A couple of weeks ago my friend Andrew Scheps emailed to tell me he had something he had been working on that he wanted to show me.

There’s few people in the industry who haven’t heard of Andrew Scheps - the three-times Grammy Award-winning Producer and Engineer has worked with some of the biggest rock bands and music legends in the world including Metallica, Johnny Cash, Black Sabbath, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Neil Diamond to name a few.

It would be easy for someone with those credentials to let it all go to their head. Not Andrew, he’s a great guy, so even a conversation is worth making time for. I fixed up a Zoom call and a couple of days later Andrew was in front of myself and Expert’s Editor Julian Rodgers to show us his new baby.

Perhaps Andrew was about to play a new music project he was working on, or a plug-in he had given his blessing. Not so this time. In his usually understated manner he started with, “while there was a pandemic, I decided to learn coding and wrote some software.” You’d be forgiven for hating him a little at this point; one of the best mixers on the planet, all round nice guy, and now he’s learned how to code and written some software?

For the next hour Andrew showed Bounce Factory to us. As he progressed though the demo I was making a mental note of the question I would be asking at the end. As the presentation continued the questions were irrelevant, it seems that Andrew has thought of almost everything.

One of the favourite things about my job is that I often get to be there when smart ideas are conceived. It’s an honour to be trusted with an idea before it becomes what the rest of the world gets to see, sometimes years before. I’ve been in many of those meetings, they include the early ideas for what became the Townsend Labs Sphere microphone. Most of the Exponential Audio plugins (I named a few of those babies), as well as some of the LiquidSonics reverbs. I sometimes feel like an audio technology midwife, when I see them in the world I get a real sense of joy and think of them in some tiny part as my babies. I can now add another one to the list, Bounce Factory.

As soon as Andrew finished the call I was messaging some of my industry friends like Rik Simpson, Dom Morley, and Stephen Gallagher saying “you have to see what Andrew Scheps has done.” Since then they have and all of them have said the same thing, “Amazing, when can I use it?”

It’s funny, whenever you mention the name Andrew Scheps people say, “Oh the Grammy winning mixing guy?” I think that may be about to change with some saying, “You mean the guy who created Bounce Factory?”

I didn’t get to name Bounce Factory, but I’m certain of one thing, it’s a name people will be saying a lot over the coming days, weeks, and months.

What Is Bounce Factory?

Bounce Factory is a bolt-on extension to Pro Tools that allows you to automate every aspect of the bouncing process, saving an extraordinary amount of time.

Scripted by Andrew himself specifically for the SoundFlow platform, Bounce Factory lets you set up multiple mix passes for all your sessions in advance, and then bounce them whenever you want, unattended.

Every mix pass can share settings with other mix passes, or be completely independent. You can quickly set up passes with tracks soloed and/or muted; select a range of tracks to be soloed individually as stems; even switch playlists!

On top of that you have granular control of all session data between mix passes including volume, panning, inserts and sends.

“Like everybody who makes records, bouncing mixes is not the part of the job that I look forward to. You go from the elation of an approved mix to the drudgery of the technical, boring, repetitive job that is modern mix delivery. I hate anything repetitive, especially something that saps my soul, so I have always been on the lookout for tools to make my life easier and automate as much of the process as possible.

Two years ago I found SoundFlow! The SoundFlow platform lets you automate Pro Tools in ways that no other product can. I immediately set to work making my life easier by writing scripts to do all of the repetitive tasks that made me less creative. A simple script to set up the "Bounce Mix" dialog grew and grew and has finally become Bounce Factory. Now I can set up all the mix passes for an entire record in an hour, and leave the computer bouncing mixes while I sleep, eat, drink, or even sometimes stare in wonder as the mixes are bounced for me.” - Andrew Scheps

How Does It Work?

Based on the familiar Bounce Mix dialog you're already used to, you get extended functionality to give you a host of new options.

Go through each session you have to print and set up every mix pass you need. Once saved in the app they can be bounced at any time. Bounce Factory will organise the mix passes by session – printing, importing and exporting your mixes while making whatever changes to the sessions you have set up for each pass. All unattended!

Check out Andrew’s first two videos below, or view them all on the Bounce Factory website here.

Bounce Factory is available exclusively through SoundFlow. If you don’t already own SoundFlow there’s a free 30 day trial. Once installed, navigate to the store and install Bounce Factory - use the free 30 day trial to see if it's right for you!

Bounce Factory pricing is $19.99 per month ($199 annually) for the basic version which allows you to make all snapshots and bounce one session at a time. Or get the full works with the Pro version, priced at $49.99 per month ($499 a year) you can bounce multiple sessions and receive text/email notifications.

What Is SoundFlow?

SoundFlow is a macro application that allows you to work faster in Pro Tools and stay in the creative flow. Automate tedious tasks with macros and shortcuts for Pro Tools and other DAWs, design your own touch surfaces for iOS, Android and macOS, and get access to thousands of macros, scripts, decks & surfaces – made by SoundFlow users. Check out the video below, where SoundFlow Founder Christian Munk Scheuer explains all…