Concerning the composite button

i was editing a video on the timeline and i wanted to create a stereo ducking effect with the audio track as it existed within the video i was editing, (i managed to pull it off quite nicely actually), by creating a split…using the audio fade-out tool from the filter menu, then use the stock transition built into the program. all of this was done on a single track. on playback the audio portion of the faded out track ducked nicely under the audio of the next clip and worked wonderfully. then i got to wondering what the composite button was for, so i clicked it thinking it would bring all of my splits together before exporting the track as a completed .mp4. well, that wasn’t the case. after clicking the composite button, on playback the program would crash consistently every time the timeline indicator reached the transition…i ran it and had to restart the program six times. fortunately i was able to undo the composite command, saving an hours worth of work. is this a bug, or was i attempting to do something the program was not designed to do? i actually have no idea, but i thought it was worth reporting.

Compositing is the process of adding images or videos as overlays to track 1, such as PiP.

so i’m correct in thinking that compositing involves multiple tracks both audio and video…does it composite everything into a single track when all is said and done BEFORE exporting? so far all of my work has involved editing single tracks with audio on the timeline, hence the reason i ask.

No…
Think of tracks as you would ‘layers’ in photoshop.
Merging occurs on export.

excellent…that is something i can get a hold of…but wait…
so how does that involve the composite button and it’s use, is the question i’m after…
but thank you for that bit of knowledge…that will definitely come in handy.

It enables or disables the above.