Bouncing audio tracks...

[conscientiousobjector]

Hi guys, I thought we might as well discuss this matter.

I nearly always bounce my 'dry' sounds to audio (WAV 24bit) then place them back in the DAW has samples. I find this a more pleasing and constructive work method; especially whilst I use automation because I can see the wave form and were it peaks and drops etc.

I also find this way is less memory obtrusive too and allows more sounds to be used before maxing out FL Studio's memory - which is pretty naff to be fair. I have 16GB to play on Window 7 64 bit on a i7 so, I wouldn't have thought memory would be an issue- well it is.

Anyhow, I thought I'd just discuss and see what other tips other ambienteers may use during music production.

Take care all, Steve

[S1gnsOfL1fe]

Good topic Steve!!!

As most know around this forum, I'm a huge fan of bouncing to disk while in the midst of composing. I went over this in great detail in my tutorial I did for my track "Aphelion" but I'll reiterate here for clarity. I use VE Pro 5 inside of Pro Tools which helps save resources...big time. Literally all my softsynth processing is done outside my DAW which frees it up almost entirely with the exception of effects. I am also running an i7 with 16gb of RAM...on a Mac. Even then...an effect like "Etch" for example can spike the CPU meter 25% for just one instance! I hate seeing that. I'll often make aux tracks and bus whatever track I'm working on with effects to another audio track and then freeze just to save CPU. My goal is to have the computer doing almost nothing during the final "bounce" and my cpu as low as possible to avoid headaches...or heartaches if you see it that way.

[aoVI]

I also run PT10 and work in a similar method. After recording the track I then select 'Hide and make inactive' the source/instrument track so if I want to go back and tweak it, everything is there in the original configuration.

[robojam]

I might occasionally do that, especially if I want to chop up a heavily processed track into loops.

Most of the time though I will just freeze tracks to free up resources as I can always unfreeze them later and go back to working on them again.

[Nemo]

I used to ALWAYS bounce, but lately I've been freezing. Mainly approaching things like robojam has, but I really need to get back to bouncing. Freezing and unfreezing is great and quick, but I don't really trust 100% that I would be able to go back to a project a couple years down the road. Occasionally it has happened that when I've gone back to older projects the frozen file has become 'corrupt' and I have to reload the instrument and refreeze. That's not a big problem to have to do... mainly just annoying. But what's going to happen if down the road I no longer have that instrument? I know I can substitute but sometimes the sound is very specific to a particular instrument. Also, freezing ties me to a specific daw, etc. I use Cubase as my main daw, so I suspect it's going to be around for a while, but then again you never know 100%.

[Heaven And Hell]

I haven't been bouncing at all, but I really should, for reasons that Nemo mentioned. I sometimes buy and sell plugs, so if I want to come back to a project that I've done in the past and I don't have that plug anymore, it would be nice to have the audio tracks to work on, even if I don't have that certain plug-in anymore.

[GaryG]

I sometimes buy and sell plugs, so if I want to come back to a project that I've done in the past and I don't have that plug anymore, it would be nice to have the audio tracks to work on, even if I don't have that certain plug-in anymore.

Me too but I don't have the foresight to bounce. That's why I've just bought rp-delay again

(though to be fair I think it's really clicked with me this time so won't be going awol again.)

[teezdalien]

I might occasionally do that, especially if I want to chop up a heavily processed track into loops.

Most of the time though I will just freeze tracks to free up resources as I can always unfreeze them later and go back to working on them again.

This is mostly how I roll also. While I'll do a lot of freezing to free up cpu resources, I really don't like commiting to audio until I've fully explored all the instrument tweaks and automation and I know there's nothing left I want to change with the instrument and midi. Nothing worse than bouncing to only later realise there are changes that need to be made which can't be without a lot of hassle.

[seismic1]

This is mostly how I roll also. While I'll do a lot of freezing to free up cpu resources, I really don't like commiting to audio until I've fully explored all the instrument tweaks and automation and I know there's nothing left I want to change with the instrument and midi. Nothing worse than bouncing to only later realise there are changes that need to be made which can't be without a lot of hassle.

+1