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

[kritikon]

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.

I like the sound of this. I never got into macros for some odd reason, but I probably should. Trouble is when you get old enough...which bits do I pick to forget so that I can make room for learning new stuff like macros? I can't just keep on learning stuff...there's no room left in my noggin any more...

[Weasel-Boy]

Macros are easy. It’s just assembling a list of menu commands as a Macro and assigning it a key command. The hardest part of this operation is finding where the various menu items are parked…and that ain’t much.

[aldipower]

Cubase "freeze" was invented in 2002 or something like that? I think they also were the first ones. After that they forgot about it.
In Reaper it is called "Render track/lanes and mute orginal", that is much more to the point and you get an actual editable rendered waveform.

[seafire]

Well done, only 3+ years late

[bermudagold]

tracktion has a robust tiered multi function freeze and can choose where in the plugin chain you want to freeze...but all freeze is still overrated, because most just saves cpu clock cycles by turning off plugs...but it doesn't save RAM BY releasing plugins from RAM...so ur still going to hit a ceiling early if you use RAM heavy plugs just a different ceiling...so you have to save all ur plugin settings by creating a track and song specific rack preset, render to audio, and then delete the plugs from the midi track and folder it so you can go back if necessary...this requires a high level of file management overhead

[aldipower]

Well done, only 3+ years late

And people say you can't find anything with Google anymore.

[andypryce]

In Reaper it is called "Render track/lanes and mute orginal", that is much more to the point and you get an actual editable rendered waveform.

Cubase has that too since Version 8 along with Freeze. Both have different uses.

[AdvancedFollower]

Cubase Freeze also doesn't work with external hardware instruments. You can play back the frozen track without physically having your hardware synth plugged in and turned on, which is what you'd expect. However once you try to render your project it still "thinks" there are external audio inputs connected and forces a Realtime render. Then in order to "unfreeze" the track you need to re-record the audio even though it's already recorded and stored as audio files in your project (which you can confirm if you poke around in the files of your project folder).

This is why I always bounce to a new audio track or render in place these days. I prefer to see my audio tracks in the DAW so I know they're actually there. Plus you can do audio editing, re-alignment etc. if you want.

[mothra]

Eh just render in place nowadays, super easy and done. I turn all my VST instrument tracks into audio before the 'mixdown' stage this way. Just have to remember to place an empty region at the beginning of each track, render the whole thing from bar 1 without the channel strip, then it copies the entire strip and puts it on my newly rendered track.

Isn't "freezing" just rendering everything to a 32-bit float file anyways?? That's how Logic Pro does it, or did last time I used it (its been awhile). I've never used the function in Cubase, but had to all the time in Logic as I was on a really old outdated Intel Mac for the longest time up until the M1s came out. Might as well just call it done and render it permanently.

[Scoops]

Well,

Frosty was a snowman. He wasn't able to do anything until it got warm and he unfroze.

Saying another way, if something in a DAW is frozen, my expectation would be not to be able to do anything with it.

But then again, I rarely if ever freeze anything in a DAW.

[ozinga]

Just have to remember to place an empty region at the beginning of each track, render the whole thing from bar 1 without the channel strip, then it copies the entire strip and puts it on my newly rendered track.

You can also use range tool to render from wherever you want without needing to create extra regions.

[mothra]

You can also use range tool to render from wherever you want without needing to create extra regions.

I keep forgetting that tool is there. I'll have to try that next time I do it. I usually have muted regions at the beginning anyways. If a track doesn't start on bar 1, that's where I stash extra patterns and what not I come up with on the tracks for 'later' use heh.

[jancivil]

Once I found out what freezing was, a hidden audio file and a disconnected MIDI track, I figured to render the part and disconnect the MIDI myself, and see the fuckin' audio. To me, freezing makes zero sense. I render in place usually, make a region, and this can be the whole signal path.

I've never in my life needed any empty space before what I render. I've read about it but it has to mean somebody doing something I've never done. (maybe the preference 'snap MIDI parts to bars'?)

[_leras]

I think freeze was just supposed to be a one click shortcut to save CPU. Bouncing down with render in place, or render to new track are arguably good workflow. But this can be a multi click process, which I think freeze hoped to avoid.

Biting allows a track to he disabled, so bouncing and disabling is a good approach.

I'm kind of surprised that no DAW company has tried to do some kind of continuous freezing of audio.

Nearly all track and bus output could be recorded during normal playback, or in the background, and 'activating' a track by selecting or adjusting a parameter could make it 'live'. For the most part multiple tracks are not adjusted at the same time without preexisting automation.