Can Offline Bounce be trusted...?
 

Long time Pro Tools user, last on HD2 Accel PT10, however VERY new to HDX, running 2021.6 on a Mac Pro 5,1 on Mojave. I am also new to Offline Bounce, a feature I was looking forward to in this upgrade, but also one I am inherently suspicious of. I've been working with my new system for a week or so and just did my second Offline Bounce of a 66 minute comedy album. Not a lot of plugin stuff going on at all. All Native plugs. Couple UAD plugs, Weiss compressor and L2 on Mix Bus. Very basic. Took about 20 minutes to bounce and when I loaded the resulting WAV file back into the session to cut up into tracks there was a weird whoosh sound right at the top as the audience fade was coming in. Definitely not in the mix. That gives me pause. Is Offline Bounce known to introduce errors/artifacts under certain circumstances? It's good that the error was right up front so I heard it, but now I feel I need to listen through the whole audio file to see if there are any other errors, which pretty much defeats the time saving purpose of offline bounce... Would welcome any thoughts about this. Thanks!

Re: Can Offline Bounce be trusted...?
 

Offline bounce has been very reliable. I've punched into an offline recorded mix seamlessly. I definitely did not trust it when it was a new feature but did a lot of testing.

Are UAD plugs compatible with offline?

Re: Can Offline Bounce be trusted...?
 

I never had a problem with Offline Bounces and most people don't have either. However, similar to your report you read once in a while that there was an issue.

So, in the end, it might come down to your peace of mind, and as a wise man once said "trust is good, control is better"

Re: Can Offline Bounce be trusted...?
 

I bounce offline 5.1/2.0 stems and mixes for big TV shows here in Aus and the US. No problems bouncing offline. Fine to drop in to the offline mixes too.

Re: Can Offline Bounce be trusted...?
 

I've gotten into the habit of printing the bulk of my tracks and mixes. In some rare cases, I might offline bounce a track when I need to commit an effect or something like an overdrive on bass that will be tucked low.

When I start to pull up a mix and just get my volume and panning situated, I probably offline bounce that, as there's no plugins and it's just a basic reference and doesn't have to be absolutely perfect.

I'll do an online bounce for a final mix being downsampled, that just needs dither added.

It probably doesn't really matter anymore, but I've already got my routing and print tracks set up in my templates, so I just do that, as it's the workflow I'm sorta used to now.

Re: Can Offline Bounce be trusted...?
 

Ahh you're doing music. So to sit through a print isn't that long. But when you're doing a 90min/2h film its worth it.

Re: Can Offline Bounce be trusted...?
 

Hardly ever use it, but when I do, I haven’t experienced any issues with it, including with my judicious use of UAD plugins.
30 second commercials, 4 minute songs, I prefer to listen one more time.
But if it’s a roomful of drunken opera singers on an old 90-minute cassette that I’m bouncing to a wav to make a cd, thank GOD for offline!

Re: Can Offline Bounce be trusted...?
 

Thanks for all the thoughts. Good to know that UAD plugins are compatible with offline bounce. In reality I won't be using/needing it that much because I mostly do music and short-form audiobooks. But for the occasional comedy album or longer podcast/audiobook I've always longed for it. But I also almost always use outboard I/O and midi, and am going to try to use as many DSP plugins as possible to try to save my CPU for where it's needed, and hopefully justify the purchase of the HDX card (??). So mostly I won't need it, or be able to run it. I must say though, it is disconcerting to have had a glitch right up front in only my second offline bounce ever...

Re: Can Offline Bounce be trusted...?
 

I understanding being spooked by the issue you had. FWIW I do music recording and mixing and I have been using offline bounce for a decade and rarely have issues.

BTW, with the latest 2021.6 release you would be best to run in hybrid mode and only use DSP when tracking.

Re: Can Offline Bounce be trusted...?
 

But if you use outboard inserts, or MIDI tracks, or DSP plugins, then you can't use it, is that correct...?