# Do you always bounce your MIDI tracks to audio?



## camerhil

I've read a few tutorials across genres where composers talk about the usefulness of bouncing their MIDI tracks down to audio once they're happy with the take. I can see the benefits: lower processing overhead, less unpredictable round-robin randomness, and the option of resampling your audio for interesting effects.

However, I am a massive coward when it comes to committing to stuff like this. The way I work now, I am constantly tweaking those MIDI parts until the very end, and it's hard for me to cut that cord.

So, my question is, do you regard bouncing MIDI to audio as an essential part of the process, and if so, how/when do you make the decision to bounce?


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## pmcrockett

Not all workflows will support this, obviously, but I frequently bounce as I go on stuff that I wrote outside the DAW. I'll record an instrument, then do whatever editing on that instrument, then bounce the track and move on to the next one. When you structure the bounce as a thing that has to happen at certain points in order to move forward, it quickly becomes just another part of the editing process and the decision to make the bounce gets a lot less intimidating. You sometimes need to rebounce, of course, but it will mostly be because you found an actual error in something you bounced and not because you just randomly wanted to continue tweaking it.


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## Jeremy Spencer

Never. I prefer rendering everything once I'm satisfied with the end result. And like you said, there's always something to tweak later on.


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## chrisphan

If your concern is CPU, freezing track seems like a better solution since you can go back to MIDI more easily. I usually bounce MIDI to audio for creative purposes, such as getting an abrupt tail cut, or reversing.


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## camerhil

It's interesting that bouncing seems far from a given - not what I was expecting. I think there may still be an advantage for my personal workflow, since too often I get lazy with MIDI parts and don't even _try _to finish them on the first pass, because I know I can come back to them any time I like. The result is a project file full of half-finished parts, which require lots of iterations before they're ready. Forcing myself to bounce to audio might be the kick in the behind that I need in order to finish a part before I move onto the next.


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## givemenoughrope

Always. I keep notes (or at least mental notes) for when I have to go back and change things in the midi realm. Don't forget the kinds of editing you can do with audio that can't be done with midi. Plus, I use a lot of Nebula/Acustica and I'm not on a powerful rig. I want everything to be audio including reverbs/fx. It just feels more solid to me when it comes time to mix.


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## dgburns

If you’re concerned about archiving, audio files are a safe bet. Just think about all those EOL’d soft synths not to mention all the updates to ones that might still be around down the road. Imagine trying to open that project you just finished in ten years time when the soft synths won’t be able to play the midi.

But then again if you don’t care about all that then why bother. But its not hard to imagine coming back to a project that you worked on years ago and need to pick up where you left off. I have stuff on reel to reel and adats (lol). I can imagine the future will look very different, like some standard that isn’t in existence now. 

But I bet audio files will still be playable.


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## ken c

dgburns said:


> If you’re concerned about archiving, audio files are a safe bet. Just think about all those EOL’d soft synths not to mention all the updates to ones that might still be around down the road. Imagine trying to open that project you just finished in ten years time when the soft synths won’t be able to play the midi



I agree that this is one of the strongest reason for me to render tracks to audio. It can be really annoying to try and load an old project file to update it and none of the instruments are loading cause you've made changes to your vsts/plugins. That being said I wish there was a really good option available for treating audio like midi..


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## gsilbers

camerhil said:


> It's interesting that bouncing seems far from a given - not what I was expecting. I think there may still be an advantage for my personal workflow, since too often I get lazy with MIDI parts and don't even _try _to finish them on the first pass, because I know I can come back to them any time I like. The result is a project file full of half-finished parts, which require lots of iterations before they're ready. Forcing myself to bounce to audio might be the kick in the behind that I need in order to finish a part before I move onto the next.




not sure how other daws do it, but in logic i have a keycommand to render in place. it has the options to leave the orignal midi file muted right above the audio render. 

so i turn off the plugins and deal w the audio. if anything needs chaning i turn it on and change and render. 

now the problem is what happens when the audoi is processed with some cool fx. oh well.


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## givemenoughrope

gsilbers said:


> not sure how other daws do it, but in logic i have a keycommand to render in place. it has the options to leave the orignal midi file muted right above the audio render.
> 
> so i turn off the plugins and deal w the audio. if anything needs chaning i turn it on and change and render.
> 
> now the problem is what happens when the audoi is processed with some cool fx. oh well.



You could always save a track preset. I do that in Cubase.


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## KEM

Yes, once you’re happy with it, bounce it down to audio and disable the midi track, that way if you need to tweak something you can enable it and then change it, and just bounce it again. Saves CPU resources without sacrificing anything in terms of creativity.


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## Peter Williams

I almost always bounce to audio, but keep the midi data. I'm retired and on a tight budget and still using a ten year old 32 bit machine, albeit with 4 hard drives. I'm still using Sonar 8.5, and it's dodgy as hell. I never know when spikes will occur and settings in Kontakt will get inadvertently reset (or worse). I have a parallel work space well below the midi tracks so that i can always find my place in either format. This system has worked very well for me over the last year or so; so much that I enjoy sequencing again. 

