Thanks Noel, appreciated!
The problem is I don't know what "gainstage" is... (can't see anything like that on my soundcard nor the midi controller).
I did unplug the Impulse 61 Controller to see if some settings there would have caused this problem but bouncing a mono track (bass guitar) ended up with the same L/R unbalance. Then I imported all the audio tracks from the "problem project" to a new one. Of course, I'll have to add all the plugins, set automation values and so forth, but now bouncing down the tracks kept the original L/R-balance. SO it's something within the project (soft ware issue) that causes L/R gain drift while bouncing.