Freezing A Folder Track Does Not Freeze Its Contents

[JFreak]

It should freeze whatever output there is on the folder. Tracks that won't contribute to the output are not included obviously. And individual tracks are not frozen, only the output of the folder.

Just think a minute about a drum kit AUX. You are freezing the kit aux output, not kit tracks.

[lesbrunn]

Originally Posted by JFreak

It should freeze whatever output there is on the folder. Tracks that won't contribute to the output are not included obviously. And individual tracks are not frozen, only the output of the folder.

Just think a minute about a drum kit AUX. You are freezing the kit aux output, not kit tracks.

OK JFreak , I understand. I'm not saying you are wrong. You are not.

Now picture a scenario where you are nearing a mix, and your session is heavily loaded with tracks and plugins. All your drums, guitars, keys, vocals are neatly stacked into folders. But you have to do a couple of overdubs, so you want to freeze most of the session and go back to a 64 buffer setting to reduce your CPU load and lessen latency. Of course, you could bounce the whole thing down to stereo for your overdubs. But freezing tracks is also a solid way to do it. I face situations like that very often during production.

Would it not be a time-saver to just freeze the folders and have most of your tracks and plugins frozen? You can always unfreeze after your overdubs so you can mix.

You are not wrong, bro, about routing folders being glorified auxes. But folder tracks could be much more than what they are now, and having the option to do more doesn't break anything.

[JFreak]

Once you have frozen your folder, just keep that audio and make the folder and its tracks inactive.

[lesbrunn]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Once you have frozen your folder, just keep that audio and make the folder and its tracks inactive.

That will work, just like bouncing down will. However, if time-saving is very important to you, that adds more motions, and my suggestion would do it with much fewer clicks.
My point is, does it break anything to have that quick option?

[JFreak]

Possibly. Because it would need to be implemented and tested, and there is no guarantee that change would not break something else somewhere else, so I would just take those few extra clicks. Your productivity is between your ears, not clicking the mouse.

[Ru_C]

Originally Posted by lesbrunn

That will work, just like bouncing down will. However, if time-saving is very important to you, that adds more motions, and my suggestion would do it with much fewer clicks.
My point is, does it break anything to have that quick option?

I'd vote for this. This is how I imagined it would work too, or at least have it as an option

[JFreak]

That would also remove the option of having a track in a folder that is not routed to its output

[lesbrunn]

Originally Posted by Ru_C

I'd vote for this. This is how I imagined it would work too, or at least have it as an option

Thanks bro. The implementation should not be very difficult, pretty much like selecting a bunch of mixed tracks and clicking freeze. However, it would be up to Avid to actually implement it without breaking stuff.

I started out with tape and consoles, but we are now in a digital workflow, where the old routing limitations don't have to hold. I'm not saying this just for the argument's sake; I sincerely see such enhancements as improvements.

[lesbrunn]

Originally Posted by JFreak

That would also remove the option of having a track in a folder that is not routed to its output

Not necessarily if the options are properly wrapped up. Maybe in preferences? I'm not a coder, so it would be up to Avid.

Hey JFreak, what do you think is the best way to suggest this to Avid? Does idea-scale still exist? Not that it worked very well before...I'd definitely vote even if the suggestion came from someone else.

[JFreak]

Maybe the folder track feature requests thread that is made sticky?