Your first bounce

This walkthrough bounces the whole mix of a session that's open in Pro Tools. It takes about five minutes and touches every part of Fast Bounce once.

1. Add the session

Open a session in Pro Tools. In Fast Bounce, click + at the bottom of the rail on the left, or press ⌃⌘L from anywhere, even with Pro Tools in front. The session appears as 1 in the rail with a green dot: it's the one open in Pro Tools.

Fast Bounce reads the session's tracks, memory locations, mix sources and format. It changes nothing.

The main window with the session sidebar open, listing Song A, Song B and Song C with their bounce counts. — The session sidebar, opened with ⌘\\. The green dot marks the session that's open in Pro Tools.

2. Check the setup chips

Under the bounce list, Create bounce shows a row of chips: folder, file type, bit depth, sample rate, range and mix source. They start with the session's own values, so a new session is ready to bounce as it is.

Leave them for now. Clicking a chip changes it for the next bounces you add; Bounce creation explains each one.

3. Add a Mix bounce

Click Mix, or press ⌃⌘X. The Add Mix Bounce sheet opens with a name taken from the session and the same chips. Click Add 1 Bounce.

The Add Mix Bounce sheet with a name field, setup chips and an Add 1 Bounce button. — Add Mix Bounce. The name and the chips come from the session; change either before adding.

The bounce appears in the list as a Mix row, checked, with the status Queued. Checked means it will run.

4. Bounce

Click Bounce… in the footer. The Bounce sheet lists the sessions that have queued bounces (just this one, for now). Click Start Bouncing.

The Bounce sheet listing the sessions in order, with “Email me when it's done” and a Start Bouncing button. — The Bounce sheet. With more sessions, drag them into the order you want.

Fast Bounce hands the bounce to Pro Tools. The row goes Queued → Bouncing → Done, the footer shows "Bouncing 1 of 1" and the elapsed time, and you can keep working in other apps meanwhile.

5. Find the file

When the run ends, the Summary sheet opens: what completed, what failed, and the files grouped by folder with Reveal in Finder. Your file is in Bounced Files/ inside the session folder.

The Summary sheet with completed and failed counts and the files grouped by session folder. — The Summary. Every file that was made, and every bounce that wasn't, with its reason.

Done bounces are unchecked, so the next run skips them. Check one again to bounce it again.