Exporting BFD2 drums to indiviual audio waves

You don't need to freeze first.

1. Select the tracks (if you only want to export certain tracks).
2. Choose File > Export > Audio.
3. In the dialog box... choose Tracks for the Source Category.
4. If you selected tracks first, they should also be selected in the Source Buses/Tracks section, otherwise select them.
5. Choose your export settings.
6. Click Export.

That should export each track to a separate audio file. If you're getting glitches with the export, try removing the checkmark next to the Fast Bounce option in the Export dialog box. This will do a real-time export instead, which some synths require.

Scott

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lol... I should just stop posting now. ;-)

I don't do the freezing thing either, just select the MIDI track and the individual out (kick, snare, OH, etc) and bounce non-fast.

That said, you ~can~ solo all the drum outs & mute all the ones you don't want - say ...everything but the OH to bounce the OHs.

Oh and you should probably clone the MIDI stuff before doing the bounce to audio on the track or at least save as before doing it. You'll want to be able get at the original MIDI tracks if need be.

Beepster


Oh and you should probably clone the MIDI stuff before doing the bounce to audio on the track or at least save as before doing it. You'll want to be able get at the original MIDI tracks if need be.

Why? The MIDI isn't going anywhere. I freeze synths but even if years later I want to use that MIDI I can.  

As a longtime BFD2 and FXPansion tester, I recommend:

1. Check the Fxpansion site and make sure you're running the most recent version of BFD2 
2. Make sure your "Samples" are not on your system hard drive, and if you're streaming a lot of audio tracks, then you'd definitely want to have them on a dedicated samples drive.
3. Make sure your Samples drive is fast. 7,200 RPM's at minimum. 
4. Always bounce with "Fast Bounce" unchecked in Sonar.

Why? The BFD2 content is comprised of 18 channels of audio per voice. If you're playing lots of cymbals with long decays, the number of voices being played at once will really add up fast. That can be EXTREMELY demanding on your hard drive.

If you're using multiple outputs for your BFD2 tracks, then make sure you have Anti-Machine Gun mode turned off in BFD2. This adds velocity randomization, which is normally good, but because Sonar does multiple passes on bounces you could end up with different layers being triggered at the same time, which could create phasing issues. If you're only bouncing a single stereo output, you'll be fine.

Ok, where were we?

5. I see you have 8GBs of RAM. Are you running a 64-bit system with the 64-bit version of BFD2? If so, have you tried using the "Load All To RAM" preference? If you have the available RAM, this is a great way to take hard drives entirely out of the equation.

6. If that doesn't work try 16-bit mode. This reduces the size of the kits, which will help whether or not you're loading all to RAM. 

7. Finally, if that doesn't work, try playing with the Stream Buffer and RAM buffer. Smaller values result in a smaller memory footprint but strain the hard drive more, higher values use more RAM but strain the hard drive more.

Anyway, this is probably more than you needed to know, but the above should help. 

4. Always bounce with "Fast Bounce" unchecked in Sonar.

This is the one that (on my system) makes the biggest difference of all when exporting a project with BFD in it.

+1 Steve.

I never "print" BFD these days, just export it as part of the mix

twaddle
I would ask Tracey why she (?) feels the need to bounce to audio in the midst of a project and why she wants them as separate tracks? 
We all have different working methods (though some might seem more efficient and yield better results than others) but my assumption would be she either likes to have each track as an audio track that she can mix 
and edit in a way she's comfortable with, or her system is low on resources but as funky pointed out
she has a very capable system and there are things that can be changed in the BFD2 engine to compensate for this.


Steve

I can understand that workflow for a few reasons (this is just off the top of my head):


1. To save on systems resources (as you point out): remember that BFD2 streams 18 channels from your hard drive per voice? Bouncing only the tracks you need to audio means you'd be streaming 18 (at most) or less. This would ease the strain on the hard drive.


2. To archive. I'll bet you in 20 years time, there will be some way to open PCM .wav files. However, it's also very likely that in 20 years time BFD2 will no longer work as a plugin and your Sonar projects may or may not be able to open. If you have all of your mix stems saved as individual .wav files, you can all but guarantee that you'll be able to remix any tracks in the future using the original drum sounds (like you recorded a real drummer). Whenever I have paying clients, I try and make a point of giving them consolidated bounces of each track, including BFD prints if it was used just in case.


3. For mixing in a different studio/host. Lets say you're going to mix at a friend's place or a studio that doesn't own a BFD2 license. What do you do? Bring your MIDI files and use other drum sounds? You can. But bouncing the BFD2 tracks to audio allows you to mix the drums in another studio.