After all these years, still don't know: Flatten? Bounce? ..

Steinberg Lounge
1

… or maybe … Render?

I’m talking about VariAudio. When I’ve done my edits, I’m not sure what the difference is between flatten (as recommended by the manual) and bounce (which somehow I’ve gotten into the habit of doing). Actually I do both, which I wonder … And then someone in another post recently mentioned they do rendering instead!

Does anyone know know what the “flatten” function specifically does? Is it different from bouncing?

Thanks!

2

I’ve experienced the same issue! Would be good to get a official feedback about this!

3

i use bounce, flatten many times ruined my edits.but it was on Cubase 5 back then, maybe now its better.

4

When I am doing any vario audio editing I always bounce the track once I am satisfied.

Haven’t used flatten and I am not sure that rendering saves any editing done??

Each to his own though!!

Jim B

5

Rendering does save it. To make sure, I just did some variaudio editing on a short passage. I rendered it in place and then soloed the two tracks and reversed polarity on one of the tracks.

They null, therefore they are the same. If it were I, I would render.

6

Thanks for the info Steve,

I’m in the “Mancave” now so I will give it a try.

Jim B

7

If it doesn’t bounce, it will probably get flattened…? :mrgreen:

8

So what is flatten? A useless menu command? :question:

9

Can one of the mods send an engineer by to explain what flatten does, compared to bounce, and render?

10

OK, I believe that flatten, bounce, and render are all sample accurate.

I made some VariAudio changes, then duplicated the track, then made a real copy.

Then, I tried each of those three processes in turn - they all nulled. So I guess flatten is just fine.


HOWEVER …

If I then immediately analyze the audio that just nulled, and look at the note value that VariAudio assigned … it is DIFFERENT than the original audio.

So - sounds identical, analyzed differently. Part of it is that it segments it differently, but even in parts of the audio that are segmented identically, the assigned note value is different.

TAKEAWAYS

  1. Bounce, Render, Flatten all do the same thing - make sample-accurate audio that matches the VariAudio’d work.
  2. Ears are more important than reading the note value … since for the same note (we know this, since it nulls), VariAudio will assign different note values.