Converting to audio before adding effects?

[Jimmyprice]

some one was telling me they convert different elements of there tracks to audio before adding effects on them or editing them. How would you do this in ableton and is there any advantage to it?

[Sage]

Converting to audio means you can edit audio. You could add some effects, convert to audio, edit it a bit and add more effects.

There's no benefit as such apart from lightening CPU load a bit in more busy projects, it all depends on what you are trying to achieve

[vicz]

An easy way to convert a midi instrument track to audio is to freeze the track then flatten it (right click/Freeze Track right click Flatten).

[buzby]

An easy way to convert a midi instrument track to audio is to freeze the track then flatten it (right click/Freeze Track right click Flatten).

if you are going to do this i think it is a good idea to duplicate the midi track before freezing and flattening - so that you have a copy of it which you can edit if you need to

once you have frozen and flattened a track you can undo it by pressing cmd - z but if you save the set then it is nt possible to un-flatten and un freeze a track incase you need to go back and edit midi notes, parameter etc

another way is to freeze the midi track and then drag any midi clips into an audio track and it will create an audio clip and also you can always un-freeze the midi track if you wish

[ChiDJ]

What Beats said. It's just like recording vocals into your comp. Get the best recording/take as possible. Effects come after.


Peace!


Tod

[Jimmyprice]

cheers every1 that helps out alot!

[silveriofunk]

i always do it, basically to save CPU... however i sometimes save with the effects added, it depends really what i'm trying to get out of the track

[darkenedsoul]

Is there a way to get it to not double the length of the audio from a MIDI clip? It is rather annoying to have to re-edit/set loop braces on the resultant audio after freezing the track and looking at the clips. At least with just freezing I still have my original MIDI clips. I need to get in the habit of copying them to another track and/or exporting them before doing the flattening (normally I am not doing this at the moment as I only want to get the audio clips and only of the length that they are, not 2x).

So far I haven't found any information here on this (or in the books but will look again to see if it talks about being able to do this). So, bottom line - is there a way to save the MIDI clip as audio AND have it be the proper length, not 2x the original clip, i.e. I record 1 or 2 bars MIDI and only want that, not 2-4 bars of audio.

Mike

[edit] It looks like if I take off Loop option in the MIDI clip it'll not become 2x the length. I'll try that later today after making a copy of the MIDI clips in the existing track. If that works then I'll be in a better situation.

[buzby]

i dont think so -

its the second half of the new loop that you are after

i cant remember how this works exactly but i think what happens is that the information gets read twice and produces a "double length" clip - it is something to do with that when a clip has effects on it then the info from the effects is written into the second "loop/half" of the new clip

- that's not a very good explaination im sorry but maybe someone else can explain this better

[darkenedsoul]

i dont think so -

its the second half of the new loop that you are after

i cant remember how this works exactly but i think what happens is that the information gets read twice and produces a "double length" clip - it is something to do with that when a clip has effects on it then the info from the effects is written into the second "loop/half" of the new clip

- that's not a very good explaination im sorry but maybe someone else can explain this better

When I turned Loop off in the clip and did a freeze track and copied the clips to an audio track they are only 1 bar length, problem is the crash/china sounds out beyond 1 bar and gets cut off. Need to figure out how to get it to end (and sound normal) before end of the bar or find different sample that won't sound out beyond it.

One other question though. Why isn't it saving the clips with the names that are in the tracks instead of: 05 freeze yada yada it should be: 05 Snares China 1, etc...?

Mike