Bouncing 24 Bit Vox Audios ... Degredation

bits are like brain cells to me. I try not to lose any. 
If you've already gone thru the agony of doing the clip envelopes, why worry about em?
I don't bounce unless I have to.
Melodyne, just import it. done.
EQ, why bounce?
But then again, I've thinking about the concept of committing to whatever I've done to a track and moving on just to get that one decision out of the way. Still in the thinking about it phase though. 

In the digital world, theoretically, you could bounce forever and the end result would be the same. However, when you add melodyne, eq, compression, and all the extra stuff, you will fundamentally change the resultant wave...and when you bounce, it is non-reversable. So... keep the original vox track safe somewhere then if you really do go too far, you can scrap it and start over.

I will sometimes make 2 bounces..... melodyne and then on occasion, I will insert O4 to polish a vox track....and bounce it again to eliminate the FX in the project....  and since I don't like to have any CPU heavy FX running in the project, (except O4 in the master buss)  I will bounce everything except the cake default FX in tracks.

I think the real question here is why Sonar misbehaves with you Clip Envelopes Philip.

You have a VERY capable pc so this should not be happening.

I rarely have to bounce anything - the last project I mixed consisted of 75 audio tracks, with multiple FX, Plugs, Busses, Live V-Vocal clips and extensive automation.

Admittedly, I had to lower my latency quite a bit for the final mix, but once I'd done that, Sonar didn't even blink.

Digital bouncing should cause NO audio degradation, even after multiple bounces - it's just numbers, not audio!

Try playing around with your latency to see if this helps, or consider moving from Clip envs to Track envs.

Bristol_Jonesey, thanks for going the extra-mile with me on this.  I've absorbed your latency suggestions thoroughly.  This PC-DAW is powerful (Windows Experience Index = 76) 
... ASIO (effective) latency is 1.5 msecs.  I'll experiment with 'raising' and 'lowering' some more buffer size to see if it helps.

Timidi and GuitarHacker: Thanks for your suggestions.  Tidiness is also an issue.  Judiciously bouncing vox/guitar tracks ... I'm hoping is a healthy thing ... when things get cluttered/choky.

Now How, thank you for validating Bristol_Jonesey on this sensitive issue of quality after bouncing clips.

AT and CJ: Right now I'm doing 24 bit.  I ponder if the 8-bit difference is worth it to go to 32bit for that guaranteed extra-fidelity ... and working with Fx's, latency, and all. 

IOWs, I'd like to know if others are using 32-bit as the reasonable standard now?

Philip,
I'm  not validating anyone...i'm asking:

Can you lose quality by generation in digital????

Thanks, Colin.....I'll check it out.

Philip


IOWs, I'd like to know if others are using 32-bit as the reasonable standard now?

24-bit clips with 32-bit floating bit rate.