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DP is obviously a great tool for music creation. With virtual instruments one can create practically anything. But the more one experiments with a variety of sounds and patches, one begins to max out their machine and that can lead to crashes. Freezing tracks can help with this but soon one is filled with a slew of freeze tracks and this brings up the question how to proceed with a number of freeze tracks to complete a song. This interfaces with the issue of mixing, working with EQ, and adding effects such as reverb, etc.

My question is if there is an established best practice work flow that people have found to be effective to maximize flexibility, creativity, and computer resources in DP? It would be helpful to know if others have found certain work flow tips and tricks they would be willing to share.

Please let me know what people think and if this has been covered in other areas I can search.

Thank you.

I always try to print my tracks (recording or freezing) when the project sounds the way I like it, after it´s mixed to my taste, or when the mix is 90% done.

But if you are concerned about your computer´s resources, freezing is great because you always have access to the MIDI in case you want to change something later.

I suppose you´ll have to decide if you freeze your tracks raw, so you can mix everything afterwards, along with the rest of your tracks, or if you want to freeze them with FXs included. I think the former is more versatile and allows for more flexibility when mixing because you do it from "clean" tracks. Obviously, if you need to freeze them with lots of effects as part of the sound of the VI, by all means do so.

I don´t think there´s much of a workflow issue when freezing... It´s basically the same. You get a bunch of frozen audio tracks, ready to be mixed with the rest. You could put all your VI tracks in a folder for easy access in case of changes.

Actually, have you thought of putting all your VIs in V-racks instead of freezing them in the sequence? Like this, you can disable/enable the VIs in V-racks on a need-to basis. I usually do this, and I like it a lot. Instead of freezing, I record the tracks in real time (many at the same time), and when they are printed, I simply disable the V-racks and I get CPU back. Then I deal only with audio.

This is very helpful. I have some additional questions. 1) I'm assuming that the settings in the Configure Hardware Driver settings affect the recording quality of freezing and bouncing. Is that correct? 2) The Sample Rate I have set in this configure window is 44100. With my MOTU UltraLite I can go higher. Do you have a sample rate you would recommend? 3) Do you have a buffer size you would recommend? 4) Does freezing produce the same quality of recording as bouncing? 5) Can/should frozen tracks be used as audio tracks in recording a final bounce? Are frozen tracks high enough quality for that?

pacificm wrote:This is very helpful. I have some additional questions. 1) I'm assuming that the settings in the Configure Hardware Driver settings affect the recording quality of freezing and bouncing. Is that correct?

Depends on which settings exactly. From that window, the only one that would affect the quality (or at least the size) of your audio files is the Sample Rate.

pacificm wrote: 2) The Sample Rate I have set in this configure window is 44100. With my MOTU UltraLite I can go higher. Do you have a sample rate you would recommend?

If you work with video, you could go up to 48 KHz. For audio-only you're fine at 44.1.
Always work @ 24 bits, though.

Some people in this forum swear by going higher, i.e. 96 KHz, because they insist things sound better like that.
PERSONALLY, I don't hear much difference, if any, and the resulting doubling of the size of audio files is not worth the alleged quality improvement, IMO.
There are like a million threads related to this, and you will see that there's no consensus about it. Remember that the PLACEBO effect is quite powerful. And I insist: All things being equal, a small tweak in an EQ would render more dramatic and obvious results than projects at 96 KHz just for the sake of it. But that's just me.

pacificm wrote:3) Do you have a buffer size you would recommend?

If you play your VIs monitoring them live, go as low as you need to not feel annoying latency. When mixing, switch and go as high as your computer/soundcard allows, so it doesn't work harder than necessary and CPU performance improves and you more CPU power for plug-ins, etc.

pacificm wrote:4) Does freezing produce the same quality of recording as bouncing?

All things being equal, YES.
But you normally don't bounce a single track (although there's nothing wrong with it), especially not when they are sent to aux tracks with other tracks with FXs (EQs or compressors).

I recommend freezing them or recording them in real time.

pacificm wrote: 5) Can/should frozen tracks be used as audio tracks in recording a final bounce? Are frozen tracks high enough quality for that?

Yes and yes. The quality of frozen tracks is exactly the same as normally-recorded or bounced tracks. BUT mind that you must know which things are included in the freezing and which don't. This is VERY important!

Once you have everything printed to audio, you can bounce away. Although I think there are ways to include VIs in the bounce without prior freezing, but I never do that anyway.

This part of this thread covers what is and what isn't included when freezing VIs:

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... 30#p452111


I recommend you read the WHOLE thread. It's quite informative, since it covers most things about recording in real time, bouncing, freezing, etc.

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... =1&t=53528

and also:
http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... 26&t=50268

Thanks for your reply and for the links! Also, thanks to Motunation for hosting this opportunity so MOTU users can discuss these things with each other.

I read through all the linked discussions. The issue of freezing has certainly generated a lot of spirited discussion! I feel now I have a better understanding of what the options are and what to do in my search for best practices. Now, I need to start implementing some of those processes and test them out.

Thanks again!