Post
by popslut » Sat Nov 17, 2007 2:44 pm
The freeze/flatten functions are one of the best parts of Live for me.
To be able to provisionally render a part to audio in a useful way [freeze] is a good way to find out whether the part really is finished; if you haven't unfrozen it and changed it within two hours of freezing it you can safely assume it works and requires no more tarting about.
Then, to be able to convert it to audio, in situ with just one mouse click is a fantastic idea.
In Cubase/Nuendo the freeze function is practically useless as freezing a track disables all editing functions on that track, even down to the automation. The low-level freeze on Live is a brilliant implementation of the concept.
To render a piece of audio in Cubase/Nuendo requires around nine actions - set locators, open menu, select export, select mono/stereo, select output, type name, hit "ok", delete midi track, delete Instrument - whilst the same outcome can be reached in Live in two mouse clicks. Brilliant.
It should also be borne in mind that, for archiving tracks, rendering to audio can be considered essential.
Who is to say that in two years time you will still own the plugins and synths you are using today, or even be able to get hold of them? Perhaps your song relies on technology that will soon be rendered obsolete - as in Steinberg's decision to drop support for DirectX in Cubase 4.
How pissed off would you be in 2009 to discover you aren't able to open you old projects and allow them to be remixed or reworked for that lucrative film deal you just got. My first album was completed in 2002 and I still have call to recall the tracks from it to provide stems for remixers or create alternative live versions for gigs.
Fortunately I had the foresight to render all my individual tracks to audio, starting at measure 1 of the song, so that now I don't have to dig out my XS Key and install Logic 5.5 [my choice of DAW at the time] each time, and find copies of long obsolete plugins that were state of the art in 2002 just to be able to access my own material. I can just drag the individual files into Live or Nuendo and I'm there.
You should always save a version of your tune with everything rendered as audio when you're finished as you have no idea what is going to happen in the future, in terms of opportunities to develop your tunes and in terms of technological advances.
To be able to do it with two mouse clicks as in freeze/flatten is just brilliant.
Last edited by
popslut on Sat Nov 17, 2007 3:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
