The Deliver Page: Not Where You'd Expect It
The first thing to know about Resolve's AAF export is where it lives. In Premiere, AAF export is accessed through File > Export. In Avid Media Composer, it is in the bin or sequence menu. In Resolve, the AAF export is on the Deliver page, which is the last tab in the application's bottom navigation strip.
This matters because the Deliver page is where Resolve handles all final output: video exports, color deliverables, and audio handoffs. It is not where picture editors typically spend their time during the cut. Editors who primarily use Resolve for picture work and have not done many audio post handoffs may not realize the AAF export is there, or may be unfamiliar with the audio-specific settings that the Deliver page exposes.
To reach it: navigate to the Deliver page, add a render job, and in the Format dropdown under the File tab, select AAF. The audio settings for that export are under the Audio tab of the same panel.
The Critical Settings and What Each One Does
The Fairlight Problem: Processed Audio vs Source Audio
This is the Resolve-specific issue with no equivalent in Premiere or Avid, and it is the most consequential setting to get wrong.
DaVinci Resolve ships with Fairlight as its built-in audio editing environment. On many projects, especially in commercial, documentary, and corporate workflows, the picture editor or colorist applies some Fairlight audio processing during the offline: noise reduction, dialogue cleanup, music levels, room tone, or basic EQ. When that processing has been applied and the audio cache has been rendered, Resolve's AAF export can include an option to use the rendered audio cache rather than the original source clips.
For audio post, this is almost always wrong. The re-recording mixer and dialogue editor need clean, unprocessed production sound to do their jobs. If they receive an AAF containing audio that has already been processed in Fairlight, they are working with a baked intermediate, not the original recording. Noise reduction that was applied roughly in editorial becomes a constraint on what the dialogue editor can do. Music levels set by the colorist are baked in rather than tracked in a separate MX section. The mix engineer is working around decisions made upstream rather than starting from the raw material.
The correct setting is to export original source audio, not the render cache. In Resolve's Deliver page, this is typically controlled by whether "Use Render Cached Audio" is checked or unchecked in the audio export options. The label varies slightly by Resolve version. The principle is the same: export what was recorded on set, not what Fairlight did to it.
Before every AAF export from Resolve, confirm with the sound team whether they want source audio or the Fairlight output. In the majority of audio post workflows, the answer is source audio. The exceptions are specific situations where the picture editor has made approved sound decisions that the audio post team is building on, which should be established explicitly before the handoff rather than assumed.
Handles: Setting Them on the Deliver Page
Handles in Resolve AAF exports are set as a frame count on the Deliver page, not as a time value. The calculation depends on the project's frame rate.
At 24fps, two seconds of handle equals 48 frames. Ten seconds, the professional target, equals 240 frames. At 25fps, the same time values are 50 and 250 frames respectively. At 29.97fps, 60 and 300 frames.
Resolve applies the handle frame count symmetrically to both sides of each edit point. An editor who sets 240 frames gets ten seconds of handle audio before and after each cut, which is what the dialogue editor needs to make clean edits and find room tone.
The default handle value in Resolve's Deliver page is typically set to zero or a minimal number. It is not automatically inherited from any project setting. Every AAF export needs the handle frame count set explicitly before the job is added to the render queue.
For audio post teams working regularly with Resolve-originated content, communicating the required handle count as a frame value, calculated for the project's specific frame rate, removes ambiguity at handoff.
The Track Naming Problem
Every NLE produces AAFs with imperfect track naming. Premiere generates split mono pairs labeled Audio 1.L and Audio 1.R. Avid Media Composer uses track names that sometimes carry meaningful production sound labels and sometimes do not. DaVinci Resolve produces the most consistently unhelpful track naming of any NLE in regular use for audio post handoffs.
By default, Resolve names audio tracks A1, A2, A3, and so on. The clips on those tracks carry whatever name the source media file had, which on location recordings is typically a machine-generated identifier: a timecode string, a Zoom recorder file number, or a camera roll and clip number. Neither the track name nor the clip name carries the information audio post actually needs: what kind of audio is on this track, what microphone recorded it, what role it plays in the edit.
This is not a configuration problem that can be fixed with a setting. It reflects how picture editors use Resolve. The track names and clip organization in a Resolve timeline are built around the picture editor's workflow, not the audio post team's. An editor who has been cutting for three weeks in Resolve has no strong reason to rename their tracks using audio post conventions, because the track names do not affect how the edit looks or plays back in Resolve.
What arrives in Pro Tools is a session where the engineer cannot determine from the track structure alone whether A1 is a boom mic, a lav, a room tone recording, or the left channel of a dual-mono stereo pair. Figuring this out requires either listening to each track or making educated guesses based on position in the session, then correcting the errors later.
