Mixing MIDI Vs. Mixing Audio

[Apheyr]

So, this might just be a preference issue, or it might be 'one is better than the other', but I'm trying to get some insight on mixing techniques.

 

I mainly work with orchestration for film score. When I'm done with a composition and I'm really starting to dig into the heavy mixing phase, is it recommended to just mix the session as it is (ie, all the performances in MIDI) or is it best to bounce each individual channel strip down to audio and then open up a separate mixing session and work with the audio only?

 

I have mainly been mixing the session with all the MIDI performances and no audio regions. I bus all my reverb to each channel and mainly tweak the strings within the plug-in interface, adding EQ and other mixing plug-ins to the channel strip itself and/or bussing various channel strips with compression, etc, etc.

 

I'm assuming that if I bounce them to audio, bounce them completely dry and with no EQ, etc, etc.

 

Mainly, is there a 'right or wrong' way to either approach. Advantage/Disadvantage?

 

Let me know if you need more information.

 

The track, if you would like to hear it, is this, which so far, I've mixed primarily as is with each instruments MIDI performance:

 

http://soundcloud.com/apheyr/company-of-heroes-mp3-version

 

Rock on!

 

Justin

[fader8]

Since you need to render your tracks to audio for archiving anyway, you might as well do it before you start the mix. Streaming audio from disk requires very little cpu. Instruments on the other hand....