Get Freeze Function Working Properly!

[saintsaviour]

If there was one issue that I think would help everyone on 32 bit systems it would be to get the freeze function working properly. When you freeze any VST instrument it remains in memory and active, which kind of defeats the point of a freeze function as it's not saving any RAM. As far as I can see this is also the case for Ableton instruments.

Can freeze be developed to actually take the instrument out of RAM?

[posssu]

But it DOES take off the CPU-load used by the instrument.

I understand your point, but if the instruments were loaded off the ram, this would make the unfreeze-time much longer (since the instrument would have to be reloaded). Of course, based on your post, maybe you'd prefer this over the current behaviour...

[alex.the.forge]

When you freeze any VST instrument it remains in memory and active..

?? erm, what makes you think that?

[posssu]

What he probably means it doesn't get unloaded. It's still there, but just doesn't consume CPU.

[alex.the.forge]

What he probably means it doesn't get unloaded. It's still there, but just doesn't consume CPU.

Latin percussion seems to - if I freeze it then it stops being so sluggish

[saintsaviour]

The thing is that with the i7 quad or 8 core processors you don't ever reach breaking point without first reaching the RAM limit so there's little point in the freeze function saving processor power for anyone with a reasonably new computer. It's more RAM savings we need as Ableton is not 64 bit so we only have 2 - 3GB to play with as it is. Freeze is pretty useless to a lot of people now and it would be super-useful if it could unload the instrument from RAM.

[rydan]

The thing is that with the i7 quad or 8 core processors you don't ever reach breaking point without first reaching the RAM limit

You have clearly not used Reaktor (or Massive) to their full extent... =)

[Outrager]

I've been thinking the same thing, I would love an option to be able to unload the frozen instruments from the memory automatically, would make life a lot easier. Either that or have a 64 bit version of Live, which is apparantly on the way. I really hope it's soon.

Anyways, one work around I've been doing is
1. save the instrument as a preset and make a note of it somewhere on the track,
2. then duplicate it and remove the instrument from the duplicate(leaving the midi, inserts and other track automation intact, this is just to be a backup track to reload later if needed) and then
3. freeze the original track and flatten it to unload the instrument from memory. Just be careful if you automate the instrument's settings, would probably be lost after being deleted, probably are ways to work around that too though...

then if you want to unfreeze and work on the track again you just load up the instrument and preset and away you go... anyways... hope they implement something for us soon because it takes too much effort, would rather be focusing on making music...