How to Bounce Your Track

Once you've created, arranged, and finalized your track, it's essential to know how to bounce or share it, essentially making it a file you can send to someone, like your mum, who you want to hear your new song! Here's how to do it:

Steps to Bounce Your Track

1. Navigate to Bounce:

   • Go to File.
   • Select Bounce.
   • The shortcut for this action is Command + B.

2. Understand Bouncing:

   • Bouncing is exporting a file of your mix, song, production, or demo.
   • You will encounter several options during this process.

3. Choose Your Format:

   • On the left side, PCM provides high-quality formats.
     • This format is ideal for sending to a mastering engineer or when you want the best sound quality.
     • The default format is WAV, which is readable on both Mac and PC.
   • You can also bounce an MP3 version at the same time.
     • An MP3 with a bitrate of 320 is the highest quality and easy to send over email.

4. Define the Start and End Time:

   • Typically, this will be the start and end of your session. However, if there's extra space at the end, you might want to exclude it.
   • My preferred method:
     • Use Command + A to select everything.
     • Use Command + U to set the cycle range.
     • Use Command + B to return to the bounce dialog.

5. Select Bounce Mode:

   • You have two modes to choose from: Real Time or Offline.
     • Offline is recommended, especially if you're not using any external hardware, it's quicker and bounces straight to your disk.
     • Real Time is necessary if you need to pass audio through hardware.

6. Additional Settings:

   • Generally, keep Normalize off.
   • You can choose to include the audio tail if preferred.
   • You can add the bounce file back to your project or to iTunes, or both.

7. Naming and Saving Your File:

   • After setting everything up, you'll be prompted to name your file and choose where to save it.
   • For example, you might call it "My Mix of My Great Song".

Conclusion

That's how you take your production, whether it's your final mix or a demo of just your vocals and guitar, and bounce it to share with others!