I built Gawds own computer for music, as much RAM as I could install, the best CPU available at the time, the fastest hard drives I could get at Fry’s, etc… What I’ve found is that most DAWs are IO bound, not CPU bound. I can load up dozens of soft synths and effects and not have much of a problem with latency. I’m able to set things really low (128) without any problems with cutouts. Once I start bouncing and applying effects to the final tracks, I run into problems and need to drastically increase the latency on my interface (1024 or more).
I’ve always had the notion that bouncing as early as possible was the best approach, nowadays, I’m not so sure.
Maybe it’s better to mix everything ITB and bounce only when you need stems?
What do you think?
Thanks!
Huh…why would you bounce before you need to? Not sure I understand that reasoning.
That aside then bouncing should not require you to up the buffers at all.
Maybe would help if you explain what bouncing you’re doing…bounce selection, RIP, export/import??
Are you making sure to use a technique that disables the effects after rendering?
bouncing is IMHO a very good last step to do before mixing. Simply because if I decide in 5 years time to have a second go at the mix, I can load the files into what ever version of Cubase or any other daw I want, without too much hassle. If any outboard gear is used it is a must, again IMHO. So for purely archiving purposes it should be done every time.
Through the years I have lost countless projects in the digital dust of plugin and OS updates.