when I do Ctrl+B > record > play, it does not bounce. if I do an offline bounce first, then it will let me do a realtime Ctrl+B > record > play bounce.
That’s the way it used to work. You had to manually create the sound event on the bounce track, either by doing an offline bounce first, or by drawing in the sound event. This behaviour was changed in Podium 2.35. It is no longer necessary to manually create the realtime bounce sound event. Will be available in the next Podium Free 2.35 release.