BounceBuddy User Manual

IntroWhat Bounce Buddy does

Bounce Buddy reads your open Logic Pro project, works out what your real stems are (tracks, stacks, folders, bus groups, multi-output instruments, Drum Machine Designer kits) and bounces each of them to its own audio file, automatically, while you get on with something else.

Instead of you soloing tracks one at a time and running Bounce dozens of times, Bounce Buddy:

• Decodes the project file directly. It reads Logic's own project data to discover every channel strip, its routing, sends, folder membership, mute state, and colour, without flapping windows or relying on what happens to be visible on screen.
• Builds a stem map. Tracks are grouped the way you actually mix: summing stacks, folder stacks, bus groups, channel groups, Logic track groups, colour groups, stereo pairs, multi-out and multi-timbral instruments, Drum Machine Designer rigs, and your own custom groups.
• Bounces each stem in isolation by driving Logic for you: soloing the right strips, handling sends and sidechains correctly, muting mix-bus limiters if you ask it to, and naming every file from your template.
• Proves the result. An optional phase-cancellation null test sums your stems and cancels them against a reference mix, so you know the stems really add up to the mix before you send them anywhere.
• Or hands the whole session over. Stems for Transfer gives another engineer every track as a dry file plus its own WET file, the MIDI, a routing sheet and a Pro Tools AAF.

NewWhat's new in beta 1.0b32

• Stems for Transfer. A new Target row at the top of the Stem info panel switches between Audio (your stems, as always) and Transfer. Transfer hands the session to another engineer, laid out for Pro Tools: every track as a dry file plus its own WET file, the MIDI of every instrument track, a routing sheet and an AAF. Raw tracks and prints of your processed buses can come along too. See Stems for Transfer.
• In-Context is a Wet/Dry choice. The Wet/Dry row now has four options: Mix Level, Dry Only, Wet + Dry and In-Context. See In-Context Stems.
• In-Context keeps Logic's linear plug-ins on. Channel EQ, Linear Phase EQ, Single Band EQ, Gain, Sample Delay, Stereo Spread and Direction Mixer on the Stereo Out stay on while the stems print, because they add up exactly. The master fader and the reverb tail are now taken into account, so the check after the bounce matches. When In-Context can't promise the result, it says why in a calm note and your stems bounce as normal.
• Mastering Assistant. Bounce Buddy finds it in the project. When it has been analysed and is active, In-Context sets it aside and tells you so with an amber note.
• Mix-bus plug-ins always come back. Before a mix-bus plug-in is switched off for the stems, Bounce Buddy writes down how it was. If a bounce is cancelled, fails or Logic crashes, they are put back before your next bounce. If it can't confirm that, a card says Check these plug-ins in Logic and names them.
• Two channels, one name. If a mix-bus channel shares its name with another channel, Bounce Buddy can't be sure which one it would switch off, so it leaves its plug-ins on and tells you.
• Surround and Atmos. Projects with surround or Atmos channels get an amber card: the stems are stereo, and the effects on those channels aren't shown or checked.
• Cards name what's missing. When a group stem didn't include one of its tracks, or a sidechain key, the card after the bounce names the track instead of giving a count.

Also since b27

This edition catches up on betas 1.0b28 to 1.0b31 as well:

• Find a stem. The magnifier above the stem list opens a search field. See Finding a stem.
• Calm notice cards. Notes about your project and your bounce float over the bottom of the stem list as small cards with a ✕, instead of banners and footer sentences. The footer shows a small 2 notices pill to bring them back.
• Small row pills. no output marks a stem whose signal path ends at No Output in Logic, so it would be silent. I/O marks a stem that goes out to outboard gear through Logic's I/O plug-in, and a Master I/O pill sits in the header when there's one on the master. They are notes, not blocks: the stem stays ticked.
• Bypass All. The Mix-Bus row has a mode that bypasses every insert on the mix bus and the Stereo Out for the stems. New projects start on Bypass Comp + Lim and with Normalise off. A choice you already made on a project is kept.
• Silence row. Strip Silence sits in the Stem info panel and runs by itself after each bounce.
• Permissions tab in Settings, with the Accessibility, Automation and Screen Recording lights and Quit & Reopen.
• Text size. Settings → Help → Text size: Standard, Large or Larger.
• Snapshots open where they were bounced, on the tab they came from, with that bounce's own versions.
• The verdict card reads just Verified. The match percentage and the detail moved under Full analysis.
• Region colours follow the range. A track whose regions change colour through the song shows the colour of the part you are bouncing.
• Logic track groups only group their tracks when the group is switched on in Logic.
• No Settings sheet on every new project. A project you open for the first time quietly takes your defaults.
• Cancel lives in the footer (Cancel Scan / Cancel Bounce, Esc) and on the scan splash. The header is tidier.

Start hereFirst-time setup

Five minutes, once. After this, every session is just Scan → Bounce.

