Video: Bouncing to Disk in Pro Tools LE April 1, 2008
Posted by ConnorSmith in : Digidesign, Pro Tools, Videos , trackbackThis video will show you how to bounce to disk in Digidesign Pro Tools LE. First, I show you how to select the region you’d like to bounce. Then, its just a matter of picking your export options, showing Pro Tools where to put the file, and then bouncingTranscript:
In this video from The Studio Files .com, I am going to show you how to bounce a mix in Pro Tools LE. Bouncing to disk is one of the faster ways to export your mix in a variety of formats, and I will show you how to do that now. Start with the selector tool, and highlight your song from beginning to end. Now, what I am going to do is select a small chunk of the song. Pro Tools bounces in real time, so if I selected the whole song, this would be a long video… Once you have the region highlighted, go to File>Bounce To…>Disk. Now the Bounce dialog box opens up. For “Bounce Source”, usually you will stick with Analog 1-2. This is what the bounce is going to be monitoring. There are a bunch of different file types to choose from. I have the Music Production Toolkit from Digidesign, so I can export to MP3, but all the other options will be available if you don’t have the toolkit installed. Let’s just export to a wav for now. I am going to leave the bounce as stereo interleaved too. Depending on what you are bouncing for (for import into another DAW for mastering, sending via email… etc.) you may need to pick a different option, but we will leave “stereo interleaved” checked for now. I will leave the sample rate and bit depth the same. The final two options are convert during bounce, and convert after bounce. I am going to choose convert during bounce. Very obviously, Convert during bounce converts the file while it bounces it. It will take more processing power, and some computers can’t handle it, but it will usually give you a little more accurate bounce. Sometimes it will also take a little bit longer as well. Now Pro Tools will ask you where you want to save the file. I am going to save it on the desktop. Save it as Bounce 1. Let’s look on the desktop where I saved the file, and you will notice its right there. That’s a quick way to bounce files out of Pro Tools LE.
C
The Studio Files
Comments»
Thanks, this was awesome, bouncing in protools LE has been frustrating for 3 years and your video made it easy.
Thanks!
No problem, glad it helped!
NEED TO KNOW HOW TO RESTORE THE BOUCE TO ANOTHER COMPUTER. FILE COMES UP WITH NO AUDIO FROM WAVE.
@Chester
Howdy – first off, can you read this post and give us a little more information – http://thestudiofiles.com/?p=848
Its much easy to troubleshoot with that info.
Have you double checked the “Bounce Source” in the bounce-to-disk dialog box? Did you verify that the main output of your session matches that, and that those tracks are active and non-muted?
HELP!!!! I am building a huge orchestral track and have it all as one file (2 1/2 hours long!) I need to bounce to disk one song at a time. I highlight the part I want bounced and go through the rest of the process but when I push bounce it tries to bounce the whole track (2 1/2 hours) not just the part I have selected and highlighted. What am I doing wrong???
@merrilee
Do you have timeline and edit selections linked?
With all due respect, I take exception with the statement “Bouncing to disk is one of the faster ways to export your mix in a variety of formats…”
In fact, “rendering” to disk, as provided by many other software packages (in the audio realm and others) is The Fastest way to export. The implied definition of “render” and corresponding distinction being: a “render” will perform (and complete) as fast as your machine will allow, whereas Pro Tools’ “bounce to disk” works only in realtime. You reinforce my point 2 sentences later with your statement “Pro Tools bounces in real time, so if I selected the whole song, this would be a long video…”
In many cases, especially with modern CPUs, a simple render can be completed much faster than realtime. Only once a mix has become highly detailed (read: laden with plugins!) does rendering time approach realtime. (Keeping in mind we are only talking about “LE”, non-hardware-accelerated versions here…)
As for the “variety of formats” phrase, I won’t delve into great detail picking that aspect of your statement apart, but rest assured, if you need to “bounce to disk” in a “variety of formats”, you will be waiting the full (agonizing) realtime duration for each format’s export to complete.
I go to the lengths of pointing this out because this is one of the essential functional areas in which Pro Tools trails the pack, and needs to improve. This shortcoming literally (and needlessly) wastes the user’s valuable time.
Other than that, kind thanks for taking the time to provide this instructional material!
hello trapped–
We feel your pain
But remember, Connor is not comparing the Pro Tools (real time) bounce function to other DAWs here. He’s just showing the best way to combine steps (render/bounce and conversion/compression) within the LE functionality. Also, the term “render” might be a little more common for video applications than DAWs–PT, DP and Logic all refer to this as “bouncing” though PT is the only one of those three that makes you wait in real time (at the minimum) to do this “in-the-box” mixing.
Thanks for your detailed comments!
Damon
The Studio Files
@trapped
I have a rebuttal
Thanks for the discussion.
It often happens that when programs render a bounce, it takes longer than real time. I was at Studio DalSegno (Damon’s studio) yesterday working on a mix. I setup a bounce to disk, and it went approximately 25% slower than real time. This was on a top-of-the-line Mac Pro, and the mix wasn’t overly complicated. I’ve had similar experiences in Logic Pro.
Additionally (and IMO more importantly) – I actually prefer to bounce in real time. You should always, always listen to your mixes, whether its while bouncing or after bouncing. By monitoring back your bounce in realtime, you can double check to make sure everything is honky-dory.
Finally, other than shooting out mp3′s for client previews, I actually rarely use bounce to disk in any DAW. I prefer to bus everything to a stereo audio track and record my mixes right into the session. This allows me to compare mixes/organize/etc.
Thanks
C
I’ve been bouncing files this way for years. All of the sudden it won’t bounce my highlighted selection. It defaults to 00.00 for start and to the end of the longest playing track. Is there something I can do to get it to only bounce the hightlighted selection?
@Rob
Have you trashed preferences? Did you make any recent changes to your system (OS upgrade, PT upgrade, plug-in installs, etc.)?
No upgrades. but, are you saying I should trash the preferences?
@rob
Yeah, I’d try trashing prefs.
Hi,
I ve been recording guitar on 2 mics, created a stereo track, recorded and when I wanna bounce and choose stereo interleaved I get TWO bounce files – L channel and R channel. How do I manage that its all bounced into ONE file with the stereo quality sustained?
Thanks a lot for suggestion,
Martin
Thanks for vid,i was having trouble bouncing my song your method worked for me thank you……