
The answer isn’t quite as simple as yes or no. Would you rather click play on an audio file or wait for your DAW to load up? Let’s say your pals come over and you want to show them your new track. The upload and download speeds are far quicker as a result.įinally, a sweet little perk is the ease of listening to your own music. In addition to saving your computer processing power, sending audio files to collaborators or friends over the internet is much easier than sending a heavy DAW file. And when you build complicated sounds and add multiple sounds to your DAW project, your computer will begin to struggle to dish out enough processing power.īut if you bounce those multiple instruments down into an audio file, or if you export each one individually, all your computer needs to do is supply enough processing power to play those audio files inside your DAW! Well, virtual instruments like Serum require more and more processing power with every bit of modulation you add to your sound. Let’s say you’ve got an 8 bar MIDI loop, and its audio source is a VST like Serum. Firstly, it saves our computer processor a lot of work! To illustrate, let’s compare the sheer data that a virtual instrument consumes compared to an audio file. There are a handful of reasons why we bounce our tracks. In contrast, exporting audio refers only to exporting individual audio like a one-shot or a singular melody line to an audio file. Bouncing audio is the process of exporting a complete song to a single stereo audio file or a handful of stereo audio files that we call stem files. The difference between bouncing audio and exporting audio. And that one audio file is your whole track! So, bouncing audio is about “bouncing” your whole project down into audio groups, and then again into the final audio file.īefore we go any further, let’s clear up the obvious hurdle of confusion. On the other hand, if you play all of your stem files together then you’d hear your whole track playing in unison.īut bouncing tracks also refers to bouncing all of your stem files down to just one audio file too. By playing a stem file on its own, you’ll hear all of your instruments with no drums, bass or vocals. As we mentioned, A drum stem file includes all of your drums, an instrument stem includes all of your instruments, etc. Stems are stereo recordings/audio files derived from a bigger mix of multiple tracks. These audio groups are called stem files. Other groups may include sound effects too! For example, your bass is one group as are your vocals, instruments, and drums. More specifically, bouncing audio is about exporting your finished track into smaller audio groups. It’s time to bounce your tracks!īouncing tracks is the process of bouncing a completed song into audio files. With your mix completed, it’s time to prepare your song for mastering.