1. Install. Unzip the download and drag bounceBuddy into your Applications folder, then open it from there. The app is notarized by Apple, so it opens without any Gatekeeper warnings. It always works from a duplicate of your project data. Your Logic session is never touched.
2. Run the setup wizard. On first launch the app shows a single scrolling setup form (the same content later lives in Settings, ⌘,). The essentials: pick your Stems Save Folder, check the file naming template, and confirm the bounce format (WAV/AIFF, bit depth, sample rate). Every other setting has a sensible default, so you can leave the rest alone.
3. Grant Accessibility permission. Bounce Buddy drives Logic's UI during a bounce, which macOS gates behind Accessibility. When you run your first scan, macOS prompts you: open System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Accessibility (on macOS 27 Apple renamed this pane Device Control and Data Access), enable bounceBuddy (or drag the app in from Finder if it isn't listed), then quit the app (⌘Q) and relaunch. macOS only applies the grant to newly launched processes. The same lights live in Settings → Permissions any time, with a Quit & Reopen button. If one goes grey after a macOS update or a new Bounce Buddy build, grant it again there.
4. Allow Automation. The first scan also triggers macOS "bounceBuddy wants to control…" dialogs for Logic Pro and System Events. Click Allow on both. (Clicked Don't Allow by mistake? Re-enable them under System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Automation ▸ bounceBuddy.)
5. Set up key commands. In the wizard's Key Commands section (later: Settings → Keys), click Import my key commands from Logic. The app reads your Logic key-command assignments so it drives Logic with your shortcuts. Two commands have no factory shortcut in Logic, so you must assign them once in Logic Pro ▸ Key Commands and set the same chord in Bounce Buddy:
   • Toggle Track Solo (suggested ⌃S)
   • Toggle Solo Tracks (Channel Strips) of Selected Regions/Cells (suggested ⌥⇧⌘S)
   Each row in the app has an arrow button that opens Logic's Key Commands window pre-searched to the right command. Assign it there, record the same chord in Bounce Buddy, done. A third command, Toggle Track(s) On/Off, is recommended but optional (without it the app clicks the track's power button instead).
6. Optional extras. Turn on bounce-finished notifications (Settings → After Bounce: a banner on this Mac, an iMessage or a Telegram message) if you want to hear when the run lands, and take the guided tour (toolbar ? ▸ Replay guided tour) for a 60-second walkthrough of the main window.

Start hereQuick Start: your first stem bounce

1. Open your project in Logic Pro and save it (⌘S). Bounce Buddy reads the saved project data, so a fresh save means a fresh picture.
2. Launch Bounce Buddy and click the big Scan button. First launch runs a short setup wizard: see First-time setup for the once-only steps (stems folder, permissions, key commands). The scan takes a few seconds to a minute on large projects, and progress shows in the footer.
3. Review the stem list. Every row is one file-to-be. Tick or untick rows to include or exclude them; use the nesting buttons above the list to go from most grouped to fully flat, or click ⓘ and then Groupings to change how tracks are folded into stems.
4. Check sends and the mix bus. Click ⓘ, then Sends: each track shows its sends as pills, and clicking one mutes that return for the bounce. The Mix-Bus row in the Stem info panel chooses whether mix-bus limiters and compressors are bypassed while the stems print.
5. Click Bounce (or press ⌘⏎). Keep your hands off Logic while it runs. Bounce Buddy is driving. Watch progress in the footer; press Esc any time to cancel safely. When it finishes, waveforms appear in each row, the verdict card shows the phase-cancel result, and the small folder on the new snapshot in the left frame shows your stems in Finder.

TourThe main window

Bounce Buddy uses a three-frame layout inside a single dark window.

Left frame: Stem info & snapshots

The Stem info panel. Every word you can click is a setting; the dimmer lines under Range are readings. Top to bottom:

• Target: Audio for your stems, or Transfer to hand the session to another engineer (see Stems for Transfer). Full mode only.
• Range: Cycle, Cycle truncated, Full project, or any Section or Marker from your arrangement. Under it: the bars, the time, and the tempo and time signature (see Scanning).
• Wet/Dry: Mix Level, Dry Only, Wet + Dry or In-Context (see Bouncing and In-Context Stems).
• Silence: Strip or No change. Strip gates each stem's silent passages to digital zero after the bounce (see Player).
• Output: only when the project has more than one bounceable output.
• File, Sample, Bitrate: WAV or AIFF, sample rate, bit depth.
• Mix-Bus: No Change, Bypass Limiter, Bypass Comp + Lim or Bypass All, for the mix-bus plug-ins while the stems print (see Output chain).
• Verify: the phase-cancel check on or off.
• Notify: how you hear that a bounce has finished.

Below it, Bounce Snapshots lists every bounce made this session. Click one to review it; the small folder at the end of a snapshot shows its files in Finder.

Middle frame: the stem list

The heart of the app. A tab strip along the top holds the white STEMS pill (your main list) and one coloured pill per Version, plus a + button to create versions. Above the list sit the view controls: the magnifier for search, the ⓘ button, the nesting buttons and select all.

Nesting buttons

Six small buttons, each drawn as a stack of lines. One line is level 0, the most grouped: every summing stack, aux group and folder stays one stem. Six lines is level 5, fully flat. Each level in between opens one more layer of your mix. It applies live, and the project remembers your level, so reopening or rescanning keeps it. Simple mode offers three levels.

