16 Bouncing to Disk, Other File Formats

As discussed in earlier chapters, a Pro Tools project consists of a session document plus many additional audio files that are referenced by the session. You will commonly create additional files using Pro Tools’ bouncing functions.

When you’re mixing a stereo project, you would typically listen to your audio via two outputs on your audio hardware. In fact, for those who record their mixes in real time to a video master or some external two-track recorder, this may be all that is required. On the other hand, you may need to create reduction mixes from your Pro Tools project as a submixing strategy or to create mixdown files that can be used by other programs. To cite a common example, you will frequently create stereo mixdown files from Pro Tools so that you can write an audio CD (using another program) or so that a video editor or multimedia programmer can use the finished mix-down in a project. Pro Tools provides many powerful options for exporting audio files to standard formats. This chapter provides some guidelines for producing files to be used by other programs.