freeze still has issues

12ax7heaven · Post by **12ax7heaven** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:51 pm

Just thought I would give a heads up that the freeze function still seems to have ticks and clicks and general user unfriendliness in 5.2. This includes unfreezing tracks after recording an arrangement (which seems to be a very strange default) and clicks in loops. Since the ability to freeze was a big reason why I upgraded it is a little concerning how poorly it seems to have been integrated and while I appreciate your desire to support new intel macs it would be fantastic if some of the features which I thought we paid for in Live 5 were addressed first.
cheers
©

huffcw · Post by **huffcw** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 9:14 pm

AGREE!

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 10:11 pm

AGREE!

jamesp · Post by **jamesp** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 11:36 pm

I concur. After having two previously frozen tracks suddenly "melt" (become unfrozen) I've stopped using the freeze function. Something's fishy.

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 7:53 am

Have you sent the issue to [email protected]?

jamesp · Post by **jamesp** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 3:40 pm

I will.

But that's kind of a sore point with me. Given the choice, I would NEVER test beta, let alone pay for the priviledge.

kineticUk · Post by **kineticUk** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 5:24 pm

Alright everyone
Just to say you should try to speak to ableton beta team..
Chances are the betas a better version (I was always sceptical about testing them as well, but found that the final versions may as well be betas as theres very little difference (Just more bugs in the final versions @ the moment).
At least you will get some sort of direct response from ableton that way and with any luck you will have helped us all by getting this sorted (I hardly use this feature so would not have noticed although I am testing at the moment)
Cheers

12ax7heaven · Post by **12ax7heaven** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 2:09 am

I tried writing to support within a week of the original release of Live 5 and was told that (at least the arrangement unfreeze) was working the way it should be ie: unfreezing all tracks after an arrangement was recorded. While this is totally the opposite of the way I would choose to integrate this function I suppose I did not ask before I bought so I am a real sucker for thinking that "features" would be applied in a manner which I think is usefull. I would think that a freeze should sound the same as before until I unfreeze it to make a change otherwise what is the point? I am pretty sure that most users don't want clicks and pops added each time they freeze a track but what do I know.

What is probably going to piss me off even more is if I am asked to pay for a working version of this feature in Live 6 which I thought I paid for in Live 5. I have purchased my upgrades and been patient and while I occasionally use some of the other new features in Live 5 it was the freeze feature which convinced me shell out my dough. Mostly I hope Ableton can be fair and remedy this situation as I generally like working in Live and don't like feeling as though I was cheated because someone on the design team didn't take the time to consider how this "feature" would be used.

Post by **Alex** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 2:27 am

Hi 12ax7heaven,

I would think that a freeze should sound the same as before until I unfreeze it to make a change otherwise what is the point?

So according to this you would not have allowed to record an arrangement for a freezed track?
Because if you have a freezed track in the session view and create something on the same track in the arrangement by doing an arrangement record you change this track.

regards,
/Alex

12ax7heaven · Post by **12ax7heaven** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:11 pm

Hi Alex, I think I understand your point. I suppose what I am talking about is that if while creating an arrangement I don't change the frozen bit beyond having it repeat (and while I realise that as Eno says that repitition is a form of change) why should the track unfreeze? Is it because now the track has changed? That in some way makes sense however I would think that freeze should in some ways be more akin to rendering a track and in the future being able to revert that if you change your mind about the part you have written/recorded not the arrangement of that sample. I will give you an example of when this has caused me grief and perhaps you can tell me if I am thinking of this incorrectly or if there is an alternate way to work which you would suggest.

