Mix to Disk

A special command in many DAW systems that allows an entire session to be mixed directly to a hard drive in the same way a mixdown would occur with a traditional studio setup. It can also be used to bounce individual tracks of a dense session to one or two composite tracks in order to free up resources. The function is sometimes called “bounce to disk” for this reason. Mix to disk can be advantageous when the next few steps of the project (like mastering, for example) are going to take place on the computer as well. The alternative is to bring the mix out to some external device such as a DAT machine or CD recorder and then re-record it back into the computer. While most DAW’s have a mix to disk function (it may be called other things depending upon the system) they do vary in capability. Some systems only allow internal hard disk tracks to be bounced to disk and do not include any live or virtual tracks being brought into the system. Some may bounce in real time while others can do an accelerated bounce. Some allow automation to be captured in the bounce, while others do not. Some systems allow many different options for bouncing.