The state of bounce

[joesackic]

So the other day I did took a raw session a buddy of mine did and I mixed it and mastered it for him. He didn't give me any input beforehand so obviously when I was done he had some concerns with it.

Yesterday I gave it another crack with his input. I decided I needed the practice since Im still a new Pro tools user. I did 6 different mixes for the song. All was well Pro tools performed great up until this point.

When I had to bounce all the tacks down to .wav to send to him, I almost lost my f'ing mind. The bounce feature is Pro tools sucks. To get my mixes into .wav format took an hour! I told by buddy at 10 i was gonna bounce and send em. By the time everything was done and sent I went to bed at 12:30!!

This is crazy, I remember back when I had Reaper and it was Free, I could bounce a track in about 20 seconds. I didnt have to listen to that song for the duration of the song whether bounce needed the time to complete or not.

Is there somewhere I can send Avid a feature request, borderline bug fix request! There is no way it should take this long, especially when a free (at the time) program like reaper is massively out performing my $600 Pro tools investment in such an often used area.
Im shocked...

[Craig F]

Do to the TDM underpinnings of Pro Tools offline bounce is impossible.

Get over it or move on.

[joesackic]

Oh geez Craig thanks for your excellent contribution, I forgot making music was all about bucking up and being a forum tough guy...

Im no expert on the matter like some of you but I don't see how its impossible given that other programs are doing it. I have no ideas what all your savvy tech words mean. Im not a studio engineer, Im a musician.

So to reiterate my question, is there somewhere I can give feedback on Pro tools for future requests? I love making music but watching a count down timer for hours is very uninspiring.

[Benoni]

offline bounce should be included, but its not, and it doesnt look like that will change anytime soon. Thats all Craig was saying I believe, i dont think he was being acrimonious, of course he can answer for himself, thats just how I took his post.

As far as a place to suggest new ideas, then Idea Scale is the place to go, but Offline Bounce is already on there, so you can vote it UP or DOWN.

http://protools.ideascale.com/

[Dism]

While perhaps not ideal... There are most certainly ways to shorten bounce times.

Rather than using Bounce to Disk, many of us bus all the tracks to a stereo track and record to it. This is more efficient for a few reasons:


1. Export Regions as Files - Once a song/score is recorded, you needn't bounce the whole thing again to export multiple formats. Just select the region, hit export and choose your desired format. Export takes seconds and is often faster than many other DAWs in this respect. You can also bounce multiple regions simultaneously this way.

2. AudioSuite - While not all plugins have AS versions, the ones that do can be quite useful since you can apply an effect to the whole region in seconds, again saving a lot of time for subtle final adjustments to the track.

3. Making Small Edits in Time - A seldom used but highly efficient technique. You can make a small adjustment or edit at a specific time in your project and simply record over the master region. Give yourself a second or two before and after the edit, crossfade, and consolidate. No need to make a pass over the whole song when you only needed to make a small change in the middle.


The only thing to keep in mind when using Export Regions as Files is that dither is automatically applied, so there is no reason to use a dither plug when using this feature.

Again, it may not be ideal for those accustomed to the workflow of other DAWs, but it is a huge timesaver for those of us who prefer to work in Pro Tools.

[joesackic]

Thanks so much, this is good news. I had no idea I could do it like that Dism. I will start experimenting with the information you have given me. Hopefully I can speed up my workflow. Pro tools is a whole new world of recording when you come from other programs. So far its been mostly awesome though.

Thank you for the link Benoni, I will forward my concerns and requests there.

[brickroadstudio]

The thing is that many people still use outboard gear for mixing, so in this case you have no choice but to BTD in real time anyways.
However, I get it, there are times when I want just a quick process of everything in the box and have it spit out a .wav a move on.

I dont see why Pro Tools couldnt have that as an option "Quick Bounce" or something and just do it-- Dont think the TDM has anything to do with it at all, or if it does make it an RTAS only situation.

One thing I dont get from your post is why it took so long to bounce, it should be bouncing in real time, was it s 30 min song or something?

[Craig F]

Originally Posted by joesackic

Oh geez Craig thanks for your excellent contribution, I forgot making music was all about bucking up and being a forum tough guy...

Im no expert on the matter like some of you but I don't see how its impossible given that other programs are doing it. I have no ideas what all your savvy tech words mean. Im not a studio engineer, Im a musician.

So to reiterate my question, is there somewhere I can give feedback on Pro tools for future requests? I love making music but watching a count down timer for hours is very uninspiring.

I'm just really burned by the weekly off-line bounce bitching.

I started with tape, no offline there.

Also when I got started I got a royal ass chewing from the owner for not sitting and listing to the dubs of the mix but doing the clean-up that I also had to do after the session.
I guess that just stuck with me and I associate that with offline bouncing.

I don't know if Native has Destructive Punch, if it does try working that way so you are always recording your mix

[jntracks]

yea, i agree, every week some indignant new user shows up and talks about how apparently pro tools is junk because it doesn't do what their old free DAW did....

the thing is pro tools was built for top end studio professionals working on consoles and big rooms with lots of outboard gear. it was supposed to take the place of the tape machine.
then over time features and hardware systems were added down the line to make it usable in different situations, all the way down to beginners.

it's exactly this philosophy that makes pro tools the best DAW because it's organized like a real studio, instead of being organized like software that can be bent to use as a studio.

i haven't seen the code, i don't know how hard it would be to add a "quick offline bounce" feature. but i hear tell of the bounce feature being less accurate for automation and therefore they recommend bus mixing to a stereo track with in the session and exporting that file.

so, that's the way it is. it's that way because that's how recording studios work. maybe a feature can be added but if you don't like that it isn't here yet, please don't bitch to us about it. how about you go use reaper? people tell me it's great and cheap. go have fun.

[diamondschwin]

Originally Posted by Craig F

I'm just really burned by the weekly off-line bounce bitching.

I started with tape, no offline there.

Also when I got started I got a royal ass chewing from the owner for not sitting and listing to the dubs of the mix but doing the clean-up that I also had to do after the session.
I guess that just stuck with me and I associate that with offline bouncing.

I don't know if Native has Destructive Punch, if it does try working that way so you are always recording your mix

Yeah... offline bounce seems like a BAD idea to me, but my head is 99 percent in post audio world!