I create a few tracks, a few of which I am unsure about the written/recorded part but which appear to be cpu intensive. I freeze these tracks and procede to create an arrangement to decide if they are working. Now as far as I can see beyond the repetition I have not changed the track. I press stop and go to listen to my arrangement which seemed to play fine with the frozen tracks. The problem is that all of my frozen tracks unfreeze themselves and what was previously a manageable song is now showing a disk overload. I would now have to refreeze each track to listen to my arrangement. Do you understand my dilemma? My thought of how this feature may be better implemented would be that since an audio file (or a few?) are created each time I freeze a track why not have that/those be the default until I decide to change the part? Am I thinking of this incorrectly? My previous work around was to record this to another track and delete the cpu intensive track. The problem there being that if I decided to change the part later my original instrument and written (or recorded) part and effect configuration were gone.

This was just one way in which freeze seemed problematic to me it does not address the clicks and other noises I would get when freezing. I guess I liked the idea but not the implementaion.

Lastly I just want to add that I appreciate the fact that you read these posts and are concerned as it would be even more troubling if you did not. By the way I am recent graduate of Industrial Design, any positions open on the Ableton team?
Cheers

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 8:28 am

12ax7heaven wrote:Hi Alex, I think I understand your point. I suppose what I am talking about is that if while creating an arrangement I don't change the frozen bit beyond having it repeat (and while I realise that as Eno says that repitition is a form of change) why should the track unfreeze? Is it because now the track has changed? That in some way makes sense however I would think that freeze should in some ways be more akin to rendering a track and in the future being able to revert that if you change your mind about the part you have written/recorded not the arrangement of that sample. I will give you an example of when this has caused me grief and perhaps you can tell me if I am thinking of this incorrectly or if there is an alternate way to work which you would suggest.

I create a few tracks, a few of which I am unsure about the written/recorded part but which appear to be cpu intensive. I freeze these tracks and procede to create an arrangement to decide if they are working. Now as far as I can see beyond the repetition I have not changed the track. I press stop and go to listen to my arrangement which seemed to play fine with the frozen tracks. The problem is that all of my frozen tracks unfreeze themselves and what was previously a manageable song is now showing a disk overload. I would now have to refreeze each track to listen to my arrangement. Do you understand my dilemma? My thought of how this feature may be better implemented would be that since an audio file (or a few?) are created each time I freeze a track why not have that/those be the default until I decide to change the part? Am I thinking of this incorrectly? My previous work around was to record this to another track and delete the cpu intensive track. The problem there being that if I decided to change the part later my original instrument and written (or recorded) part and effect configuration were gone.

This was just one way in which freeze seemed problematic to me it does not address the clicks and other noises I would get when freezing. I guess I liked the idea but not the implementaion.

Lastly I just want to add that I appreciate the fact that you read these posts and are concerned as it would be even more troubling if you did not. By the way I am recent graduate of Industrial Design, any positions open on the Ableton team?
Cheers

Hi 12ax7heaven,

What happens in Live is the same that happens in Cubase.
If you freeze a track you actually pre compute all audio output as it would in a real time way in an audio file that it's used in place of the CPU power needed to generate it in Real Time. Even if might appear not logic, a freeze track must correspond to the source that generated it otherwise unfreeze would not be possible. I'm with you when you say that if you want to repeat your frozen block in an arragement you should be allowed to do so, but the industry standard thinks freeze as a mean to make less powered DAW systems able to deal with complex music textures, so you freeze a track to be less CPU intensive, probably at end of the workflow concerning that track. Your walkaround is the same I'm using but I do never delete the source track, simply I mute it and leave it there, frozen, so when I change ideas I can go back and take different routes. I'm used to use freeze the way it is today in Live, because is the same in Cubase and Logic AFAIK. BTW Live does unfreeze 'behind the scenes' when in arrangement view you want to record on a frozen track. This is a better workflow than Cubase has (there you have to unfreeze yourself) but can lead to a CPU hog because you froze a track to use less CPU... I think a message box should be added to inform the user.

I noticed clicks and pops on frozen tracks as well; these have to be adressed.

regards,
Pasha

kineticUk · Post by **kineticUk** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 2:52 pm

If there are pops and clicks on frozen tracks, I hope it is getting looked into as well.
I will test this out too...