Some thoughts on Freezing tracks

[Cyborg]

When freezing a track, an audio file is generated in order to free up the processor power used by that particular track.
The frozen track will automaticly be "unfrozen" as soon as a parameter is changed in a plugin.
This feature is very nice to have as it allows one to seemlessly go back and change things.

One issue with this is that when a track is frozen, all the plugins on that track is still loaded.
In some chases where there is a heavy use of samples (symphonic orchestra, chiors, drumkit etc), all the
samples will still be loaded into memory even though the track is frozen.
Of course this allows one to go back quickly and change things with the plugins, but sometimes you
really need that extra memory to work on other tracks.
One solution would be to flatten the frozen track, but once the track is flattened there is no turning back.


My suggestion:
Add a second freeze feature which will also unload the plugins.
I could be called "Freeze and Unload" or "Hibernate track", or something like that.
This feature would unload all plugins, with samples and all, in order to both free up memory and CPU power.

Once a parameter is changed, all the plugins and samples needs to be reloaded.
Therefor there should be a confirmation box saying something like: "This action will revert this frozen track and reload all plugins, yes/no".




Another thing that would be nice is to be able to freeze group tracks, instead of going in to the group and freezing every single track.
This would not only be more time efficient to the user, but it would also require less space on the disk for the frozen audio files.






And btw, Thanks for an awesome program!

[GODMON]

thats a solid thought

[cotdagoo]

definitely agree!

also, as someone else recently posted (and i overcome frequently) please let us freeze sidechained tracks!

[times new aryan]

Another thing that would be nice is to be able to freeze group tracks, instead of going in to the group and freezing every single track. This would not only be more time efficient to the user, but it would also require less space on the disk for the frozen audio files.

+1 for this. it would also be useful if you're recording several overdubs on separate tracks with the same instrument. freezing a group and dragging the frozen clip to a new audio track would help free some tracks quickly and keep things organized. of course you can achieve this by resampling the tracks but it's a bit cumbersome.

[Eloheim]

To the OP, I agree with most everything you said, those are all good feature suggestions. A workaround for some of the stuff you're talking about might be to:
1. Freeze your track
2. Duplicate the frozen track
3. Flatted the duplicate track
4. Mute/turn off devices from the original track
5. Play the new track in it's place and shrink the old one (e.g.)

The bad thing about this is the doubled track count, and that you have to go through this whole procedure again each time you want to make a change. It really doesn't take THAT much longer than just freezing though, because with duplication all the routings are carried over, etc, and Flattening is instantaneous. Plus I always have my plugins within a rack, for volume automation purposes anyway, so it only takes me one click of the rack's power button to turn off all the plugs.

If anyone has a better idea to do the same thing I'd love to hear it!

+1 for this. it would also be useful if you're recording several overdubs on separate tracks with the same instrument. freezing a group and dragging the frozen clip to a new audio track would help free some tracks quickly and keep things organized. of course you can achieve this by resampling the tracks but it's a bit cumbersome.

This is what I'm thinking of with the above. Flattening basically auto-renders the track. I haven't fully thought out your overdubing situation though so my method may prove undoably cumbersome in this case.

Also, just in case you didn't know this, any time you freeze a midi track, you can then drag (or much better, copy), the session view midi clip over to an audio track and Live will automatically place the frozen audio file in that place.

[gibson_ewok]

Why dont you just go to File / Save as. Then save a new version as "Track (frozen)" (or whatever you want) Then freeze and flatten everything. That way if you wan't some of your channels with MIDI clips and plugins again you can just drag them in from Live's file browser.

Cheers,
Bill
www.mrbillstunes.com

[Eloheim]

I've realized an obvious problem with some of my methods mentioned two posts above is when you're dealing with multi-track busses (where more than one track is routed to a single channel that you want to freeze). I guess in this case using Live's rendering would be the way to go, just render as much as you need, often not bad if you're using loops). Another option is to combine the source tracks into a drum/instrument rack, and then you can flatten them all at once and move the resulting file over to the 'buss' track.