Is it just me or is freezing still not fit for purpose? Or is it just Cubase?

[kritikon]

So I was playing around with it recently in Cubase. Towards the end-ish of making a track so I froze a few channels to free up some power on the laptop. And there was me thinking that freeze had moved on in the last few years that I was out of music. Once it was frozen (the actual process of doing it is great - couldn't be easier, and it gives a few useful options before actually freezing). But once I'd frozen it it was literally locked tightly down. I couldn't edit the audio at all. Yeah, you can diddle with the actual channel, add inserts/sends etc and do all the usual channel stuff but there was no way for me to do even simple things like cut or mute or move any of it about.

So I went back to my old habits of simply rendering to audio, fit to part, then I could chop, mute, move, even go in and edit the audio if I wanted. And TBH it still only took a couple more button clicks to properly render rather than freeze.

I can see some of the benefits like unfreezing - I needed to do that to one channel when I decided I wanted to alter the sound. Now that would have been a pita if I had rendered (though of course I could have still kept the original channel but switched it all off).

So am I out of sync here? Freezing seems like it's only of any use if you have absolutely made your final decisions. If you want to go back in, yes you can unfreeze but I assumed freezing would be so much more editable. It's only rendering on a separate button but the locking of the audio seems dumb to me. Or do other DAWs do it better and let you edit the frozen channel? I'm not about to change from Cubase - I can easily render myself and Cubase was never difficult with that. Is it just a Steinberg-didn't-understand-what-freezing-is-all-about thing? I know they were late to the party all those years ago. Or is there some setting hidden away somewhere that lets you set freezing to be editable that I've missed?

[antic604]

So am I out of sync here? Freezing seems like it's only of any use if you have absolutely made your final decisions. If you want to go back in, yes you can unfreeze but I assumed freezing would be so much more editable. It's only rendering on a separate button but the locking of the audio seems dumb to me. Or do other DAWs do it better and let you edit the frozen channel?

My understanding always was that Freezing is just for that - to freeze an otherwise CPU heavy track that if you want to edit you just have to unfreeze, adjust & freeze back. In Ableton there's also additional step available - Flatten - where you commit the audio and can do whatever you want with it, but can no longer go back to MIDI. Not sure if there's something similar in Cubase?

Having said that, Studio One's equivalent to freezing - Track Transform - lets you edit the rendered audio and still go back to original state with edits reflected in the MIDI

[kritikon]

Having said that, Studio One's equivalent to freezing - Track Transform - lets you edit the rendered audio and still go back to original state with edits reflected in the MIDI

Now that's what I expect of freeze. The edits reflected in midi is an added bonus that I wouldn't expect, but extremely useful surely? I always saw freeze as a quick-button render but it seems many DAWs don't see it that way. Maybe I just need to change the way I think about it. Simply rendering to audio suits me the best though. At least that way I can fully do what I want with it and if I set it up right, I can get the original back if I want to.

[zvenx]

That to me is the biggest feature that Cubendo is missing and I have been begging them for this since Cubendo 8 or so..
Begging..

rsp

[kritikon]

If begging hasn't worked have you tried threatening?

[zvenx]

lol.

rsp

[kev2525]

Cubase only let's you freeze and unfreeze one track at a time. They need a better way to freeze on multiple tracks....

[Danilo Villanova]

Studio One’s implementation is great but it takes so long to freeze tracks on my shitty machine

[kritikon]

Cubase only let's you freeze and unfreeze one track at a time. They need a better way to freeze on multiple tracks....

TBH their freeze is so useless that it doesn't matter how many channels can be done at once (or not) because I won't be using it again.

[Weasel-Boy]

TBH their freeze is so useless that it doesn't matter how many channels can be done at once (or not) because I won't be using it again.

I wouldn’t call it useless. It does do the job as it was designed: converting a VSTi track to audio, reducing CPU usage. Unfreezing the track restores the VSTi track back to its original state. As designed, it does this job flawlessly.

The problem is, Steinberg’s development of the function has remained stagnant since they introduced the feature. Studio One’s current take on it clearly shows the functionality of Freeze can be redesigned/improved to speed up workflow.

[Hink]

I am several versions behind but Samp's freeze is nice for me...I find it very handy with jamstix because I can freeze the instrument, it will assign the different tracks like it should. Once my drum parts are done I prefer a wave visual, however it is not uncommon for me to unfreeze and make an adjustment to my drums

[zvenx]

.......
The problem is, Steinberg’s development of the function has remained stagnant since they introduced the feature. Studio One’s current take on it clearly shows the functionality of Freeze can be redesigned/improved to speed up workflow.

This!!!!

Rsp

[LeVzi]

Freeze does what it says on the tin. If you are going to freeze a track with the idea of editing the audio after, then you know all you need to is render it in place and then freeze. You keep the load off the CPU and have the instrument to go back to if you want to.

If you are suggesting they need to add that to the freeze options, then OK, could do the job, but is it really that time consuming to do that ? I'd rather do it that way tbh, then chuck all the frozen tracks into a folder and forget unless I need to go back for something.

[pixel85]

Render in place is way better than freezing.
This + DIY macro (render, disable track, hide track etc.) under one key > freeze.
Since Render in Place was introduced in Cubase, I didn't do track freezing even once.

[WasteLand]

indeed Render in Place in the solution...