Bouncing and Export

The Bounce Dialog

The bounce dialog renders your mix (or a section of it) to an audio file on disk. Before you open it, make sure Logic knows which section to render.

Setting the Bounce Range

Set your cycle range (the yellow bar in the ruler) around the material you want to export. Or select a region and use Set Locators by Regions/Events/Marquee to set the cycle range to match your selection exactly.

The bounce renders whatever falls between the locators. If you do not set them deliberately, you might bounce dead air at the beginning or cut off a reverb tail at the end.

Format Options

You can check multiple formats at once — Logic bounces all of them in a single pass. There is no reason not to export a WAV alongside an MP3 if you need both.

Sample Rate

Sample rate determines how many audio snapshots per second your file contains. The most common options:

• 44.1 kHz — CD standard. Fine for most music delivery.
• 48 kHz — Video standard. Use this when your audio is going into a video project.
• 96 kHz or higher — High-resolution audio. Only relevant if your entire session was recorded and mixed at this rate.

Bounce at whatever sample rate your project is set to. If your project is 48 kHz, bounce at 48 kHz. Converting sample rates during the bounce is possible but unnecessary unless someone specifically requests a different rate. If they do, Logic handles the conversion — just select the target rate in the bounce dialog.

Bit Depth

Bit depth determines the resolution of each audio sample — the dynamic range and precision of quiet sounds.

• 24-bit — Professional standard. Use this for any file that might see further processing: stems, mixes sent for mastering, collaboration files.
• 16-bit — CD standard. Use this only for final delivery to 16-bit formats (which is increasingly rare). Requires dithering when converting from 24-bit.
• 32-bit float — Maximum precision. Useful for archival bounces or intermediate processing. Larger file sizes.

When in doubt, bounce at 24-bit. It preserves the most information and works everywhere.

Normalization

The bounce dialog offers three normalization modes:

Off — Bounces the file at whatever level your mix produces. This is the right choice when you are sending to a mastering engineer — they want your headroom intact. They need room to work, and normalizing before delivery removes that room.

Overload Protection Only — If any sample exceeds 0 dBFS, Logic pulls the entire file down just enough to prevent clipping. If nothing clips, it does nothing. A safety net without altering your mix balance. This is a reasonable default for most situations.

Normalize — Scales the entire file so the loudest peak hits 0 dBFS. This maximizes the apparent level, but it changes the gain relationship you set during mixing. Generally avoid this for professional delivery. It has its place for one-off bounces where you want maximum level and nobody else will process the file further.

Dithering

When you convert from a higher bit depth to a lower one (24-bit to 16-bit), very quiet sounds can develop audible artifacts — a kind of granular distortion called quantization noise. Dithering adds an almost imperceptible layer of random noise that masks these artifacts. The result sounds cleaner than the un-dithered conversion.

Logic offers three dithering algorithms — POW-r #1, #2, and #3. Each uses a different noise-shaping curve. #1 is the simplest, #3 shapes the noise most aggressively into inaudible frequency ranges. For most purposes, POW-r #2 or #3 are the right choices.

The rule is simple: dither when reducing bit depth. Never dither when staying at the same bit depth or bouncing to 32-bit float. If your project is 24-bit and you are bouncing to 24-bit WAV, no dithering needed.

Include Audio Tail

This checkbox captures reverb and delay tails that ring past the end of the bounce range. Almost always enable it. Without it, your bounce ends abruptly at the locator — reverb tails, delay echoes, and sustained notes get chopped. The bounce extends until the tail decays to silence.

The only reason to disable it is if you specifically want a hard cutoff at the locator position.

Exporting Stems

Stems are individual audio files for each track or group of tracks — the vocals as one file, the drums as another, the bass as another. You deliver these to a mixing or mastering engineer, a collaborator, or an archive.

The fastest approach: select the tracks you want to stem, then use Bounce Tracks in Place (from the Edit menu or File menu depending on your Logic version). Each selected track renders to its own audio file with all plugins and routing baked in.

For stems that need to include bus processing (all the drum tracks summed through a drum bus with bus compression), solo that bus and use the main bounce dialog. Repeat for each bus.

A few things to get right when preparing stems:

• Set your locators to the full song length — every stem should start at bar 1 and end at the same point, so they line up when imported elsewhere
• Include Audio Tail — reverb tails should be captured
• Decide on effects: bounce stems with or without effects depending on what the recipient needs. “Wet stems” include your processing. “Dry stems” leave room for the recipient to process them differently. Ask before assuming.
• Label clearly — name each stem file so the recipient knows what it is without guessing

Audio to Movie

If you have been scoring to picture, File > Movie > Export Audio to Movie bakes your audio into the video file. Logic asks whether to include the movie’s original audio alongside yours — usually the answer is no, since your score is the replacement.

For professional video work, you would typically export the audio as a separate file (WAV or AIFF at 48 kHz) and deliver it to the editor who handles the final assembly in their video editing software. But for quick internal review or sharing a rough with a director, exporting directly to the movie file works.

All Five Bounce Variants

Logic offers five distinct bounce operations. They solve different problems:

The main bounce (⌘ + B) exports a file. Everything else renders inside the project. The main bounce is what this chapter focuses on — the final export. The others were covered in Chapter 19 as creative and workflow tools.

What to Practice

• Set the cycle range around your full arrangement. Open the bounce dialog (⌘ + B) and export as WAV 24-bit with Overload Protection Only. Find the file on disk and play it in a different app to confirm it sounds right.
• Export the same project as both WAV and MP3 simultaneously — check both boxes in the bounce dialog. Compare file sizes. Listen in headphones and see if you can hear the difference between the two formats.
• Try a bounce without “Include Audio Tail” enabled. Listen to the end of the file — if you have reverb or delay, you will hear it cut off abruptly. Re-bounce with the tail enabled and compare.
• Prepare a set of stems: select several tracks and bounce them individually. Make sure every stem starts at the same bar and ends at the same point. Import them into a new empty project and confirm they line up.
• If you have a project at 24-bit that needs a 16-bit delivery, bounce at 16-bit with POW-r #2 dithering enabled. Then bounce again at 16-bit without dithering. Compare the two files at very low volume — the un-dithered version may have audible artifacts on quiet passages.

Key Commands from This Chapter