View options: the ⓘ button

Click ⓘ and a row of small word pills opens just above the first stem: Excluded, Groupings, Sidechains, Sends and Output. Click ⓘ again to close the row. Closing it also switches off whatever the pills were showing, so nothing stays on out of sight.

• Groupings and Output are two-way. Click once and the panel slides out from the right; the pill turns amber. Click again to close it.
• Sidechains and Sends are three-way. The first click shows pills on the stem rows and the word turns dim amber. The second click also opens the folders that hold those tracks, and the word turns full amber. The third click hides the pills and closes the folders again. Option-right-click the word to turn every sidechain on or off, or to mute or unmute every return, in one go.
• Excluded is three-way too. Dim amber shows your stems plus the excluded rows at the top level, with folders kept closed. Full amber shows every excluded row in place. After a bounce it becomes two-way: bounced stems only, or everything.

You can drag stems onto the Output pill to send them to the Output panel.

Toolbar

Left: the Live / Bounced chip. Centre: the project name, taken from Logic. Right: the ? Help button (Replay guided tour, Open user manual, Check for updates…, Check automatically, Reset stem list… and Hover help tips), the gear for Settings (⌘,), and the Full / Simple chip. Reset stem list… clears your groups, renames and promotions and starts the list fresh; ⌘Z undoes it. Cancel sits in the footer during a run, and on the scan splash.

Full and Simple

The chip in the toolbar switches the window between Full and Simple (⇧⌘F). Simple hides the extra controls: the view options, search, and the Target, Output, File, Sample, Bitrate and Notify rows of the Stem info panel. Stems for Transfer is a Full mode tool. Nothing about your bounce changes either way. The chip turns amber while Simple is on.

Live / Bounced chip

After a bounce, a status chip in the header switches between two views of the same project: Bounced (amber) shows the latest bounce snapshot with its audio loaded; click it to flip back to Live (green), the true pre-bounce editing view with waveform lanes cleared. Click again to re-enter the snapshot. It's a toggle, so you can compare "what I bounced" against "what I'm editing" any time.

Footer

Live status text on the left: scan phases, then per-stem progress during a run: Bouncing Stem 4 of 12 · Drums (or Bouncing Version 2 of 3), with Preparing versions bounce… between passes and a ✓ Stem Bounce Complete chip when the stems pass lands. On the right: row-size and waveform-height sliders, Rescan (⇧⌘R), and the prominent amber Bounce button (Bounce for Transfer when the Target is Transfer). During a run the buttons give way to Cancel Scan or Cancel Bounce (Esc). When there are notices, a small 1 notice or 3 notices pill shows or hides the cards over the stem list. When you play back your bounced stems, a thin level meter runs along the bottom left of the footer, under the left column. It shows the louder of left and right; full scale (0 dBFS) is where the stem list begins. Green, then yellow, then red at full scale, with a tick that holds the loudest recent peak for a moment. Expandable Scan Log and Bounce Log panels live below for the curious.

CoreThe stem list

Each row is one stem: one audio file the bounce will produce. A row shows: a kind glyph (tinted by grouping type and Logic track colour), the name, its grouping chain (e.g. Folder › Bus › Channel Group, revealed on hover), the bounce toggle (filled = armed, hollow = skipped), the duration, and (after a bounce) file size and a waveform lane. Nested children are indented under their parent group.

Selecting and arming

• Click a row's icon to toggle whether it bounces. ⌘-click multi-selects.
• ⌥-click and drag to paint a toggle across many rows in one sweep.
• Select All lives in the tab strip; ⌘A works too.
• Rows with a lock icon are excluded (e.g. FX returns are never stems; they're handled in Sends). Small reason pills explain why: off (the track is turned off in Logic), no output (an aux group that reaches no output), out-of-cycle (nothing audible in the current range). Fully muted or dead subtrees drop out of the default view entirely. Click ⓘ, then Excluded, to see them.

Row pills

Small grey pills on a ticked row are notes, not blocks. Hover one for the detail.

• no output, with an amber ring: the stem's signal path ends at No Output in Logic, so it will be silent. It stays ticked.
• I/O: the stem goes out to outboard gear through Logic's I/O plug-in. I/O mismatch (ringed) means the saved channels aren't on the audio interface you have connected now. One Master I/O pill in the header covers an I/O plug-in on the master.
• hidden: the track is hidden in Logic's Tracks area but still on, so it bounces.
• routing: the track sits inside a summing stack but its output goes somewhere else. It bounces with the stack along its own signal path; promote it if you want it as a stem of its own.
• silent, after a bounce: the file came out silent (every region muted, or the track made no sound). The file is kept.

Finding a stem

Click the magnifier at the left of the controls above the list and type part of a name. Every matching row gets an amber ring, closed stacks and folders that hold a match open up, and the list scrolls to the first one. ⏎ or ↓ steps to the next match, ↑ to the previous, with a count beside the field. It matches your renames and the original Logic names. Nothing is hidden, filtered or selected, and Logic isn't touched. Close the search (magnifier again, or Esc) and the folders it opened close again. Full mode only.

