VSTs eatin up my CPUs!!!

F

fetuslasvegas

Señor Member
The project I am currently working on in Ableton only has 6 tracks. That being said, 5 of those tracks are using Massive or some other soft synth and 1 of them is a custom drum rack with heavily layered drums. Currently the project is in the developmental stage and I see it ending up with at least 12-18 tracks, none of which will be live audio (less the vocals). As of right now, I tend to be bouncing between 18 - 54% CPU. Usually I can get up to about 65ish% without shit hitting the fan.

That 65% is coming up fast. So, my question is: can I freeze clips, or just recorded tracks? Wouldn't freezing a clip render it an audio file and take some load off my CPU just as freezing a track would? Has anyone tried this? Thanks!!
 
fetuslasvegas said:
HUH??? These are midi tracks... freezing = rendering a midi track to an audio track...
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Yes... I don't really care what the recording world wants to call the process, but if you record your MIDI track as audio, however it's done, whatever it's called in your DAW, you no longer have to run the MIDI VSTi which you say is eating up your CPU. You answered your own question in your original post anyway....

Long term, if you're struggling with CPU it might be time to upgrade some stuff... that's not a huge amount of tracks.
 
Armistice said:
Yes... I don't really care what the recording world wants to call the process, but if you record your MIDI track as audio, however it's done, whatever it's called in your DAW, you no longer have to run the MIDI VSTi which you say is eating up your CPU. You answered your own question in your original post anyway....

Long term, if you're struggling with CPU it might be time to upgrade some stuff... that's not a huge amount of tracks.
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I'm unsure of whether I am able to load a MIDI instrument in an audio track in Ableton, I will have to give that a try. On a side note, I had intended to mention that I have a new MacPro being shipped to me, so this is a for the time being situation, but I figured it couldn't hurt to learn more about freezing during the recording process rather than just for archiving as I use it now.

Thanks for your input, I will let you know if this is possible.

Steenamaroo said:
Track Freezing In Ableton Live
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Thanks for the info, def gonna read up on this!!
 
fetuslasvegas said:
I'm unsure of whether I am able to load a MIDI instrument in an audio track in Ableton, I will have to give that a try. On a side note, I had intended to mention that I have a new MacPro being shipped to me, so this is a for the time being situation, but I figured it couldn't hurt to learn more about freezing during the recording process rather than just for archiving as I use it now.

Thanks for your input, I will let you know if this is possible.



Thanks for the info, def gonna read up on this!!
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Freezing tracks is pretty commonplace with CPU hungry synths like massive...5 or 6 instances can bring most PCs to their knees...

The great thing about abletons track freeze is you can still move midi parts around and you still have access to its volume, pan, and all its sends
 
kcearl said:
The great thing about abletons track freeze is you can still move midi parts around and you still have access to its volume, pan, and all its sends
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Good to know, haven't really taken the time to do a lot of research on freezing right now as most of my extra reading time is being put into Bobby Owsinski's 'The Mixing Engineer's Handbook.' Glad to know I can still edit the MIDI info once frozen, that is a HUGE reason I hadn't done it while still working on a project!!:thumbs up:
 
fetuslasvegas said:
You CANNOT record MIDI directly to an audio track in Ableton, It will not let you drag MIDI into an audio track.
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No, but you can direct an audio track to record from the midi track without bouncing it...just arm it and press record...i do it with my virus TI as it wont let you bounce or freeze
 
kcearl said:
Hey vegas...you have read the manual havent you?

:D
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Indeed, about 5 years ago when I first started using Ableton, just came to the point where I'm needing to freeze tracks for performance rather than archiving... and although Ableton's help center is very helpful, it is not quite specific in the situation I needed the information for, so, thank you for your input...

kcearl said:
No, but you can direct an audio track to record from the midi track without bouncing it...just arm it and press record...i do it with my virus TI as it wont let you bounce or freeze
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Funny thing is, after I posted about not being able to record MIDI directly to an audio track, I went back to the project, and wanted to merge two MIDI tracks into a single audio track so I could dump it to a drum rack and use my MPD to sample it. It was then when what you had said earlier all began to make sense!! I guess the advantage to freezing would be still having the capability to change things should I not like them. Thanks again for your help!! I appreciate it! :thumbs up:
 
fetuslasvegas said:
Indeed, about 5 years ago when I first started using Ableton, just came to the point where I'm needing to freeze tracks for performance rather than archiving... and although Ableton's help center is very helpful, it is not quite specific in the situation I needed the information for, so, thank you for your input...



Funny thing is, after I posted about not being able to record MIDI directly to an audio track, I went back to the project, and wanted to merge two MIDI tracks into a single audio track so I could dump it to a drum rack and use my MPD to sample it. It was then when what you had said earlier all began to make sense!! I guess the advantage to freezing would be still having the capability to change things should I not like them. Thanks again for your help!! I appreciate it! :thumbs up:
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No worries :)
 
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