Exporting Audio

When you are ready to burn a CD of your song, you will first need to "bounce" or save your song as an audio file.

To export your song as an audio file

1.	Select File > Export Song as Audio File and choose a save location (Figure 10.31). Figure 10.31. Export Song as Audio File saves your entire song as an audio file so you can burn it to CD.
2.	Choose either WAV or AIFF file format for your audio file (Figure 10.32). Figure 10.32. Choose whether you want to save your audio file as .aiff (more common for Mac) or .wav (more common for Windows).
3.	Choose a sample rate (11,025 Hz to 96,000 Hz) for your audio file (Figure 10.33). Figure 10.33. Exporting at the highest rate is fine if you want to import back into Reason, but for CD, pick 44,100 Hz. Files destined for audio CDs need to be saved at 44,100 Hz. Choose this option if you don't have a program that can convert sample rates.
4.	Choose a bit depth of 16 or 24 for your file (Figure 10.34). Figure 10.34. Pick a bit depthuse 16 for CDs. For CD, choose 16. For archiving or bringing back into Reason as a sample, use 24 for the best quality.

Tips

• If you have a sound editing program like Sound Forge or Peak, save your song at the highest rate your sound system supportsthat way, you'll have a top-quality archive. When you're ready to burn a CD, use your editing program to convert the sample/bit rates to 44,100/16.

• Though most CD software can handle WAV and AIFF formats, WAV is a more common Windows format and AIFF is more common for Macintosh.

If you want to create a loop to use as a sample in Reason or to burn a short version of your song on CD, use the Export Loop command instead.

To export your loop as an audio file

1.	Select File > Export Loop as Audio File.
2.	Choose a location and file format for your audio file (see the previous task for details). The Export Audio window will show you how much of your loop remains to be saved (Figure 10.35). Figure 10.35. The Export Audio status bar shows your file's progress.

Burning CDs/Making MP3s

Once your audio file is exported, you should be able to use any CD burning software application to create an audio CD of your song.

If you want to convert your song to an MP3 file for Internet sharing, you can probably find a conversion utility that suits you at www.mp3-converter.com. Most sound editors will also convert to MP3. Try www.synthzone.com/digaudio.htm for some ideas.