Audio Channel Handling in a Resolve Timeline
DaVinci Resolve supports mono, stereo, and multichannel audio tracks in the same timeline. How those tracks export depends on how they were set up.
Stereo tracks in Resolve export as stereo. Mono tracks export as mono. This is more predictable than Premiere's behavior, where the sequence track format and clip interpretation interact in ways that produce unexpected dual-mono output.
Where Resolve creates problems is with clips that were recorded as stereo but placed on mono tracks. A production recording from a dual-channel field recorder placed on a mono timeline track has its channels handled according to that track's configuration, not the file's source format. Depending on how the clip's channel mapping is set in Resolve, the AAF may export one channel, both channels as separate mono files, or a downmix.
For audio post teams who regularly receive Resolve AAFs, asking the picture editor to confirm what channel format each track uses before export is faster than diagnosing the issue in Pro Tools after the fact. A simple question ("are your dialogue tracks set up as mono or stereo in the Resolve timeline?") answered before the AAF is sent saves time on both ends.
Multichannel Production Recordings
Productions using multi-channel field recorders, common on documentary, narrative, and commercial shoots, may have audio structured in Resolve as multi-track clips: boom on channel 1, lav on channel 2, room tone or backup on channels 3 and 4.
How Resolve handles these in the AAF depends on the track configuration and how the audio channels were mapped when the clips were imported into the project. Common outcomes include:
All channels exported as separate mono tracks. Each channel lands as its own mono track in Pro Tools, correctly separated. This is the preferred outcome for audio post because it gives the dialogue editor direct access to each microphone independently.
Only the primary channel exported. If the clip was placed on a mono track configured to use channel 1, only the boom channel arrives in Pro Tools. The lav recording is not present in the AAF. The sound team does not know it was captured.
Channels exported as a stereo downmix. If a multi-channel clip was placed on a stereo track without explicit channel mapping, Resolve may export a downmix rather than the discrete channels.
Confirming with the picture editor how multi-channel clips were handled in the timeline before export is the only reliable way to predict which of these outcomes arrives in Pro Tools. The alternative is discovering the missing channels mid-session.
Pre-Delivery QC: What to Check Before Sending the AAF
Before sending the Resolve AAF to audio post, run through these checks.
Open the AAF in Pro Tools and run a basic import. This does not require building a full session. A test import that verifies the file loads, the audio clips are present, playback works, and the timecode appears where expected takes five minutes. Finding a problem at this stage costs five minutes. Finding it mid-session costs a session.
Check that handles are present. Scrub a few edit points in the Pro Tools session and listen for audio beyond the cut. If the audio stops exactly at the frame of the visible cut, handles were not exported.
Verify the audio is not Fairlight-processed. If the source material should be clean dialogue and what you hear in the test import sounds like it has been noise-reduced or processed, the AAF exported the render cache rather than the source files. A re-export with "Use Render Cached Audio" unchecked is needed.
Count the tracks. Compare the number of audio tracks in the Pro Tools import to the number of audio tracks in the Resolve timeline. Unexplained differences indicate something did not export correctly, usually related to channel mapping or multi-channel clip handling.
Check channel format. Look for unexpected mono pairs on adjacent tracks with similar waveforms. Identical waveforms on adjacent tracks typically indicate a dual-mono export.
Include an EDL and a QuickTime reference. Export a CMX 3600 EDL alongside the AAF. It is a text file readable by Pro Tools and most post tools, and it serves as a verification reference when AAF metadata is incomplete. Include a low-data-rate H.264 QuickTime reference at the same timecode as the AAF. The sound team works against this reference, and mismatched timecode between the reference and the AAF is a common sync problem.
Why Resolve AAFs Are the Hardest Case for Rules-Based Routing
Every audio post prep workflow eventually faces the same question: how do you figure out what is on each incoming track before you can route it to the correct position in your session template?
For AAFs from Avid Media Composer, the track names and clip names often carry enough production sound information to give a rules-based routing system something to work with. A clip named "Boom - Sc12B" or a track named "Dialogue" communicates content type. Imperfect, but workable.
For AAFs from Premiere, the clip names from the source media sometimes carry information, even if the track names are generic.
For AAFs from DaVinci Resolve, the incoming track names and clip names carry almost no information about audio content. A1, A2, and a Zoom recorder file number are not inputs a rules engine can use to make confident routing decisions. An engineer trying to manually route a Resolve AAF into a facility template is listening to each clip, making a judgment call, and fixing mistakes after the fact. On a 60-track session, that process takes the same amount of time as it takes on any other session where the metadata is bad, which is longer than the picture editor, client, or post schedule has budgeted.
