Anderton

tenfoot
I am pretty certain there Is absolutely no advantage to having to select the downstream synth track as well as the midi track when using the bounce to track feature on a midi track.

What if multiple instruments in a multitimbral synth are all listening to the same track?

 
Actually, now that I think about it this makes no difference at all! The output being selected automatically rather than manually is still an advantage. How does the fact that it feeds a multi timbral instrument change the scenario? The midi or synth track is not disabled post bounce, and the output must still be chosen in order to bounce. What you do inside your instrument is entirely your own affair:)
 
I temporarily retract my 'fair call' in anticipation of a shown cause

tenfoot

Anderton

tenfoot
I am pretty certain there Is absolutely no advantage to having to select the downstream synth track as well as the midi track when using the bounce to track feature on a midi track.

What if multiple instruments in a multitimbral synth are all listening to the same track?

Hmmmm...fair call, but that's a whole lot of inconvenience for a rare exception. By all means include a check box for the upcoming 'set midi bounce by track output' option so that it can be disabled in the event of an Anderton exception:) Everyone's a winner!
 
To be clear, this is by no means anything I consider a priority fix. I was just agreeing with the OP that it could be simpler.

I don't really use simple instrument tracks so am not all that qualified to comment on the subject, but wouldn't that also simplify the bouncing process?
 
In any event Synth Recording has turned out to be a surprisingly big deal for me. I never sign off on a project until everything is an actual audio file. It used to be that doing so added a step of making multiple bounces at the end of a project, but with synth recording, it happens transparently, along the way. It's perhaps unconventional, but has totally altered my overall workflow for the better. 
 
As to the "rare exception," it may be for most people but my songwriting template uses a multitimbral synth for the sake of speed while composing. I often want to bounce the tracks that are "keepers," while ignoring the ones that are placeholders until I put on the "real" part. I find it too confusing to have a separate instrument open for each track when my primary concern is trying to get ideas down as fast as possible.

I too finalise all tracks as audio, but still use the bounce method.I don't use simple instrument tracks either. The rare exception is no longer an exception - it just doesn't apply as it would be unaffected by the change, so I still see no reason that this is not a win/win. 
 
When you say you use synth recording Craig, do you mean that you record both midi and audio real time in a single take? I almost invariably edit midi after recording,  so this would actually slow down my workflow as opposed to fast bounce. It would essentially be returning to the old days of realtime bounce.

tenfoot
When you say you use synth recording Craig, do you mean that you record both midi and audio real time in a single take?

Sometimes I do by accident . But my general workflow is to record MIDI, then edit the MIDI data. After it's edited, at some point during playback, or while recording something else, I record-enable the instrument's audio track so the MIDI track ends up as audio. This is what I mean by happening transparently, in the background - I don't have to bounce, freeze, or think, just enable record and voila, I have audio. 

Anderton

tenfoot
When you say you use synth recording Craig, do you mean that you record both midi and audio real time in a single take?

Sometimes I do by accident . But my general workflow is to record MIDI, then edit the MIDI data. After it's edited, at some point during playback, or while recording something else, I record-enable the instrument's audio track so the MIDI track ends up as audio. This is what I mean by happening transparently, in the background - I don't have to bounce, freeze, or think, just enable record and voila, I have audio. 

I can't see that working as transparently as you describe. You would still have to think to mute the MIDI track or disconnect the synth after recording to prevent doubling on playback, and to disarm the Synth track to prevent more takes being recorded. Also, record latency compensation isn't applied to synth recording which will be problematic if your buffer isn't as low as you would have it when recording a live performance, which is really what synth recording was intended to address.
 
All things considered, I wouldn't recommend this approach for most users.

Anderton

tenfoot
When you say you use synth recording Craig, do you mean that you record both midi and audio real time in a single take?

Sometimes I do by accident . But my general workflow is to record MIDI, then edit the MIDI data. After it's edited, at some point during playback, or while recording something else, I record-enable the instrument's audio track so the MIDI track ends up as audio. This is what I mean by happening transparently, in the background - I don't have to bounce, freeze, or think, just enable record and voila, I have audio. 

Ahh - got it. I shall give that a try. I am not sure I have enough consistent uninterrupted playbacks in my writing/arranging process for it to work for me though. It would however partially address what I think is a significant missed opportunity in track rendering, that being be the ability to select multiple clips on a single track and have Sonar bounce them to identical separate clips on the rendered track in a single action. An export feature was introduced relatively recently that allows this - unfortunately it deesn't seem to apply to bounce. I find having separate  clips of great visual benefit at mixdown, as well as the secondary gain of smaller audio folders and lighter HDD load.
 
If anyone knows a way to do this I would love to hear.

brundlefly
Also, record latency compensation isn't applied to synth recording which will be problematic if your buffer isn't as low as you would have it when recording a live performance, which is really what synth recording was intended to address.

 
Isn't record latency compensation added in order to address round trip latency that is already inherent in the VST synth Brundlefly? Sorry if that is an idiotic question - certainly not my area of expertise!

brundlefly

Anderton

tenfoot
When you say you use synth recording Craig, do you mean that you record both midi and audio real time in a single take?

Sometimes I do by accident . But my general workflow is to record MIDI, then edit the MIDI data. After it's edited, at some point during playback, or while recording something else, I record-enable the instrument's audio track so the MIDI track ends up as audio. This is what I mean by happening transparently, in the background - I don't have to bounce, freeze, or think, just enable record and voila, I have audio. 

I can't see that working as transparently as you describe. You would still have to think to mute the MIDI track or disconnect the synth after recording to prevent doubling on playback, and to disarm the Synth track to prevent more takes being recorded. Also, record latency compensation isn't applied to synth recording which will be problematic if your buffer isn't as low as you would have it when recording a live performance, which is really what synth recording was intended to address.
 
All things considered, I wouldn't recommend this approach for most users.

After bouncing, you have to mute something so I'm okay with muting the MIDI track. I hadn't really thought about record-enabling because my workflow is such that if the master record enable button is on, I turn it off prior to doing a recording. I think this is a holdover from my tape days that I'll probably have until the day I die...I like to do deliberate record-enabling of something before hitting record.
 
Latency doesn't seem to be an issue. I tested it; the top waveform is the synth-recorded one and the bottom one is the bounced one. However note that both of them are 2 ms behind the onset of the MIDI note.
 

 
The biggest advantage to me is not having to wait for tracks to bounce, or deal with the dialog box...what I hear is what I get. Because the data is always the same until you change any settings, you can even record things in pieces. So basically, the rendering of tracks becomes a background process, although sometimes I also use the audio to try out different edits or songwriting (something I covered in a tip of the week). For some applications, like chopping up pieces of sound, at least for me it's a lot faster with audio.

After the midi is recorded ...
You can also insert an AUX track and a send and record only one track in real time from any vsti as opposed to having to freeze the whole synth.

Steve_Karl
After the midi is recorded ...
You can also insert an AUX track and a send and record only one track in real time from any vsti as opposed to having to freeze the whole synth.

...or just record-enable the soft synth's audio track, if you're not using a simple instrument track.