were just linear audio tracks.

The only time I bounce a virtual instrument track to audio before mixing is when it's some wacky Kontakt / Omnisphere patch that is different every time it plays back due to random modulators, or when I want to lock in the order of round-robins or something like that - or when it's a plugin chain that's so delicate and finicky that I'm afraid it's going to fall apart or make my computer explode before I can get a mix printed.

So I'm a firm believer in keeping things virtual as long as possible - usually forever. I love loading up a cue from season 1 of a tv series in order to re-purpose it for an episode in season 6 and finding that it's mostly MIDI tracks triggering virtual instruments that recall perfectly in my DAW. That way I can completely re-do the piece of music with maximum flexibility.


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## Rasoul Morteza (Jan 7, 2021)

charlieclouser said:


> The only time I bounce a virtual instrument track to audio before mixing is when it's some wacky Kontakt / Omnisphere patch that is different every time it plays back due to random modulators, or when I want to lock in the order of round-robins or something like that - or when it's a plugin chain that's so delicate and finicky that I'm afraid it's going to fall apart or make my computer explode before I can get a mix printed.


This ^


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## tebling (Jan 7, 2021)

When I read the title of this post, I thought the context was going to be "I need to hand off a virtual instrument based project to a mix engineer". First, because I'm the midst of doing that myself right now (for the first time), and second because I've always operated in the same mindset that Charlie describes above.


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## TimCox (Jan 7, 2021)

Ashermusic said:


> And I still want to believe that Santa Claus will bring me a pony.


Well get yourself off the naughty list then!


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## lux (Jan 7, 2021)

I'm kinda torn between the two. Open old projects means flexibility, but it gives you the impression you never got it done. It's like a never ending musical opera lasting years, which you can always discuss from scratch. You never let it go.

Having audio means you need to give your best before the bounce begins, as turning back would be painful enough. It's like the old days and it comes closer to a one time performance concept.

As an individual I like the idea of something that I cannot get and open back. Make it or brake it. Usually takes the best out of me.

But working with series can make a huge difference here. A producer which candidly says he loved that peculiar sound on episode xxx, just a dozen years old, and you can open the project and say "oh, I got it", I guess that feels nice.


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## seaofwine (Jan 7, 2021)

Beat Kaufmann said:


> *Do I mix audio tracks or VST instruments?
> 
> To rethink*
> Many sample users create great and enormously complicated templates. Unfortunately, they never produce audio files from their projects. Attention: The more complex templates are, the more vulnerable they are. How quickly do you buy a new computer, soon are standarts outdated, licenses invalid, software obsolete. Try loading a song that you last saved 5 years ago and the problems begin. *If you want to save your valuable projects for a longer period of time, then create an audio file for each instrument.* Save these audio files as far as possible without any effect.
> ...


I could not agree with you more!


el-bo said:


> It's a good practice. However, I'm not really sure the Logic behind what you have written above.


Well. It was an output based on an abstract thought, expressed with excessive linguistic problems!
So, let me explain myself better just to get out of more Santa Claus-y comments.

VSTi's turned out to be a splendid solution for the cheapest way to produce music instead of paying musicians all the time. Being always a band musician, however, I believe that the greatest records and recordings have been products of collective endeavour, let's face it! Besides, who wouldn't wish to share a studio with the finest musicians of the earth, adding their special instincts and taste to his/her music, come on! To the point..
I sense that every virtual reproduction of an instrument has a distinct sound because of the mic they used to capture it, or the uniqueness of the instrument itself, the room of the recordings, etc. My goal always has been to neutralize as much as possible the sound by getting rid of the in-built room. In this way, I want to apply a few favourite effects to each element of the orchestra, aiming to fulfil the desire of uniform sound. And cure the repression of not recording live my song with Steve Gadd playing the part instead of AD2. 
Hmm, thinking of it, the same problem would be if it was an orchestra of instruments recorded from real players, hired from various freelancing sites. But that's another thread to discuss.


lux said:


> I'm kinda torn between the two. Open old projects means flexibility, but it gives you the impression you never got it done. It's like a never ending musical opera lasting years, which you can always discuss from scratch. You never let it go.
> 
> Having audio means you need to give your best before the bounce begins, as turning back would be painful enough. It's like the old days and it comes closer to a one time performance concept.
> 
> ...


I totally agree that when the track turns to audio, somehow dictates the conclusion of the recording procedure. Plus, whenever started bounce midi to audio, I regularly finished a project. The opposite way with midi's.


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## Arbee (Jan 7, 2021)

I don't bounce to audio before mixing (I do however bounce mixes before mastering), but I don't use huge templates either. I find it sufficient to notate my synths and patch names on synth tracks, and keep my VE Pro sample templates saved by track name. Worst case then, at least the midi is preserved.

There are so many times during a mix or mastering stage where I find this approach useful for minor tweaks. For example, I might apply some mastering EQ to a track and suddenly a synth or percussion frequency is poking out too much as a result. So useful to quickly go back and fix it at source and push it through as a new mix. I also find it useful to revisit a track to reconstruct or rework it even years later.


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## jcrosby (Jan 7, 2021)

The main point of this practice is that audio files are future proof and can be opened on any system vs a project the hinges on a plugin that may eventually wind up deprecated...

Kontakt 5 for example doesn't automatically get replaced with kontakt 6. At some point when kontakt 5 is no longer compatible with (some) OS's you would have to manually replace all Kontakt 5 instances with Kontakt 6. If this were a theme for a film or series that may need to be reopened at a later date you'd be up a tree if you found yourself in this situation during the middle of a deadline...

Audio is the most universal/future-proof way of ensuring you can access to all of the music in situations like this..


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