Row actions

• Click a group row to open or close it and see or arm its children individually.
• Right-click: Promote (lift a child out of its group into a stem of its own), Rename, Delete, view sidechains inline, and a colour swatch.
• ⌘-drag: reorder rows.
• Select two or more rows and a floating Create User Group panel appears. Name it and click Create Group to bounce those tracks as one combined stem.

Opening a group

Hover a top-level summing stack, aux group or output row and a small trash appears right after its name. Click it and the group opens: its tracks become stems of their own, and the group's bus moves to the Output panel. It's the same thing the nesting buttons do when they open that layer, just for the one group you picked.

• The opening belongs to the nesting level you were on. Switch to another level and that level looks exactly as it always does. Come back and the group is open again. The levels themselves don't shift, and the nesting buttons don't move.
• Each track that came out of the group shows a small return pill when you hover it: an arrow and the group's name, in the group's colour. Click it and that one track goes back into its group. The group row comes back holding it. Return the last one and the group is closed again, just as it was.
• ⌘Z undoes an opening or a return, one step at a time. Opening the group again with the trash brings every track back out.
• Dragging a group into the Output panel works the same way: it belongs to the level you did it at.
• A group that feeds another output rather than the main mix shows a dimmed trash. It bounces as part of that output's stem, and hovering the trash says so.
• A muted output row has no trash.

WorkflowVersions

Versions let you keep multiple stem selections side by side, e.g. a "Full stems" pass, a "TV mix" with vocals unticked, and an "Instrumental". Each version is a pill in the tab strip with its own tint colour and its own include/exclude state.

• + in the tab strip creates a version; double-click a pill to rename it inline.
• Right-click a pill for the colour picker (swatch grid, More… for the full colour panel, Reset, plus Duplicate and Delete).
• ⌥-click a version's dot to arm or disarm it for the next bounce run. Armed versions bounce in sequence, each into its own set of files.
• Hover a pill after a bounce to preview its audio with a play button.
• With a version tab selected, ⓘ opens that version's own Sends and Output settings.

Bounce range per version

Each version tab has a RANGE picker above its stem list: Cycle / whole project, or any Section or Marker read from your arrangement. So an "Instrumental (Chorus 2 only)" version is just a version with its range set to that section. Tracks with nothing audible in the chosen range are excluded automatically.

Reviewing a bounced version

After a version bounces, its tab shows the rendered mix waveform framed in the version's tint colour, and the rows go read-only while reviewing (flip the header chip back to Live to edit again). With a version tab selected, the two footer sliders retarget: the left one scales the version waveform's amplitude (1×–8×, handy for quiet mixes), the right one its height. Click (or ⌥-click) a slider to reset it.

PanelGrouping: how tracks become stems

The Grouping panel decides how the raw track list folds into stems. Open it with ⓘ, then Groupings. Each grouping type has a toggle and a colour swatch (click the swatch to override its tint). Turn a type on and matching tracks collapse into one stem per group; turn it off and they fall back to individual rows.

Groupings nest sensibly: a summing stack inside a folder inside a bus group resolves to the outermost enabled grouping, and you can always expand a group and promote a child to split it back out.

Colour groups and coloured stacks

If you've given a stack or folder header a colour yourself, it joins the colour group of the tracks that share that colour. A header that still wears Logic's default colour keeps grouping the way it always did. Summing stacks show the colour Logic actually gives them, on the row and on its icon, rather than a colour borrowed from the tracks inside.

Settings → Bounce → Group colours from chooses what a track's colour is: Region colour (the default, a track whose regions are consistently coloured groups by that colour) or Track colour (the track header only). With Region colour, a track whose regions change colour through the song takes the colour of the regions inside your bounce range, and follows the range when you change it. The panel's Tint rows by switch colours each row by its own Logic colour or by the group it belongs to. To break up a single colour group, click the trash on its row: its tracks go back to the flat list, ticks unchanged.

PanelSends

Click ⓘ, then Sends. Each stem row now shows a pill for every return it sends to. Click the word Sends a second time and the folders holding those tracks open too, so nested sends are in view. A third click hides the pills and closes the folders again.

• Click or right-click a send pill to mute or unmute that return for the bounce. Muted = the stems print dry of it; unmuted = the effect stays in.
• Option-right-click a pill, or the word Sends, to mute or unmute every return at once.
• Nothing changes in Logic until the bounce starts, and every return is put back afterwards.

PanelSidechains

Bounce Buddy detects every sidechain relationship in the project (which plugin on which strip listens to which feeder track) and keeps them working during isolated bounces (the feeder is kept feeding the detector even when it isn't in the stem being printed, so your pumping compressor still pumps).

Click ⓘ, then Sidechains, and each receiving stem shows a pill per sidechain, reading <Plugin> ← <Feeder>. Click the word a second time to open the folders that hold them; a third click hides the pills again.

• Click or right-click a sidechain pill to turn that sidechain on or off for the bounce.
• Option-right-click a pill, or the word Sidechains, to turn every sidechain on or off at once.

WorkflowIn-Context Stems

Normally stems are bounced with some mix-bus plug-ins bypassed, especially non-linear plug-ins like mix-bus compression or multi-band EQs. Their purpose is to react to the stems played together, with a ‘glueing’ effect when bounced as a mix. Bypassing them produces stems that can be cleanly rearranged and remixed. That's the standard reason for wanting stems in the first place. The trade-off: all stems played back together lack the glue of the mix-bus compressor. So the usual process is a full-mix bounce with the glue processing for the main mix, then stems without it for the flexibility of recombining later.