This is where fPost's content analysis approach produces its clearest return on Resolve AAFs specifically.
fPost does not read track names or clip names to make routing decisions. It analyzes the audio content of each incoming clip directly, classifying it as dialogue, SFX, or music based on what is in the audio itself. When every track is named A1 through A8 and every clip is named by a field recorder file number, the analysis still produces a correct routing decision, because the content has not changed even though the names carry no information.
For a Resolve AAF that arrives with 60 generically named tracks, fPost's import pass classifies each clip, routes everything to the correct position in the facility's PTX session template, applies the facility's color coding and folder structure, and preserves Import Session Data including timecode, automations, and timeline structure. The session that comes out of the import is organized the way audio post actually works, not the way a picture editor's Resolve timeline was organized.
The safety copy is always preserved: the untouched original AAF and source audio sit alongside the organized session, so if anything needs to be verified against the source material, it is available.
For facilities handling a regular volume of Resolve-originated content where the track naming makes manual prep especially time-consuming, this is the specific scenario where automated import prep changes the economics of the workflow most directly.
The fPost technology page explains how the content analysis works. The AAF workflow guide covers what a properly organized session should look like after import.
Comparing NLE AAF Export: Where Resolve Sits
The AAF handoff problems from different NLEs are not identical. Each creates its own predictable set of issues:
Adobe Premiere Pro produces the most common split stereo and dual-mono problems, because of how its sequence audio settings and clip interpretation interact. The Premiere Pro AAF export guide covers those settings specifically.
Avid Media Composer produces the most reliable AAFs for audio post because it was built with audio post handoffs as an explicit design requirement. Track names and clip names from a properly organized Avid project often carry useful audio post metadata.
DaVinci Resolve sits between these two. The stereo handling is more predictable than Premiere's, but the track naming is the worst of any NLE in common use. The Fairlight audio engine introduces the processed-audio risk that is unique to Resolve. And the Deliver page workflow is unfamiliar to picture editors who have primarily used other NLEs and are working in Resolve for the first time.
The step-by-step guidance for handling any AAF once it arrives in Pro Tools is in the AAF import guide for Pro Tools.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the AAF export in DaVinci Resolve?
On the Deliver page, which is the last tab in Resolve's bottom navigation strip. Select AAF from the Format dropdown under the File tab. Audio settings for the export are under the Audio tab in the same panel. This is different from every other NLE, where AAF export is typically in the File menu or a bin/sequence context menu.
What is the correct handle length for a Resolve AAF handoff to audio post?
Handles in Resolve are set as a frame count. At 24fps, 48 frames equals two seconds (the minimum) and 240 frames equals ten seconds (the professional target). At 25fps, these values are 50 and 250 frames. The dialogue editor needs ten seconds of handle audio to work cleanly at edit points. The default handle value in Resolve's Deliver page is zero or minimal and must be set explicitly for every export.
What does "Use Render Cached Audio" mean in Resolve's AAF export, and should it be checked?
"Use Render Cached Audio" tells Resolve to export the audio as it sounds after any Fairlight processing has been applied, rather than the original source audio. For audio post, this is almost always wrong. The re-recording mixer and dialogue editor need the original, unprocessed production recordings. If Fairlight effects have been applied and the cached audio is exported, the sound team receives a processed intermediate that limits what they can do with the material.
Why do DaVinci Resolve AAFs have such generic track names?
Resolve's default track naming (A1, A2, A3) reflects how picture editors use the application. Track names in Resolve serve the picture edit workflow, not the audio post workflow. Editors do not rename tracks because it does not affect how the edit looks or plays back. The result is AAFs where every track carries a letter-number combination that communicates nothing about the audio content. This makes manual routing in Pro Tools particularly time-consuming on Resolve-originated material.
Can DaVinci Resolve export multi-channel production recordings as discrete tracks?
Yes, if the clips are configured correctly in the Resolve timeline. How multi-channel clips export depends on how the audio channels were mapped when the clips were imported and what track format was used in the timeline. All channels can export as separate mono tracks, which is the preferred outcome for audio post. But if channel mapping was not set up explicitly, only the primary channel may export, or the channels may be downmixed. Confirming the multi-channel handling with the picture editor before export is the most reliable way to ensure the audio post team receives all recorded channels.
Is DaVinci Resolve Resolve Free sufficient for a Pro Tools-friendly AAF export, or is Resolve Studio required?
DaVinci Resolve Free includes the AAF export capability. Resolve Studio adds collaboration features, noise reduction, and some additional codec options, but the core AAF export workflow and the settings described in this article are available in the free version. If the project involves multi-channel audio or advanced Fairlight processing, verifying that the specific combination of features used is available in the installed version is worth confirming before the export.
fPost automates AAF import prep for Pro Tools, including AI content classification for dialogue, SFX, and music, template routing, dual-mono detection and conversion, and Import Session Data preservation. It works with AAFs from any NLE, including DaVinci Resolve. Demo available at forte-ai.com/demo.
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