I have covered this topic in detail using digital performer 7 and earlier versions. Digital Performer 8 moves some commands around and has slightly different dialog windows.
Bouncing to disk is how you arrive at a single stereo audio file of your entire multi-track project. Bouncing to disk processes all of your soundbites and the non-destructive edits you’ve applied, mixes them, and outputs the result to a file.
The basic process involves
- Selecting all of your soundbite and mix data in the sequence editor.
- Choosing the Bounce to Disk command from the File menu and choosing appropriate settings.
Start by making sure you are in the sequence editor. The tab in the consolidated window will say Sequence. If you have popped the pane out of the consolidated window, it will read Sequence Editor. You can use the Select All command (from the Edit menu, or [CMD]-A), but you want to make sure that you enough time for complete reverb tails in your project. Since reverb is applied through a plugin, it won’t appear as something selectable in the editor. You can drag-select to get a precise ending point. You can also shift-drag on either end to adjust a start/end point for the bounce.
IMPORTANT: if you do not select any audio in the sequence editor, your bounced audio file will not contain any audio. Check the file in the Finder window. Remember that stereo audio at 44.1 kHz/16 bit takes up about 10 MB per stereo minute. If you think you bounced 2 minutes of audio but your bounced file is 200 kb, you made a mistake.
Next, choose the Bounce to Disk command from the File menu.
This brings up your first of two dialog boxes for settings. Notice that you can choose your destination folder for the bounced file. DP8 creates a Bounces folder and uses that as a default location. I would go ahead and stick with that. It is useful, however, to make sure that the Overwrite Existing Files option is NOT checked. You might want to keep old bounces for comparison.
The other options are for File Format (use either .aiff or .wav, interleaved stereo) and Source. Source is the output channels you wish to include in your bounce. I was using Soundflower when I grabbed the screenshot. The output will usually be the hardware audio interface or built-in.
The next dialog box sets the bit resolution and sample rate.
Once you click OK, DP goes to work. It mixes as fast as it can (usually much faster than real time). With DP8 you may not see a bounce dialog showing your progress. If it is a short bounce, all you might see is all your output led meters flash on and then off. When it is done, quit DP. Open your bounced file in Audition or Audacity. Listen to it to make sure everything was included. Look at your max amplitude. Your max amplitude should be no less than -3 or -4 dB. If it is more (-9 dB, for example), go back and raise the amplitude on your Master Fader in DP and bounce again.
In particular, check to make sure than nothing was cut off at the end of the file. If you included a lot of extra space at the end of the sequence, delete the silence down to about 4 seconds or so extra. If the file doesn’t have four seconds of silence at the end, add as needed.
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