In-Context Stems bounces each stem with the glue mix-bus processing on, each stem triggered by the whole mix. So every stem carries the sound it has inside the finished mix, and the stems added together recreate your processed mix. The ‘glue’ of the bass reacting to the kick, or the snare reacting to the vocal, is baked into the solo bass and snare stems.

Turning it on

Pick In-Context in the Wet/Dry row of the Stem info panel. That is Mix Level with In-Context Stems switched on. The same switch is Render In-Context Stems in Settings → Bounce and in the setup wizard. It is off by default and kept per project. It changes what your stems are, so it is always your choice.

In-Context needs Logic's Bounce Mode set to Offline, because a realtime render can't be reproduced exactly. With another mode, In-Context stays chosen but doesn't run, and hovering the row tells you why. Switch the mode back to Offline and it works again.

With it on, every stems bounce also writes an In-Context Stems folder next to the normal stems, one (In-Context) file per stem. Your normal stems are unchanged and always rendered.

What the report means

After the bounce, Bounce Buddy tells you exactly what it could promise for this project:

• “sum exactly recreates your processed mix”: your mix-bus chain renders identically every time, so the In-Context stems recombine into your processed mix exactly.
• “bleed-free”, with how many dB the stems played together differ from your processed mix. A plug-in on your mix bus (many tape and analog-style plug-ins) renders slightly differently every pass, even in Logic itself. Bounce Buddy detects this automatically and switches to a mode where each stem is rendered in complete isolation, so no other stem’s audio can ever appear in your stem. The cost: the recombined sum differs from the mix by about the same small amount that two bounces of that plug-in differ from each other.
• “the only plug-ins on your mix bus are Logic’s …, which stayed on while the stems printed”: the Stereo Out only carries Logic plug-ins that add up exactly, so your stems already carry them and there is nothing extra to write.
• “skipped” with a reason, for example a mix-bus plug-in isn’t installed on this Mac. Nothing is guessed: if the chain can’t be reproduced faithfully, Bounce Buddy says so instead of writing files that sound almost right. Your normal stems still bounce as they would with In-Context off.

Logic’s own plug-ins on the Stereo Out

Seven of Logic’s plug-ins are proven to add up exactly, stem by stem: Channel EQ, Linear Phase EQ, Single Band EQ, Gain, Sample Delay, Stereo Spread and Direction Mixer. On the Stereo Out, before the first third-party plug-in, they simply stay on while the stems print.

Any other Logic plug-in on the Stereo Out, one that comes after a third-party plug-in, or a master-bus aux with active plug-ins, means In-Context can’t promise the result yet. It sits that bounce out and names the plug-in, and your stems bounce as normal.

Your Stereo Out and Master fader levels are read from the project and taken into account, and the check after the bounce lets reverb and delay tails ring out to the end of the mix.

Mastering Assistant

Bounce Buddy finds Logic’s Mastering Assistant on the Stereo Out from the project itself. Its limiter and Character processing react to the whole mix, so they can’t be split across stems.

• If it has never been analysed, or is bypassed with Loudness Compensation off, it passes the sound through untouched, and it’s simply left out.
• If it has been analysed and is active, In-Context sets it aside and carries an amber note: “In-Context stems add up to your mix before Mastering Assistant”, naming the Character processing that can’t be applied per stem. Bypassed with Loudness Compensation on, the note says its Loudness Compensation level can’t be applied per stem yet. The same note shows in the In-Context card in Settings while In-Context is on.
• If another active plug-in comes after Mastering Assistant, it hears Mastering Assistant’s output, so In-Context skips that bounce and says so.

Requirements & notes

• Third-party mix-bus plug-ins must be installed on the Mac doing the bounce (their own code does the processing).
• Logic’s built-in plug-ins on the mix bus are handled automatically where possible; anything that can’t be reproduced exactly is named in the report.
• In-Context files are written as 24-bit WAV, matching your other stems. If a stem would clip at 24-bit, that file is kept as 32-bit float instead and the report says so.
• If a mix-bus channel shares its name with another channel, Bounce Buddy leaves its plug-ins on (see Output chain) and In-Context is off for that bounce.

PanelOutput chain

The Output panel (ⓘ, then Output) draws your master signal path as a tree (sub-mix and master buses flowing into Stereo Out, plus any extra hardware outputs) with a card per strip listing its inserts. Stereo Out and Output 1-2 are the same channel, so they render as one card.

