- Am I right in assuming there is no processing differences between the two and that this is essentially done to give users more control (i.e., they are sonically identical…just together or separate)?
Not quite… if you have any effects on the group track, those will be included in the group render. So for example you might have two tracks, a kick and snare track each with no effects, grouped together. The group track has a distortion on it. The kick and snare renders will be clean, and the group render will have distortion.
Basically it just records the exact output of all the tracks, effects and all. If you don’t have any effects on the group track then yes, it would be equal to the sum of the tracks inside it.
- If #1 is accurate, to hear the accurate master gain of the stems once in reaper, I would either mute the individual tracks or mute the group composite, correct? That way I’m not accidentally doubling anything. (?)
If you want to hear the same thing as you hear in Renoise, then use the group renders. Really it’s any “top-level” track – any track that sends its signal to Master.
btw you can use this “render each track to separate file” feature to produce lots of different files with different layers of processing, which you may find useful when mixing or making a sample library.