mmorgan
digitaleagle
I understand that in order to mix down to a CD all of the tracks need to be in audio form. I can then mix the audio tracks with busses from there.
It has been a while since I did a mix but I don't recall ever being forced to convert MIDI to audio, assuming of course that the MIDI is being routed through an instrument. It is possible that you are creating work for yourself. Perhaps someone can set me straight if I'm wrong.
I believe in the past people bounced and froze because our systems in those days could not handle all of the processing that was going on. Of course if you have a ton of automation and FX processing going on you might have to.
Regards,
Quite correct.
You don't
need to bounce prior to exporting, it's just a matter of whether your computer can manage it all in real time when exporting.
But a lot of people like to render all their midi to audio simply as a safety measure. You might one day want to remix an old project only to find that a particular soft synth used in the project is no longer on your system, or not supported by your current DAW/OS