Bouncing down

[Izz]

When is it a good idea to bounce down your clips to wav?

I understand its good practice if your cpu is getting a hammering, is there any other reasons you could/should do it? Other than mastering.

Sorry if it's a daft question, fairly new to all this. It's just starting to open up to me :D

Thanks

[Jay Pace]

not daft at all!

Bounce down to WAV when you've got all your automation and musical content done. Once you bounce down your stuck with what you've got, so you have to have got everything sorted music and ideas wise.

Whilst this makes sense in principle, it takes a while to train your ears enough to know when to correct stuff with the sound design, and when to correct it as a sample. And once you bounce down, your stuck with what you've got unless you go back to an earlier version and rework the part.

I try and make stem mixes these days - once you're 99% sure of what you've got, bounce down all the stems (groups) and mix and master these apart as a new project. Changes your focus and you should be able to get your mix a lot tighter working this way.

[curly]

I used to do it your way Jay, and haven't done it like that for a while. I am going to bounce the stems and do a seperate mixdown on the track i am currently working on, as I can see what you mean about the change in focus.

when bouncing down the stems it is best to remove all effects that are there for mixing functions, and only leave those that are there for sound design.

[Jay Pace]

You can do both really. If you're happy enough with the mix you've got, you can bounce down pre-eq'd stems, but you have to bear in mind that with subtractive EQ you are cutting away information that you can't put back in. So if you later think something doesn't sound quite as full as you like, its better to cut less away than try a boost a stem thats already had stuff cut away.

But again, depends on your groups. I tend to leave EQ on, bounce down into groups then EQ the groups a bit more for tweakage, and maybe add a touch of delay and subtle verbs for added depth.

[BloodStar]

As I am working only in Ableton, I am using Freeze function, and then work with Wav which I copy into new channel. In case I need to undo something, just unfreeze the chanell do adjustment, and Freeze and copy again.

Most often i am Freezing (bouncing) dry sounds or just subtly proccessed sounds, but it all depends on the context and if I will do a further proccesing and also if this proccesing will be just subtle or wild.

If it is just a matter of recording midi to wav, I am obviously bouncing dry sounds, but incl. synth automation, and then do all proccessing on new channel where i copy freezed wav. Build my rack and effect the freezed wav.

most important thing is to find a workflow so you keep more or less editable events until you finish your track. you can hardly undo reverb, and other kind of sound design fx, so i wouldn't bounce it unless you also bounce unnaffected dry channel.

[Izz]

Great response, thanks guys.

@Bloodstar - I use Live 7 and been using the freeze function but only so i could give the cpu less to do. Wasn't actualy thinking of it as bouncing down (which after reading up is exactly what it's doing, doh!).

[tekara]

When you guys bounce drum stems, do you leave the compressor slammed on, or do you keep the signal dry and compress afterwards?

I've tried in the past to make a conscious effort to only bounce dry drum tracks (aside from reverbs) but leave compression out because I want to regroup them later into an FX channel and apply the compression there.

But sometimes using dry samples to create tracks prior to the bouncing sounds extremely stale and I always find myself grouping and compressing drums before the bounce.

Not sure if there are any rules to this.......opinions?

[BloodStar]

Wasn't actualy thinking of it as bouncing down (which after reading up is exactly what it's doing, doh!).

yes, that's what it's good for. after freeze, just press and hold ctrl and drag/drop freezed clip to new audio channel. ;-]

tekarea: bnouncing dry sound doesnt mean you will use it for the track. whats the best sound source for any kind of usage? dry or wet? dry indeed, because you cant undo fx on wet channel after you bounce it.

[supergroover]

You can also bounce audio to do some editing on it that is easier done with audio editing than with midi editing.
Also I often bounce pieces of audio to build my own sample pool.