Final mix: Print vs Export? What do you do as the last step to get it ready for mastering?

I was watching this video by Graham with Jacquire King: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF2oNsiZWjc, very informative and enlightening.. I will get to my point now 
 
He mentioned he still prints his mix, sometimes he stops in the middle and make modifications. I usually export my mix as WAV. 
 
My queston is: What do you do to get that final WAV prepared for mastering? How do you do it? Printing vs Exporting (any positive or negative?)?
 
Thanks in advance. 
 

I wasn't 100% sure.. I believe he meant real time play/with the wav file going where he can see the peaks and stuff. That's the thing, I don't understand what these accomplished engineers mean by "Printing". Is it something exclusive to "Protools"?
 

My impression was that he likes to do something like audible bounce in real time as opposed to fast bounce, so he can listen as it goes to make sure there's nothing that he's still not happy with before he considers it final.

Well Sonar gives us about as many options for this as you could ask for... fast export, real-time export, audible or not audible, with live input on or off, or just route your master bus output to another bus (or an aux track or a patch point) and watch it bounce in real time with waveform display. 
 
But if the question is what people generally do... I generally set it to export and then go walk around the room, stretch my legs, get away from the screen. If I watched and listened to it bounce in case I heard something I wanted to change, I would ALWAYS hear something I wanted to change, and then it would never be done. At some point you have to accept that it's time to move on to the next thing... I like comitting to decisions I've made, unless they are really obviously wrong, in which case I will go back in and fix it and re-render. Otherwise it's easy to get stuck in pointless decision loops... 

John

TimV
My impression was that he likes to do something like audible bounce in real time as opposed to fast bounce, so he can listen as it goes to make sure there's nothing that he's still not happy with before he considers it final.

I know what he said.  I don't think his reasoning makes sense. Why export whether real time or not if you aren't sure? Stopping when you hear something that needs to be changed seems as if one would ask 'where were you while mixing'? 'Why are you just now hearing it'? I believe its what he is used to. If I recall PT didn't have fast bounce until very recently. I'm not trying to put him down I don't know him at all. I do know that we become accustomed to a way of doing things that to another using different gear seems odd. In this case I see a bunch of "accommodations" made because for a long time there was no other way. He adjusted to them by finding a reason for sticking to a flawed work flow. I wonder if he did the same when the CDs were being made? Stop the presses! I found a problem.
 
Of course perhaps he never did a long composition. 
 
 

I agree. It seems to make more sense to do a fast bounce and listen back if you want. It does seem strange to be doing the final bounce if you think you might still want to make changes. I'll usually listen back, but just to make certain that no audio glitches somehow got in.
 
I also agree with subtlearts' point about always hearing something you'll want to change. It makes me think of a quote that I believe was attributed to da Vinci, that a work of art is never finished, it's just abandoned.

mettelus
Although this should be obvious, even when exported the file should be reviewed. There have been posts where people obviously did not do this (and blamed SONAR for it). Doing a real-time bounce is more preference, but review of that final product is a must.

Yes it is obvious and I think most would do that. Even the fellow in the vid would. Or one would hope he did. LOL 

Some of the confusion is just semantics, and some of that is a holdover from tape days. From a digital audio perspective, Print = Export = Bounce = Freeze, and there are probably some other synonyms floating around as well. They all mean committing something to a fixed and finished product, whether it's the final product or an intermediate stage such as a frozen synth.
 
If you're not using a computer for recording, "print" means to write something to tape. It implies something is "done", because you can no longer separate its component parts once they're combined and saved. "Bouncing" only differs from "printing" in that a bounce is usually printing to another track on the same physical tape.
 
"Export" only came into existence with the digital era. Conceptually, it's the same thing as printing except the destination is a file on the disk drive instead of tape. Old-timers still call it "printing" out of habit.
 
What Graham is talking about is evaluating the finished product as a composite. It's a VERY good point. Your perception is quite different while you're in the DAW because you're thinking in terms of individual tracks and busses and you can easily lose sight of the full mix. Being able to see waveforms messes with your perception, too - there are no surprises when you watch the audio scroll by. 
 
My technique is to export the full mix, convert it to an MP3 and copy it over to a portable player. Then I'll wait a day or two before giving it a critical listen. I'm always amazed at the flaws that become obvious when I listen away from the DAW. Lots of "what was I thinking?" moments ensue.