• Feeder counts under each card title are honest: "12 feeders", "12 feeders · 3 inactive", or "4 feeders · all inactive". Inactive means no regions or muted, so they bounce nothing.
• Click a card to focus it: the stem list isolates to everything routing to that output, including its excluded/inactive feeders, revealed (still locked) so you can see why a bus is quiet. Click the same card again to clear the focus.
• Cards are tinted by their dominant content colour; the current bounce target wears an amber border, a speaker glyph, and a Bounce Output badge. Outputs with no hardware assigned appear greyed.
• Per-insert bypass toggles let you disable specific master-chain plugins for the bounce (e.g. print stems without the loudness limiter but keep the glue compressor).
• Mix-bus mode (the Mix-Bus row in the Stem info panel, or Settings → Bounce → Mix-Bus Plugins) automates the common cases: No Change prints through everything, Bypass Limiter, Bypass Comp + Lim (compressors, limiters, clippers and the mastering stage), or Bypass All, every insert on the mix bus and Stereo Out, as you would for a null test. They are bypassed while the stems print, then restored. Plug-ins you had already bypassed stay bypassed. It applies to stems only. New projects start on Bypass Comp + Lim.
• Restore Initial State per strip puts that strip's plug-ins back the way they were at the last scan. Every plug-in touched for a bounce is always restored to the bypass state it had before the bounce, including after a cancel.
• Room-correction and headphone-simulation plugins (Sonarworks, ARC, Dirac, Waves Nx…) can be auto-bypassed via Settings → Bounce so they never end up printed into your stems.

Mix-bus plug-ins always come back

Before Bounce Buddy switches off any mix-bus plug-in, it writes down how each one was set. A normal bounce puts them back at the end. If a bounce is cancelled, fails or Logic crashes halfway, the next press of Bounce puts them back first and tells you (Mix-bus plug-ins are back on), then you press Bounce again to start.

• Check these plug-ins in Logic: Bounce Buddy couldn’t confirm they were switched back on. The card names the channel and the plug-ins; have a look in Logic’s mixer. It tries once more before your next bounce.
• Some mix-bus plug-ins stayed on: two channels share a name (Perc and PERC, say), so Bounce Buddy couldn’t be sure which one it would switch off. It left them as they are, and they played on the stems. Give each channel its own name in Logic to have them switched off next time.
• Mix-bus plug-ins stayed on: Bounce Buddy couldn’t save its note first, so it left them on rather than risk leaving them off.

Extra hardware outputs as stems

If tracks route to a hardware output other than the master (say an output you've named "OTHER"), that output appears in the stem list as its own bounceable bus-group row, with its feeders nested beneath it, so audio leaving through side outputs is never silently missing from a stems delivery. Hover the row and click the trash after its name to open it, so its tracks and groups become stems of their own (see Opening a group).

ProcessScanning

A scan reads the project and builds the stem map. The footer narrates the phases: Scanning Logic project… → Analysing sub-groups… → Scanning mix bus plugins… → Scanning aux inserts…

• Scan (splash screen) runs the first scan; Rescan (⇧⌘R) refreshes after you change the project. Settings → Bounce can auto-save the Logic project before each rescan so the data is always current.
• The scan is driven by the project file itself, not by walking Logic's windows. So it doesn't care whether folders are open, tracks are hidden, or the mixer is scrolled. Hidden and muted tracks are detected and handled correctly.
• Results are cached: reopening the same project restores instantly, and live mute changes in Logic still surface.
• Scan range option: "Only tracks with regions in the cycle" limits the list to what actually plays inside your cycle locators. Independently, tracks with nothing audible in the active range are soft-excluded with an "out-of-cycle" reason. A version whose range does overlap them pulls them back in automatically.
• The Stem info panel's Range menu offers Cycle, Cycle truncated, Full project, and every Section and Marker from your arrangement. It follows Logic: cycle off → Full project, cycle on → Cycle. Pick Full project yourself and the project keeps it; if Logic's cycle is on, Bounce Buddy switches Cycle off for the bounce and back on afterwards, and the readout says Cycle: off for the bounce. Picking Cycle while Logic's cycle is switched off honours the parked locators: the bounce uses that range even though Logic wouldn't.
• Full project starts every stem at bar 1 and ends each one at its own last region. Every file has the same start, so they line up when dropped into a session, and no stem carries a long silent tail. The readout shows the whole span on one line, bar 1 → 149, where 149 is where the longest stem ends, with the time under it.
• Cycle truncated is Cycle with each stem ending at its last region instead of the end of the cycle. Trimming is only offered for a cycle; a Full project bounce already ends each stem at its own last region.
• Section, marker and Full project ranges are set in Logic's Bounce dialog for you, whatever language Logic runs in.
• A small refresh icon in the Stem Info box re-reads the cycle position and project duration from Logic without a full rescan.

ProcessBouncing

Click Bounce and Bounce Buddy takes the wheel: for each armed stem it isolates the right strips (solo/mute via the project's real routing), configures Logic's bounce dialog (range, format, normalisation), renders the file, and moves on. Sends, sidechains, and mix-bus mutes are applied per your panel choices and restored afterwards.

While it runs

• Don't touch Logic. The app is clicking and typing into it; interference is the #1 cause of a failed pass.
• The footer shows Bouncing <stem name> with overall progress; the Bounce Log has the play-by-play.
• Cancel any time with Esc or the Cancel Bounce button. The app finishes tearing down safely and restores Logic's state (solos, mutes, plugin bypasses) before stopping.

