Saving Your Work

Now that you've created a beat in Reason, save the song so you don't lose your hard work. It's usually a good idea to save your .sng file as well as to convert, or bounce, your song to an audio file or CD.

To save your song

1.	Go to the File menu and select Save or Save As (Figure 4.62). Figure 4.62. Use the File menu to save a song.
2.	If you haven't saved your song before this, select a location for your saved file and give it a name.
3.	Click Save.

To save (bounce) your beat as an audio file

1.	Switch back to Sequencer Arrange mode to get an overview of what to bounce.
2.	Make sure your loop markers are placed correctly; Reason will only export audio lying between the L and R loop markers.
3.	Select File > Export Loop as Audio File (Figure 4.63). Figure 4.63. Export your loop as an audio file.
4.	In the Export Loop as Audio File dialog box, choose a file format (for example, .wav or .aif) and a save location, and give your loop a name (Figure 4.64). Figure 4.64. Save your loop as an audio file, in the same folder as your song.
5.	Click Save.
6.	In the Export Audio Settings dialog box, choose a sample rate and bit depth and click OK (Figure 4.65). Figure 4.65. The Export Audio Settings dialog box

Tip

• To export a CD-compatible audio file, choose a sample rate of 44,100 Hz and a bit depth of 16.

Staying Organized: Saving Multiple Songs

At this point, give some thought to how you want to organize your files. As you work on more and more songs, you can avoid confusion by starting with some sort of folder system to keep track of your work.

If you're unsure about how to archive your material, consider putting all patches, new samples, and audio bounces in one song-related folder. Add version numbers to the song and audio files so that you can always work your way back through the composition process if you need to make changes.