Bouncing to Audio Before Mixing

[DukeOfLizards]

When bouncing midi to audio before starting a mixdown, should I bounce midi with that channel/audio's effects or without? Is it better to bounce to audio and then add effects and effect chains to the audio rather than the midi? Does it matter? Thanks

[jestermgee]

Depends?

Kind of depends on if you want to create a track in Live and just do the final stem adjustments in another application or do just the composition in Live and then do the whole mix in another application. Question is if you want to do the final "master" or do the full mix?

There kind of aren't any actual rules, it depends what you or your engineer want to do. Most users will do almost all the mix in their composing DAW and it is recommended that you get all your tracks mixed and sounding pretty good at that stage. The final step is just shaping and polishing, like building a house, the painters come in last and just make it shine.

[DukeOfLizards]

Thanks for the reply. At this point I plan on mixing/mastering the final track in Ableton. Still, I heard it's good to bounce midi channels to audio before starting the volume/fader mix. I currently have EQs and other effects on these midi channels, hence the question. So based on that, is there a proper way? Or does it not really make a difference?

[chapelier fou]

If you're mixing in Ableton and if you don't have any problem with the CPU/RAM usage involved by the Midi instruments, you shouldn't bother bouncing the tracks.
The only reason why I would do this for a track would be if its devices produce a lot of randomness that you'd preferably "freeze" before mixing, so it's consistent.

[DukeOfLizards]

Gotcha. And what about if I need to bounce bc of CPU issues? Bounce with midi audio effects and any channel automations embedded in the audio? Also, what do you mean by producing randomness? Does that actually happen?

[jestermgee]

Gotcha. And what about if I need to bounce bc of CPU issues? Bounce with midi audio effects and any channel automations embedded in the audio? Also, what do you mean by producing randomness? Does that actually happen?

Do however is convenient. By Bounce I assume you mean Freeze which renders in place but if you then need to change things you unfreeze and adjust whatever accordingly. Whether you freeze or just render after the fact, the audio will be the exact same so makes no difference, just however you want to work/need to work.

What he is referring to with "randomness" is if you use something with say a free running LFO effect or an effect not locked to the grid of the project, it can produce differing results based on timing differences between each render. It may be desired but when mixing you might want to have it constant to not affect your perception of things, so freeze it in place with how the effect is at that moment. Again, depends on how you need to work.