GETTING SOUND OUT OF PRO TOOLS: BOUNCING, CONSOLIDATING, AND DUPLICATING

Whether the goal is to produce a song, a sound effects pre-dub, or a completed film mix, you're usually using Pro Tools to create combinations of sounds. Rather than simply taking the analog output of the Pro Tools system and feeding it into a recorder, there's a simple way to create a mixed audiofile. The procedure is called a "bounce." There are also some other handy tricks for managing audiofiles.

Bouncing Tracks

This is a feature you might well have a use for. To "bounce" tracks means that you mix all the audible tracks within a selected time range in a session and create a new audiofile from the result (or audiofiles, if you do a stereo bounce.) The length of the selection is determined by highlighting with the selector bar.

Why would you do a bounce? Well, you might have a particularly complex moment within a session where you are beginning to run out of available voices/tracks. Like: some elaborate science-fiction device (made up of many sound effects) is dropped out of the bomb-bay doors (more effects) of a moving spaceship (more effects.) You might wish to create a bounce that is essentially a pre-mix of just the sci-fi device sounds to make the session more manageable.

Or you might be creating a mix which is destined to be burned to CD, or imported into some other editing program. In that case, it makes more sense to create a digital file than do an analog transfer.

Bouncing is essentially a "what you hear is what you get" process -- if a track is muted, it doesn't end up as part of the bounce. Real-time plug-ins, like EQ, do affect the bounce.

To do a bounce, first highlight the length of the selection. This could be just a few seconds of a session, or even the entire session. Then from the menubar choose File|Bounce to Disk. The following window appears:

Bounce Source: it should be the outputs that your tracks are assigned to. On the LE systems, that would be 1-2 (Stereo) by default. [On the Pro Tools 24 systems there are more output choices and it's important to make the right selection. If all your tracks are assigned to play through outputs 1/2 but your bounce source is set for 3/4, no sounds are going to end up in your bounce.]

File type: SD II (Sound Designer II) [Or AIFF, WAV, MPEG, QUICKTIME, Sound Resource]

Format: "Multiple Mono" means the split stereo approach that Pro Tools favors. If you want to burn the bounce to an audio CD, select "Stereo Interleaved." [There's also a "Summed Mono" option, which will combine your stereo mix into a single mono track. Note that this might result in a higher combined level and produce clipping.]

Resolution: "16 bit" is CD quality and is the recommended choice. [8 bit is low-fi, suitable for some multimedia games; 24 bit is often used for original music recordings but not for consumer formats.]

Sample Rate: "44100" is CD quality. [48000 is used in some pro applications; Pro Tools also provides for other sample rates to aid in pull-up/pull-down conversion factors, etc.]

Convert After Bounce

Import After Bounce: This is handy; it means that the bounce will automatically appear in your session Audio Regions List. (Otherwise you'd have to import the files.)

 

 
After you select the type of bounce you want to do, you get a standard "Save As" window. Usually you would save such a bounce to the "Audio Files" folder of your session. I like to include the abbreviation "BNC" to easily identify bounces.

One last note about bounces: you will hear the bounce play in real time as it is created, so if it's a long session, allow enough time for the process.

Consolidating Regions

This is not a mixing technique because no fader level settings or automation will affect the result, but it is a way to create a single continuous audiofile out of a series of edited regions. Simply select a number of regions in a track (or triple-click to select all the regions in a track) then select Edit|Consolidate Selection. Pro Tools will create a new continuous audiofile from those regions and replace them in the track with the new file. Spaces between regions or regions which have been muted will appear as silence in the newly created file. Otherwise, all levels will be as they were in the original files; no fader settings or real-time plug-ins will apply to these new files. (Fades, however, will be reflected in the new files since fade files are actual audiofiles.)

Consolidating can be a useful tool, especially if you have performed a lot of tricky edits or condensed a lot of scattered material into a much smaller chunk -- now you can take the results and easily share it between different sessions. (Example: You might have a ten minute take of a car performing bursts of racy maneuvers interspersed with long stretches of steady driving; you could consolidate this into a few minutes of just the most active racy driving.)

Duplicating Regions with Audiosuite

Don't confuse this with the Edit|Duplicate command, which simply tacks a copy of a region at the end of the original region. Audiosuite duplicating takes a region and creates a new audiofile from it. You can duplicate the entire audiofile as well, but typically you use this on smaller regions. When might you want to do this?

Suppose you have a glitch during the middle of some sound, and you decide to perform a tricky edit on the waveform itself, using the Pencil Tool. Remember that this is a destructive technique that alters the original audiofile. It might be safer to use the Separate Region command (SPLAT-E) to define a small region that contains the glitch. Then you can duplicate just that that "problem region" and create a brand new soundfile that you can destructively edit while leaving the original audiofile untouched.

Just highlight the region(s) you want to duplicate and select Audiosuite|Duplicate.

It's usually best of select the "use in playlist" option; otherwise the new file simply appears over in your Audio Regions List. Also note that "region by region" is the default. Clicking that button reveals another choice of "continuous file." Choosing to make a continuous file is essentially the same thing as consolidating; if you select more than one region it will create a single file and the gaps between regions will result in silent portions in the new file.

Exporting Regions as Files

One more variation on this theme of creating new -- usually smaller -- audiofiles from regions. In the Audio Regions List pull-down menu, there is a choice called "Export selected as files." Previously we made new files in order to turn around and use them in the same session. This choice also gives us a means of creating new audiofiles from regions, but because it's designed to make files that will be used elsewhere the menu gives us some handy options.

You see we have choices similar to creating a bounce in terms of file type, format, resolution and so forth. Cautionary note: Notice that the default resolution of 24 bit may not be suitable. (We've been consistently working at 16 bit, so you should change the default.)

 

We're also prompted to choose a destination for the files; in this case I've created a separate folder called "exported files."

Exporting regions as files can be handy if you want to use sounds in some other editing system that only accepts WAV files, or if you want some 8 bit low fi copies, etc. Note that this procedure does not create a single continuous file out of several regions. If you need to do that you might first consolidate some regions and then use the Export Selected as Files option to create some new version of the result. (Or you could do a bounce and use the bounce options to create the kind of file you need.)

Remember though that a bounce is a real-time process to which all the level setting and automation applies. That may be just what you want; if not, these other options of duplicating, consolidating, and exporting files will be much faster.

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Copyright ©2000 by Rodger Pardee