Bounce Mixer channels...WTF?

[C//AZM]

-EDIT- Yes, i'm talking about effect sends.

WOW I just encountered this. This is the first time i've tried to bounce with effects.
I'm about to mix in PT, and I have several tracks with perfectly executed effects in Reason, and when I bounced them to begin mixing, I only got the dry signals.
This is crazy.
What part of "All except fader section, all channel settings are applied except level and pan" doesn't props understand? If i wanted it dry, I would've done it in "None" like I always do it.
So I bounced again, this time with the effects selected at the bottom , and now, I have dry signals but all of the effects on separate tracks.

This can't possibly be right.
Why the hell would I want the effects on their own track mixed in with all the others???

What am I missing here?
WTF is this about??
sooo... what? Solo each track and somehow record it?
Bounce each track? what??

[C//AZM]

sooo....right now, I'm considering soloing each track and doing an "export song as audio file" separately as a song... all 14 of them.
I guess i'm done for the day.

-EDIT- Just tried to bounce a single track as song... ok yeah that worked but I have 19(not 14) tracks to bounce like this ONE AT A TIME.

I'm positive i'm missing some trick here.

This CAN'T be like this on purpose...can it?

I usually "bounce mixer channels"dry but, this time while in development I'm using some individual effects which only work WITH the sends.

[zoidkirb]

You are talking about send fx yeah? Well they are inherently on a separate track. That's just the nature of signal flow.
Insert fx on the other hand should be bounced along with the source channel.

[PhillipOrdonez]

Yeah, sends are separate. What's the issue? They will sound the same when you import the channels to PT.

[C//AZM]

Yeah, sends are separate. What's the issue? They will sound the same when you import the channels to PT.

The difference is that I want to bounce WITH sends. The effect sends are all on their separate tracks.
why would I want that? If I mute a track, I can't also mute the effect track without killing the effect on other tracks using the same effect. That and post levels are dependent of the track.

[C//AZM]

I'm now on the second of 19 tracks using the "Bounce song as audio file" while soloing the track.
Hopefully there wont be any timing issues...
This is something i've never had to deal with.
That's what I get for trying to use Reason's effect sends.
Geesh this is just WRONG.
perhaps they need to re-word
"All except fader section, all channel settings are applied except level and pan"

...that or make it work as expected based upon that sentence. Aren't effect sends also channel settings?

[chimp_spanner]

This is expected behaviour. Cubase has this “limitation” also. Think about it; a send has many channels feeding into it, but only one stereo output back to the mixer section. How would the bounce process be able to separate these back out again and bake them into each channel? It’s not possible.

Of course, I say that, Ableton Live does it BUT I suspect it’s basically running a macro that solos and renders each channel in turn rather than exporting in parallel. But it’s the only DAW I’ve used that can do this. If there are others, feel free to correct!

[zoidkirb]

you could try creating a new bus for each ch required. ctrl click the ch and the fx send stage, then ctrl-g to create a new bus.
then you just bounce the new bus only.
i've not tried this before. just theorizing here.

[mcatalao]

You should read a bit and get what is really a send, because reason has to comply to its audio routing, and a send is ALWAYS parallel to the channels.
TBH, the export feature is really really good.

Anyway, I dare you to try something... Now that you exported all your channels with the sends through the bounce, and you have another version with the dry signal and the sends, try to re mix them in 2 different projects, everything at unity. You will see that the sends do not affect the final result differently.

Why does this happen? It's because a send is build of the mix of the parallel channels, and no matter how you export, reason will comply to its own audio flow.

IMHO, if you have reason 11 and you want to mix in protools, just do it in protools, and use reason as a send on the protools section.

[C//AZM]

This is expected behaviour. Cubase has this “limitation” also. Think about it; a send has many channels feeding into it, but only one stereo output back to the mixer section. How would the bounce process be able to separate these back out again and bake them into each channel? It’s not possible.

Of course, I say that, Ableton Live does it BUT I suspect it’s basically running a macro that solos and renders each channel in turn rather than exporting in parallel. But it’s the only DAW I’ve used that can do this. If there are others, feel free to correct!

I understand what you're saying, and you're correct.
BUT the other DAWs don't say "All except fader section, all channel settings are applied except level and pan". I guess after reading that phrase for years and never using it, I ignorantly thought it meant what it said.

In Protools and Studio one, I can do the same as with Reason which is to solo and Bounce.
I thought this was something different.
Based on this idiotic assumption, I spent a long time customizing reverb tails, delay repeats and dampening, and swirly phasy gooey effects... with the REs I have in Reason during the Sound Design phase of this song.

My mistake. Lots of wasted time
I'm on bounce number six of 19.
OOOF

[C//AZM]

Anyway, I dare you to try something... Now that you exported all your channels with the sends through the bounce, and you have another version with the dry signal and the sends, try to re mix them in 2 different projects, everything at unity. You will see that the sends do not affect the final result differently.


IMHO, if you have reason 11 and you want to mix in protools, just do it in protools, and use reason as a send on the protools section.