Of course, it's time to switch to a new computer with much more memory (and different software), and I will so so this summer, but after many years of fooling around with midi, I'm more or less sticking with my new system. It's much nicer to work with audio clips for balancing, processing and combining things as you go. I can still correct problems when I need to, and I don't worry about dropouts or other errors.


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## gsilbers

givemenoughrope said:


> You could always save a track preset. I do that in Cubase.


thats a good idea. i wish i was that organized though. by the time i do that , im already way beyond remebering what i did


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## Jaap

gsilbers said:


> not sure how other daws do it, but in logic i have a keycommand to render in place. it has the options to leave the orignal midi file muted right above the audio render.
> 
> so i turn off the plugins and deal w the audio. if anything needs chaning i turn it on and change and render.
> 
> now the problem is what happens when the audoi is processed with some cool fx. oh well.



Doing the same with Cubase (has the same option) and makes it easy to have and the midi and the audio nicely in one file if some changes need to be made later on


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## camerhil

The fact that bouncing solves the problem of having different or broken VST instruments is worth it on its own, and it was something I hadn't considered. Lots of other good reasons to do it too.


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## robgb

camerhil said:


> I've read a few tutorials across genres where composers talk about the usefulness of bouncing their MIDI tracks down to audio once they're happy with the take. I can see the benefits: lower processing overhead, less unpredictable round-robin randomness, and the option of resampling your audio for interesting effects.
> 
> However, I am a massive coward when it comes to committing to stuff like this. The way I work now, I am constantly tweaking those MIDI parts until the very end, and it's hard for me to cut that cord.
> 
> So, my question is, do you regard bouncing MIDI to audio as an essential part of the process, and if so, how/when do you make the decision to bounce?


I freeze the track in Reaper, which bounces it down to audio but allows me to unfreeze if I change my mind about something in the performance. Best of both worlds.


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## InLight-Tone

No way, too much work and hassle. Once I finish a track I'm sick of it and don't want to visit it again and try to "improve" it later in the future. Those who are doing film, TV series and such sure, you need to cover your bases. For me, it's on to the next and keep moving through my chronic procrastination...


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## stigc56

I never do it.
Far too many times I had to go back, and then I need the MIDI tracks. In Cubase the handling of audio files is really basic, so it's better to have the "live" tracks.


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## Divico

I always do it if I have a pad sound or synth pattern going since it annoys me when those sounds arent triggered correctly. I render them in place and hide the original track so I can easily go back for edits.


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## Henu

Here are also some thoughts about it.

https://vi-control.net/community/threads/mixing-audio-vs-midi.70849/


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## John Busby

this is the way that works the best for me:
bus your midi to stems and record the stems (i.e. brass, strings, synth etc)
keep your midi tracks disabled until you need to make changes
if you make changes just re-record your stem - this way it's less work across the board (keeping tracks frozen is more of a hassle if you're still composing i.e. no global tempo changes without re-freezing while also re-enabling each midi track you have frozen and so on)


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## Ethos

I break the process down into 3 major steps. 1. Composing/Orchestrating, 2. Performing, and 3. Mixing

For step 1, it's obviously all MIDI. Step 2 is kind of like mixing, but I try to accomplish everything using only MIDI CC 1, 2, 11, and whatever else my libraries support. I consider this the process of getting the *performance *as perfect as can be, without using audio plugins to "cheat". I balance things the way a conductor would. If, for example, a part is not cutting through the mix enough, I'll re-orchestrate or adjust dynamics before reaching for the EQ or compressor. Step 3 is where I bounce to audio and use audio plugins and audio editing to properly mix the cue. By step 3 I'm pretty confident the performance and composition are to my liking and I can focus purely on proper mixing. I have a lot of students who use mixing as a way to fix performance and/or orchestration problems. This is my attempt at preventing the "I'll fix it in mixing" syndrome.

This all really only works if your template is relatively balanced.


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## halfwalk

I almost never record MIDI; it's all being printed to audio as soon as I hit record, which is written to a RAM disk until I re-save the project. It's like skipping the pencil sketch and reaching straight away for the markers.


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## Ethos

halfwalk said:


> I almost never record MIDI; it's all being printed to audio as soon as I hit record, which is written to a RAM disk until I re-save the project. It's like skipping the pencil sketch and reaching straight away for the markers.


You must be a waaaaaay better piano player than me!


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## Geoff Grace

I always track my MIDI files to audio. _Always._

This seems like a good time to reference my sig link: Craig Anderton's Archiving Article. Written back in 2003, most of Craig's advice is still relevant today. If you care at all to be able to revisit your music years from now, I highly recommend you read this article!

Best,

Geoff


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## Replicant

I don't


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