This is my first post here but I've been a REAPER user for nearly 10 years now.
I was super excited for REAPER version 5.98's new render selected tracks or selected media items via master feature. Unfortunately, it does not work as expected.
I had hoped it would work for archiving purposes, so that I did not have to copy my master buss effects to a new session but that's not the case. This also leads me to believe that sub/group busses behave this way as well and therefore I'll have to make copies of those as well when archiving as I always have.
The best way to demonstrate what I find incorrect is in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1RRLAEdad4
As you can hear, compressor behavior is dependent on the other tracks. That's fine for some purposes but not for mix archiving. I am not a programmer/developer so I'm not sure how if this is even feasible, but...
The way I would implement it (as another render down method, because this individual tracks/items is handy as well) is to have every master and sub buss effect triggered via a combined sidechain.
Disregard the individual tracks being mixed down (so that the effect is not doubled) but include their signal in the combined sidechains. That way, no matter if it's a compressor or saturation effect or whatever on the sub group busses or master buss, the tracks when combined in a new session/project WITH PROPER PAN LAWS will sound the same.
I would give it a cute name like mixdown archiving external sidechain or something along those lines. Unless there is already a way to do this? I don't believe consolidate works in this way (so that we get not only the track effects but send effects and the master buss as well) but I could be wrong after all of these years.
A mixdown archiving option would be an awesome version 6 feature, hint hint.