The problem is that I plan on muting and changing volumes but these effect sends are static and all together.

I guess that's one reason to upgrade to Reason11. But can you play sequences through Reason, or is it just a midi instrument rack in which PT provides the MIDI?

[mcatalao]

My mistake. Lots of wasted time
I'm on bounce number six of 19.
OOOF

Your logic deludes me.
To me if you've tweaked dynamics, levels and send tails, you already did your mix in reason. Why take it to ProTools?

[C//AZM]

My mistake. Lots of wasted time
I'm on bounce number six of 19.
OOOF

Your logic deludes me.
To me if you've tweaked dynamics, levels and send tails, you already did your mix in reason. Why take it to ProTools?

I Haven't even started mixing.
That was all sound design on the synths. Plus I have UAD Plugins, Waves and Slate Plugins plus Guitar track, Guitar solo, and live percussion already recorded in Protools. Also, I expect to do a lot of vocal comping editing and fixing. It's easier IN PT...at least for me.

[jam-s]

If the FX are for sound design of the tracks it would be better to put them as inserts to the channels instead of send FX. sure you might have to duplicate a few, but then you would not have to compromise on their settings if one channel needed another kind of reverb tail e.g.

[antic604]

Yeah, only few DAWs allow to bounce channels with their individual processing from Sends.

BUT, that makes perfect sense because very often effects will sound different depending on how strong the input signal is and what's the frequency content, dynamics, etc. For example if you have a complex, analog emulated dub delay on send channel then feeding 5 tracks into it and receiving the 'delays' back might sound very different from those same 5 tracks with their individual processing, because filters, feedback loops, etc. might react completely different. This will be even more true for EQs, compressors, saturators, transient shapers, etc. that you might put on a send track to control the effect.

[Ottostrom]

I agree with a lot of what has already been said here.
If you're feeding multiple channels into a send effect it will most likely react/sound a bit different than if they all had their own individual copy of that send effect.
That being said, sometimes I desire to use effects as a send for only one specific track. When this happens I have a premade combinator I drag in at the end of the inserts which splits the signal and has a line mixer. This means that this track basically has its own send effect but it still acts as only one channel.
The reason why I don't use parallel channels for this is because you don't get to specify where in the signal flow it should be taken from, so no inserts gets sent there which I think is dumb.

[antic604]

I guess that's one reason to upgrade to Reason11. But can you play sequences through Reason, or is it just a midi instrument rack in which PT provides the MIDI?

With VST format of Reason Rack plugin you have both instrument and FX versions. I'm sure it's the same for AAX, therefore you should be able to use Reason's native devices and REs as effects in ProTools, too.

[mcatalao]

Your logic deludes me.
To me if you've tweaked dynamics, levels and send tails, you already did your mix in reason. Why take it to ProTools?

I Haven't even started mixing.
That was all sound design on the synths. Plus I have UAD Plugins, Waves and Slate Plugins plus Guitar track, Guitar solo, and live percussion already recorded in Protools. Also, I expect to do a lot of vocal comping editing and fixing. It's easier IN PT...at least for me.

Well, if its sound design you should be using inserts for a multitude of reasons. First if you want to reuse the patches on other project the sends are not saved, so... i'll even say you should do your sound design inside of combis to recall everything in new projects. You also don't separate what are effects for designing and effects for mixing, and with all the mingling, it's almost sure that you're doing stuff that you should be doing in the mix and not in a sound designing or sequencing stage, imho of course. That depends a lot on the type of mix, how you use reverbs, and so on. For me if you use reverbs as sends in a bunch of different channels, you're mixing ahead rather than sound designing. But if you use 1 different reverb for each instrument that's for design purposes.

[mcatalao]

Yeah, only few DAWs allow to bounce channels with their individual processing from Sends.

BUT, that makes perfect sense because very often effects will sound different depending on how strong the input signal is and what's the frequency content, dynamics, etc. For example if you have a complex, analog emulated dub delay on send channel then feeding 5 tracks into it and receiving the 'delays' back might sound very different from those same 5 tracks with their individual processing, because filters, feedback loops, etc. might react completely different. This will be even more true for EQs, compressors, saturators, transient shapers, etc. that you might put on a send track to control the effect.

If you have some sort of saturation or dynamics on the send path going on, but if you don't have that, all signals are fed in parallel. That being said, if you want that, the send is not the best option because the OP is already using a send and his perception has always been the send of the sum while mixing. Right?

My point is, the audio flow MUST be coherent. In your example, the reverbs would be saturated on the send and not in the export. Which would not be coherent. Agree? So the export with sends makes no sense really (imho).

Export sends on the channel breaks the flow. Thus, its correctly not implemented that way in the export function. IMHO.

[antic604]

Export sends on the channel breaks the flow. Thus, its correctly not implemented that way in the export function. IMHO.

I wouldn't say it's "incorrect" (to allow for exporting tracks with their individual returns). It should be provided as an option and it's up to user to know & understand its limitations in certain scenarios. Otherwise you could say the same about exporting stems in general, because bus or master channel effects also can cause the sum of individual stems to sound different than the full mix.

