Bouncing to disk

[nwarren1981]

Hi, I was just wondering if I have a midi track and also a audio track that are both aligned on the timeline and I bounce the audio file to disk with a buffer setting of say 1024 and then export the midi file, will they both sync up when both are exported back into a DAW? I just wasn't sure if bouncing to disk offset this. Thanks

[Darryl Ramm]

A MIDI file? You really mean MIDI, not a VI track, with no actual output audio just MIDI?

Pro Tools audio bounces are corrected for IO Buffer induced latency, that just happens. So as long as you did not make a selection that starts anywhere at the beginning of the timeline and you reimport into a track stuff should line up.

And if you turn on delay compensation the bounced signal will also correct for plugin latencies, including plugins on the master fader that normally are not/cannot be compensated for.

But who is just going to trust stuff without looking and listening? It's easy with bounce to disk to select the wrong output of make an unintended time region or clip selection and bounce the wrong stuff. And you can quickly test any of these things for yourself in a test session. And what exactly are you going to do with the MIDI file.

But maybe the better question is what exactly are you actually trying to do? If you are just "round tripping" the audio back into Pro Tools then Freeze and Commit might be a better workflow. If going to another DAW this should work.... but you need to test it and that should be easy. And you'll have MIDI timing and audio playback/delay/VI latency etc. delay compensation to consider on the other DAW depending on what you are doing, so you can not just trust it "will work".

[albee1952]

Darryl beat me to the question on why, but I still have 2 cents to offer. If the files will go to another DAW, I would export everything as AAF or OMF as that SHOULD keep everything in perfect time when imported into the next DAW

[nwarren1981]

Thanks for helping, sorry I should have given more info:

The audio file that is being bounced is a stereo backing track.

The midi that is being exported is a normal midi file that will be triggering stage lights through DMXIS that converts midi to DMX via VST plugin that outputs via usb to a box that converts to DMX cable.

I'll be bring backing track and midi into my live playback rig that runs a program called Gig performer 4. It has an audio player and a midi player that you can sync playback on. I really need these to start at exactly the same time so thought I'd check as I wasn't sure if delay compensation worked on the Master buss plugins also, and whether playback buffer was added to bounced audio and I didn't have my setup with me to check.

Each song has quite a lot of tempo changes on the PT timeline so I'm hoping that tempo/meter info will be exported along with the midi from PT and then read by Gig Performer in the midi player so that the tempo changes happen in GP also. I haven't ever had to export midi out of PT before so will test it later.

Thanks,

Nick