Wet / dry modes (the Wet/Dry row, or Settings → Bounce)

After a Wet + Dry bounce each stem row shows its dry file. Click the small chevron beside the row's reveal arrow and the wet stem opens underneath it, with its own waveform and its own arrow to show the file in Finder. A track whose only return is muted still gets a WET file. It's silent, the same length as its DRY, so every pair is complete. Buses you've renamed with Logic's I/O Labels are found and handled like any other.

Choosing the bounce output

Each bounce captures ONE output, almost always Stereo Out. If your project has more than one bounceable output, an Output picker appears in the left frame (also in Settings → Bounce → Output / Thru), with entries like Stereo Out (Output 1-2). Picking a different output automatically deselects rows that don't route there; switching back to Stereo Out re-selects everything. The choice is remembered per project.

Range & length

• Full project: every stem starts at bar 1 and ends at its own last region.
• Cycle: the cycle locators, even when Logic's cycle is switched off.
• Cycle truncated: the cycle, with each stem ending at its last region (rounded up to the next bar). Turn on Include audio tail in Settings → Bounce to let reverb and delay tails ring out.
• Section or Marker: just that span. Bounce Buddy writes the start and end into Logic's Bounce dialog for you.

After the bounce: review mode

The window switches to review: bounced stems get a Bounced pill, waveform lanes, and file sizes; the Excluded pill becomes a bounced/non-bounced filter; the Output panel goes read-only until you restore or rescan. A result card summarises the run ("Stems bounced: N · Versions bounced: M"), and anything worth a look arrives as a notice card over the stem list: a group stem that left out a track, a sidechain key that wasn't included, a stem that sounds like the full mix. Each card names the stems and tracks involved. Use the header's Bounced / Live chip to flip between the snapshot and the editable pre-bounce view. A bounce archive option zips the run's files into your bounce folder for easy sharing.

WorkflowStems for Transfer

Stems for Transfer hands your session to another engineer, ready for Pro Tools. No printing every track twice, no guessing which reverb belongs to which track.

Every track travels as two files that start at the same point. The dry file is the track with its own plug-ins, fader, pan and automation. The WET file is only what that track sends to your reverbs and delays. Play both together and you get that track’s part of the mix, so the other engineer can keep your reverb on the vocal and swap it on the snare. Master plug-ins are off for every file, so nothing gets limited twice.

Running a transfer

1. In the Target row at the top of the Stem info panel, click Transfer. The row reads Audio | Transfer · Pro Tools.
2. Choose your Range, File, Sample and Bitrate, and Raw if you want raw tracks too. Keep 24-bit if the engineer wants the AAF.
3. Press Bounce for Transfer in the footer. Logic exports every track once with its own plug-ins, then Bounce Buddy prints each track’s share of the send effects. The footer follows along: Logic is exporting the dry files…, Printing the WET files…, Building the package…
4. A Transfer finished card gives the file counts, any notes, and Show in Finder.

Two rows are locked while the Target is Transfer: Wet/Dry reads Wet + Dry and Mix-Bus reads All off. Verify isn’t used. Hover a lock for the reason. Your own choices are kept and apply again when you switch back to Audio, and Logic’s Bounce settings in Settings → Bounce are locked for the same reason. Each project remembers its own Target.

What’s in the package

Every press makes a new dated folder, <stems folder>/Transfer/<date time>/, so takes never mix.

A manifest.tsv ties every file to its Logic channel, and Transfer report.txt is Bounce Buddy’s own log of the run, there for support. With File set to AIFF you get AIFF copies beside the WAVs, and the AAF still links the WAVs.

Into Pro Tools

File ▸ Import ▸ Session Data and pick the .aaf in the Transfer folder. Keep the sample rate and bit depth it shows. Every clip lands at the session start. Pro Tools can’t place MIDI under a given track on import, so drag each NN Name - MIDI track under its NN Name - dry track; the routing sheet lists them.

MIDI

Notes, controllers, pitch bend and channel pressure are written for every instrument track, read straight from the project, so the instruments don’t need to be loaded. The routing sheet names the instrument and, where it can be read, the patch. Program changes and SysEx are listed on the sheet but not written.

Limits worth knowing

• Section ranges aren’t supported for Transfer yet. Pick a marker, Cycle or the whole project.
• MIDI files start at bar 1, whatever the range.
• Projects from the Logic 9 era give no MIDI.
• Tracks inside a Summing Stack with plug-ins on the stack come out before the stack; the routing sheet lists those stacks so they can be rebuilt, and the bus print carries the processed sound.
• If Bounce Buddy can’t read your Stereo Out and Master faders from the project, the WET files are left at the bounce’s level and the routing sheet says so.
• Transfer runs on Bounce Buddy’s own copy of the project (the one ending in _bounceBuddy), in Full mode, with Logic open on that project. If something stands in the way, the button is greyed out and its tooltip says why.
• While Logic is exporting there’s no Cancel. Once the WET files start printing, Cancel Bounce (Esc) stops the run; the files made so far are incomplete, so run it again before handing anything on.

TrustPhase-cancel verification

With "Verify stems by phase-cancellation" on (Settings → After Bounce, or the Verify row), Bounce Buddy sums your freshly bounced stems, flips the polarity, and plays the result against a reference mix. If the stems truly reconstruct the mix, they cancel to (near) silence.

