[Ardour-Users] Freeze a track?

[Axel Müller]

Happy new year. :)

Am Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:28:11 +0200 schrieb Sampo Savolainen:

> The why:
> 
> Imagine a track with post fader plugins. Those plugins might be linear
> (reverbs, delays) but they could also be non-linear like distortion or
> compression. These effects are gain sensitive. As the main fader acts as
> a input gain for the post fader redirects, also the fader needs to be
> "frozen".

Usually the fader is intended to adjust the volume of a track in the mix, 
so IMHO putting gain sensitive plugins post fader should be avoided if 
possible. One exeption might be a peak limiter in some cases (there might 
be others). If an additional input gain stage is needed, there are 
plugins for that purpose.

I think that most plugins can be inserted pre-fader in general. Exeptions 
are effects that should not go into post-fader (effect) sends.

So...

> The question:
> 
> Ardour usually steers towards being "perfect" in cases like this. But
> one could argue that in this case we outsource the risk. We could let
> the user move the fader and just tell them in the manual that fader
> movements on frozen tracks with non-linear post fader effects will not
> sound like what it would sound unfrozen.
> 
> I'd love to hear what the users think about this- Should we make this
> part imperfect?

I only did a quick test with freezing as I haven't used this feature in 
practice, so far. Everything seemed to work the way I expected it, except 
that plugins didn't get reenabled automatically at unfreeze, wich IMHO 
should be fixed. But otherwise I didn't see anything else that should get 
changed.

But from my thoughts wich kind of plugins and redirects would be used 
pre- and post-fader, following idea sprung to mind: If most plugins can 
be placed pre-fader anyway, it would be great to make it optional to only 
include those plugins in the freeze and leave the fader itself and post-
fader plugins/redirects untouched. This should free most of the desired 
CPU cycles while eliminating some unwanted and maybe confusing side 
effects with post-fader plugins/redirects.

Axel