It is not possible to freeze audio tracks with an In input

e-theory · Post by **e-theory** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 3:27 am

Live 6.0.1 is unable to freeze tracks that have the Audio Input set to "In" rather than "Auto".

This means that in the situation ( which I have VERY OFTEN, as it is expectionally important to good mixing.... ) where I have a MIDI channel running a VST, and that VST has multiple outputs, and I collect those multiple outputs into multiple Audio channels, I am unable to freeze those Audio channels individually without using the Render to Disk option.

This could easily be fixed by Live checking the input signal flow for the track to be frozen, no matter how complex, it should be a simple thing to figure out.

I am rather surprised that this is not already possible....

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 6:55 am

Some VSTs can use multiple instances, instead of routing outputs.
In this way you can freeze each track with no problems.
Sure it taxes a little more the RAM in your system, but is a good way to go.

- Best
- Pasha

e-theory · Post by **e-theory** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 2:22 am

Unfortunately the reason that I use the routing of audio method is because it is WAAAAAY more efficient than using multiple instances.

Take for instance Battery 2.
Using one instance of that and multiple outputs is VERY VERY efficient, no matter how complex the patterns are.

Using multiple instances to do the same thing is really really sluggish.

I still think this is something that should be fixed by Ableton ASAP.

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 4:14 am

it seems like it would not take that much longer to just record the audio real-time.

in fact since you can record them all in one pass i bet it could be faster than freezing one at a time

?

e-theory · Post by **e-theory** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 5:43 am

The more I venture into my projects the more I am finding I need to do what yo have just said, but keeping the settings of your tracks that the freeze feature does is cool. The volume, automation and send levels are all there, ready to go if you need to unfreeze and go back to tweek something.

Unfortunately, adding an audio channel instead with the required audio is a lot more efficient than freezing, as it appears that Ableton does not unload the VSTs from frozen tracks, as they seem to still take up some CPU time. It's a little naggy of me but you can work a little more quickly using freeze versus rendering that track, but I find that is what I am doing these days....

cheers,

e-theory

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 6:17 am

You could try flattening if freezing is not saving enough CPU

e-theory · Post by **e-theory** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:32 pm

The best way I can find to work so far that gives me the best of both worlds is the following:

1.) Duplicate the original track

2.) Freeze and then flatten the duplicate track

3.) Turn off all VSTs and Instruments/Effects in the original version ( to save CPU ) and turn the original channel off

4.) Perform any effects changes to the flattened version, and when you are ready and happy with the results, re-enable the original track, copy over the additional effects you have added, and delete the flattened track, so that you now have the original track ready to rumble for a Song Render