Exporting

What a bounce is

A bounce writes your edited results out to files. Because all editing in a9a is non-destructive, the original files stay untouched until you bounce.

In the GUI, open Bounce > Selected... (the selected files) or Bounce > All... (every file in the list) from the Files menu.

Destination and file name

Set the destination folder with Output Directory. When exporting a single file, you can also set the output file name with Output Filename.

Choosing a format

Pick one in Output Format. Same as Source writes each file back in the format it came from.

If you are unsure, choose by what matters most:

MP3 can only be selected when the LAME (libmp3lame) shared library is installed. When it is not installed the option is disabled and a message says so. See Getting Started for installation instructions.

Per-format settings

The available settings depend on the selected output format.

Carrying loops into the output

Loop ranges can be written by WAV / AIFF (as loop metadata) and FLAC / OGG (as loop comments). For FLAC and OGG, Start Key / End Key / Length Key set the comment key names — match them to what your importing tool expects.

Because MP3 and AAC are lossy formats, loop metadata and comments are not written. Looping material exported to those formats needs its loop information carried some other way.

AAC container and profile

Container offers M4A (MP4) (.m4a) and ADTS (.aac). Only M4A can carry accurate duration information (gapless metadata). ADTS has no way to express it, so some players show the file as longer by the encoder delay. Choose M4A unless something specific requires ADTS.

Profile offers AAC-LC, HE-AAC v1, and HE-AAC v2. HE-AAC targets low bitrates, and HE-AAC v2 is stereo-only.

Encoder offers Auto (prefers the OS-native encoder), OS Native, and fdk-aac. The Windows OS-native encoder only supports AAC-LC CBR at 96/128/160/192 kbps and 44.1/48 kHz, so libfdk-aac is required for HE-AAC or VBR on Windows.

AIFF container

Container offers the following:

Selecting AIFF-C (32-bit float) fixes Bit Depth to 32-bit.

Overwrite behavior

When Overwrite existing files is enabled, files with the same name are overwritten without confirmation.

When it is disabled and a file with the same name exists, a confirmation appears with these choices:

• Yes: overwrite this file
• Yes All: overwrite all subsequent files with the same name
• No: skip this file
• No All: skip all subsequent files with the same name
• Cancel: abort the bounce itself

The default is set by Overwrite existing files by default in Bounce under Preferences.

During the bounce

A progress dialog is shown while bouncing, with per-file status. No other operations are possible until it completes.

Files overwritten at their original path are reloaded into the list automatically when the bounce completes.

Setting defaults

Bounce under Preferences holds the defaults for WAV, FLAC, AIFF, Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and AAC. If you always export to the same spec, filling these in first saves configuring each bounce.

Exporting from the CLI

Use --out for a single output file and --out-dir for multiple files. The two cannot be used together.

a9a_cli render input.wav \
  --out output.flac \
  --format flac \
  --sample-rate 48000 \
  --bits-per-sample 24

Writing multiple files back in their original formats:

a9a_cli render a.wav b.wav --out-dir out --same-format

The output format comes from --format, from --same-format, or from the extension of --out. --format and --same-format cannot be used together. Add --force to overwrite existing output.

The main format options are:

--sample-rate accepts only the following standard values:

8000, 11025, 16000, 22050, 32000, 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000, 176400, 192000

Loop ranges and comments behave as they do in the GUI: tags added with --comment KEY=VALUE are preserved for FLAC / Ogg Vorbis and discarded when writing WAV / AIFF / MP3 / AAC.

The full option list and all constraints are in the CLI Reference.

This page was written with generative AI.