re. is it safe to say that all output buses go directly to hardware playback?
not necessarily. it only happens that way because the default Master output buses are auto-connected, which means that its ports are automatically connected to the first pair of system:playback_N ports. you can turn that off and manually connect those output ports to whatever you find appropriate. qtractor is just a client of the whole JACK sub-system, remember?
re. is it safe to say that all output buses go directly to hardware playback?
not necessarily. it only happens that way because the default Master output buses are auto-connected, which means that its ports are automatically connected to the first pair of system:playback_N ports. you can turn that off and manually connect those output ports to whatever you find appropriate. qtractor is just a client of the whole JACK sub-system, remember?
cheers