Will bounce to disk really affect your sound?

[leon777]

Are there any guidelines for bouncing these days in a mix system?

I would like to keep the full quality of the mix and noticed that without using plug-ins on the mix buss, i.e. C4, L2 that the mix loses lots of it's audo quality.

I'm at 44.1 at 24 bit. Bounce to 16 bit.

Is the idea these days to use the C4 and L2 and such on the master fader to compensate for the poor bounce system?

Is there a better alternative with my Trak2? I have the D/A 8xout and AES.

[bluemt]

NO.

[Mark Staples]

I'm not sure what the "NO" from the previous post was referring to, but when you bounce from 24-bit to 16-bit, you MUST use dithering. The L2 on the master fader does a good job of dithering and shaping. I will also boost your signal to commercial levels, if you like.

I usually put the L2 on the master fader with the PAZ meters afterward. Adjust my SPL average to around 12-13db and then do a 16-bit, ultra shaping bounce.

It is my opinion and those with loads more experience can correct me, but you will suffer changes to your mix when you bounce to 16-bit. It may be marginal, but in my reading and in some of my minimal experience, you cannot take 8-bits from the data (dithered or not) and expect to get exactly the same sound.

You can and will probably experience sonic differences when you burn to CD. Depending on how fast you burn, you can hear differences. Mastering engineers that I've read after suggest no burning any higher than 2x and prefer 1x.

Hope this helps...

[RKrizman]

Originally posted by leon777:


Is the idea these days to use the C4 and L2 and such on the master fader to compensate for the poor bounce system?

I

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">There is no poor bounce system. You can verify that for yourself by doing a 24 bit bounce, dragging it back into the session and comparing. It will be identical (except for differences in reverbs and other time-based effects). Please do this so you will not continue to disseminate mythology here as if it were fact.

When you bounce to 16 bit the bottom 8 bits are discarded, in this system or any system. You just need to add dither to make the bounce sound as close to the 24 bit mix as possible. None of this has anything to do with L1, C4 etc. They are used to compensate for all manner of ills, and occasionally to even enhance good things. It may make sense to maximize your levels somewhat to take advantage of more of the 16 bits, but that will cause more audible changes in your mix than going from 24 to 16 bit will.

Don't worry so much. If you make your mix sound good at 24 bits, it will pretty much sound just as good at 16 if you dither properly. In any case, in the course of events in digital production, it's the least of your problems.

Rick Krizman
KrizManic Music

[leon777]

Thank you for the responses. It all does make sense!
Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "poor" bounce system. I get great results with it. I'm just looking for better. I will apply your tips.

Some people claim that the mix bus gets choked up with too much information, especially when many plug-ins are used. Is there truth to this?

I'm just trying to reach for more open mixes and I'm trying to avoid choking the system if possible. Sacrificing plug-ins though is not at the top of my list.

[RKrizman]

Originally posted by leon777:

Some people claim that the mix bus gets choked up with too much information,

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Yes, of course, but that's an arrangement problem.

People need to realize that there's more to mixing 24 plus tracks than just throwing up faders and expecting some magical Class A analog vibe to cream it all together.

-Rick

[zr-rock]

Hey Leon777

I Absolutely do not agree with RKrizman!

I once did bounce an entire album with "bounce to disk"
I imported all the tracks to a new session for mastering (24bit of course) and everything sounded like S*** !
I thought to myself that i was getting mad because what RKrizman is saying is right in theory!
But when several of my friends said the same i stopped using "bounce to disk" entirely!!
I did a listening test where we compared "BTD" with the same mix sent out via AES/EBU to a 24bit Tascam DAT and then played back into ProTools.... better.
Then we tried just looping through the while in record...even better!!!
So that's what i juse all the time now.

Good luck

[Mark Haliday]

The whole "Bounce to disk question" is just incomprehensible to me. Why should the PT rig behave differently in BTD that in "normal" life ?
Never heard a proper explanation for that !

For one I don't even understand why everything just freezes on the machine when doing a BTD.

After all is it not just a question of recording the stereo bus back to disk !?!!.
I realise that on certain slow machines, freezing everything may help automation, but with a G4 and no native plugs where is the problem ?

I would love a function that simply allows for recording the Mix bus onto a track, like a classic bus bounce

Some people here have pointed rightly at one the things that gave BTD a bad name, and that is lack of dithering.
Obviously if your D/A interface is 24 bit (888/24, ad8000 etc...)the result you get from truncating your bounce from 24 to 16 bit without dither will make an end result that will *not* match the original you where hearing through the D/A converters !
Worse still, if you follow video/broadcast levels and print your mix -18 or -20 dbFS, the absence of dither will be a total sonic disaster !

[Alex Rodriguez]

It's always good to hear such a variety of opinions. I have to say I haven't done a test like the one zr-rock mentioned yet, but in our common search for something better I did tried a couple of months ago another test:
It was an album recorded and mixed in PT, Mix system, 888's, 44.1&24 bits, with a lot of analog outboard gear. The mixing automation was 100% in PT, but monitoring in an analog desk (AMEK Angela II). I used a maximum of 16 analog outputs, depending on the songs, grouping, with some plug ins processings, but mainly external reverbs and compressions and some overall eq's if were needed, eq was both internal with plug ins and/or external with Pultecs, GMLs, Angela's channel eq., etc, depending on what I wanted or needed. Well, any way, I finally prepared two different masters, one 16 bits from the stereo buss from the analog desk to a Studer A/D converter to a Sony DAT machine, and a second option in 24 bits, internally in PTs (well, it wasn't bounce to disk, but real time recording to analog ins1&2 in tyhe same session, from the 888, also direct from the stereo buss of the Angela), no additional A/D (there was none for 24 bits, only ProTools') so I could decide later in the mastering facility which one sounded better. And THERE WAS NO DOUBT the 24 bit version sounded much better.
So, until I have a chance to use a better 24 bit converter, that's my best option so far.
Alex

[BenjiF]

There is sometimes a difference. I have two very different bounces from a session with heavy automation. The automated filter sweeps, which played back fine during normal playback, became jumpy and erratic during BTD. Both bounces were jerky, and when I simply recorded the output bussed to an audio track, the automation was smooth. Obviously, this doesn't explain some of the perceived BTD problems people seem to be hearing, but it does prove that BTD is not exactly the same process as recording a buss pair to an audio track.