The verdict card floats over the stem list and leads with the verdict. Click Full analysis for the detail behind it: the match percentage, the residual peak in dBFS, the stereo analysis and per-stem evidence. The tiers:

The dB thresholds are tunable in Settings → After Bounce (“Identical”, “Verified”, “Render variation ✓” and “FX variation ✓” at or below). For Dry Only stems, the reference mix mutes the same effect returns, so the check compares like with like. A separate always-on full-mix safety guard also watches every run: if two or more stems come out sample-identical, a solo failed somewhere and the app warns you loudly rather than letting duplicate full-mix files slip through.

ReviewPlayer, snapshots & offline browsing

In-window player

Once audio exists, waveform lanes appear in the rows and a transport bar offers play/pause (Space), return-to-start (⏎), a scrub slider, and a volume popover. ⌘+vertical-scroll zooms the waveforms; ⌘+horizontal-scroll (or plain horizontal scroll when zoomed) pans. Strip Silence is the Silence row in the Stem info panel. Set to Strip, it runs by itself after each bounce and gates every stem’s silent passages to digital zero. File length is kept, so the stems stay sample-aligned; the originals stay put and the gated copies go in a Stripped folder beside them. Right-click the row for the threshold, minimum silence, pre-attack, post-release and zero-crossing search.

Snapshots

The Bounce Snapshots list in the left frame holds every timestamped bounce from the session. Click one to freeze the main window on that pass and audition it. It opens on the tab it was bounced from, with that bounce’s own versions; going back to Live puts your live tab back. While a snapshot is shown, the Verify row in the Stem info panel shows the verdict that bounce earned when it ran, so you can tell your passes apart later.

Offline mode: .bouncebuddy files

Every bounce can be saved as a .bouncebuddy package. Without Logic running, launch Bounce Buddy and click Load to browse a past session read-only: full stem list, groupings, waveforms, playback. Rescan and Bounce stay disabled until Logic and the project are back.

ReferenceSettings reference

Open with the gear or ⌘,. The tabs are Files, Bounce, Templates, Permissions, After Bounce, Keys and Help. The first launch shows the essentials as a short setup instead. A project you open for the first time takes your defaults quietly; Settings doesn’t pop up.

Files

The parts you can put in a file name:

Two parts written next to each other get a _ between them. A value Bounce Buddy can't be sure of is left out, together with one separator, rather than guessed. For example the tempo, when the song changes tempo and the cycle start can't be read, or a job name you haven't typed. So {project}_{tempo}_{stemName} with no tempo comes out as Song_Vocal.

Bounce

Templates

A template is a named copy of a project's bounce settings. Type a name and click Save current settings; then Apply it to any other project. Applying copies the settings in once. Anything you change afterwards stays with that project, and editing or deleting the template later doesn't touch projects it was applied to. Each template can be renamed or deleted from its row.

A template carries the range, wet/dry, file format, bit depth and sample rate, normalise and dither, mono and tail options, mix-bus choices, nesting level, file naming, verify, notify and bounce output. It doesn't carry the job name, the stems folder, your groups or per-row choices. If a template names a section or marker the project doesn't have, the range falls back to Cycle and Bounce Buddy tells you.

Permissions

The lights for Accessibility, Automation → Logic Pro and the optional Screen Recording, re-checked every second, each with a button to open the right pane in System Settings, plus Quit & Reopen. macOS only applies some grants to a freshly launched app, so reopen after granting. If a light goes grey after a macOS update or a new Bounce Buddy build, grant it again here.

After Bounce

Keys

Import my key commands from Logic reads your Logic key-command set so the app drives Logic with your shortcuts. Each action row has a shortcut recorder, a Reveal in Logic button (opens Logic's Key Commands window pre-searched to that command), a reset-to-default, and the default binding for reference. A Fallback Shortcuts group lists read-only commands the app reaches through the UI instead.

Help

Opens this manual, replays the guided tour, switches hover help tips on or off, and sets the Text size (Standard, Large or Larger) for the left frame, Settings and the Help menu; the stem list keeps its own size slider. It also shows your License: status, and Deactivate to free this Mac's activation (see License & trial).

ReferenceLicense & trial

Bounce Buddy starts as a fully featured 14-day trial. A slim banner at the top of the window counts down the trial days left, with a Buy button; dismiss it with the ✕. When the trial ends, a paywall takes over: Buy bounceBuddy opens the checkout in your browser, or paste a license key you already own under "Already bought it?" and click Activate.

• Activation is by license key (delivered by email after purchase). Activation needs an internet connection; after that the app re-validates quietly at most every few days and tolerates being offline for up to 14 days.
• Settings → Help → License shows your status ("Licensed on this Mac · ••••-XXXXXXXX") and a Deactivate button on the This Mac row, which frees one of your license's Mac activations so you can activate on another machine.
• Beta builds run fully unlocked with no trial. Instead, a banner counts down the days until the build expires. After expiry, ask for a fresh beta build or activate a license key.
• Manage your purchase and receipts through the account portal on the Bounce Buddy website (magic-link email sign-in).

ReferenceKeyboard shortcuts

HelpTroubleshooting