I know it's trendy to safeguard people from making mistakes and bad choices, but they won't learn anything if they don't make them once in a while

[C//AZM]

Sometime while you're creating, you get lucky mistakes. It wasn't like I intended to keep these effects, but the guy who started the song liked it so much that he wouldn't take it any other way. I never mix in Reason for various reasons, so the idea of using send effects and bouncing the sends was new to me even though I've composed in Reason since ver3.
When I got the song, it already had these elements in them. I'm the producer and tasked with completing the rough idea into a finished song with live instruments added.
There was a one-drop Kick blooming with a gigantic verb with a long tail and a 16th note timed predelay. I ended up using that effect on the One-Drop, a snare and a swish cymbal. Then I had a ping-ponging delay repeating on tuned percussion and plucked synth sound dampened with a filter in another lucky mistake. The main pad had this swirly swishy effect built in and the delay send and reverb made the sound more special.

Long story short; The artist was married to those exact sounds, much like people get married to run-off mixes and poorly recorded wonder-takes. I tried to recreate the effects with other verbs but they all sounded "Too Nice" lol.
Thanks for your empathy.

[selig]

I understand what you're saying, and you're correct.
BUT the other DAWs don't say "All except fader section, all channel settings are applied except level and pan". I guess after reading that phrase for years and never using it, I ignorantly thought it meant what it said.

You were correct, it means exactly what it says. Consider the output options (jacks) on the back of the channel. That's what we're talking about with bouncing. You could take the output from the parallel out, which would be "none". You could take the output from the insert send, which would be "all but faders etc" (assuming default routing). Or you could take the output from the direct out, which would be "All including faders/pan".
In no cases would this include the global FX returns.

That being said, sure - that would make a great feature suggestion for a future update, though most may never need it (I've never wanted to do this myself, maybe I'm in the minority). I should be called something like "All including RETURNS or (FX) Used" (not "sends", because sends don't have the FX on them!), and would obviously take a LONG time to export if you selected all channels. But I get that there can be confusion with this, especially for those who may never have used a console with a patch bay or done tape transfers or mix "recalls".

[chimp_spanner]

I understand what you're saying, and you're correct.
BUT the other DAWs don't say "All except fader section, all channel settings are applied except level and pan". I guess after reading that phrase for years and never using it, I ignorantly thought it meant what it said.

You were correct, it means exactly what it says. Consider the output options (jacks) on the back of the channel. That's what we're talking about with bouncing. You could take the output from the parallel out, which would be "none". You could take the output from the insert send, which would be "all but faders etc" (assuming default routing). Or you could take the output from the direct out, which would be "All including faders/pan".
In no cases would this include the global FX returns.

That being said, sure - that would make a great feature suggestion for a future update, though most may never need it (I've never wanted to do this myself, maybe I'm in the minority). I should be called something like "All including RETURNS or (FX) Used" (not "sends", because sends don't have the FX on them!), and would obviously take a LONG time to export if you selected all channels. But I get that there can be confusion with this, especially for those who may never have used a console with a patch bay or done tape transfers or mix "recalls".

Yeah an option to export selected channels with returns baked into each one individually would be a HUGE time saver for me. Even if it meant longer export times, it'd remove the sheer tedium of going through 10-15 songs on an album, and soloing+exporting 5-10 group busses for each one, having to name them manually as well. Gonna raise this as a FR for sure.

[C//AZM]

You were correct, it means exactly what it says. Consider the output options (jacks) on the back of the channel. That's what we're talking about with bouncing. You could take the output from the parallel out, which would be "none". You could take the output from the insert send, which would be "all but faders etc" (assuming default routing). Or you could take the output from the direct out, which would be "All including faders/pan".
In no cases would this include the global FX returns.

That being said, sure - that would make a great feature suggestion for a future update, though most may never need it (I've never wanted to do this myself, maybe I'm in the minority). I should be called something like "All including RETURNS or (FX) Used" (not "sends", because sends don't have the FX on them!), and would obviously take a LONG time to export if you selected all channels. But I get that there can be confusion with this, especially for those who may never have used a console with a patch bay or done tape transfers or mix "recalls".

Yeah an option to export selected channels with returns baked into each one individually would be a HUGE time saver for me. Even if it meant longer export times, it'd remove the sheer tedium of going through 10-15 songs on an album, and soloing+exporting 5-10 group busses for each one, having to name them manually as well. Gonna raise this as a FR for sure.

This was one of those times. lol.
I've always used None or All But Faders/pans. I've seen the choice, but never used it. I'm one of those guys who always said" why would I want to do that?" But here - bit me in the ass- was that once in a lifetime thing.

Selig, I like your analogy and it works here, but keep in mind, DAWs do lots of things you couldn't do with a console and I thought this was one. DOH!
I've sent stems dry and also with all effect returns and it was exactly the same situation- solo the channels ne by one.. except in real time. So this would've been a tremendous help.
Yeah, add this to the list of requested choices.
Once again, Thanks guys.