Add Plugin To Frozen Track

[Rich O'Reilly]

Is there a way to insert a plug-in over a frozen track? I thought I was able to do that in past versions. I’m not able to in this version.

[scook]

Always best to specify the year/month and build of the release (the current release is "2021.01 build 98")  rather than referring to "this version". 

Freezing a track, turns off the PC and bypasses the FX rack.

This has always been the case and it has always been possible to turn on the PC and enable the FX rack for additional processing but this practice is pretty dangerous.

Accidently thaw the track and post-freeze processing is lost.

If a frozen track needs additional processing, a safer way to do this is copy audio from the frozen track and archive the original.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

Yes.

There's two ways you can go about it:

- Right click on the frozen event and select "bounce to clips". This will preserve all changes done to the frozen track whilst freeing your fx rack and pro channel. Downside with that is the FX and PC settings and effects will still be there and will have to be reset manually.

- Select the track, go to options and "bounce to tracks." This will create a new audio track with the "print" from the track you bounced. Downside of that is when you have to bounce multiple stereo and mono tracks to a single track. Printing them to is not possible unless they go through a bus first, as new stereo tracks will be created if you set the bounce to stereo and vice versa for mono. Upside of his method is that you created a new track with everything reset and can preserve the source track by archiving it (which mutes it and bypasses all processing), then hide it using the track manager.

[Max Arwood]

I usually unmute the fx section then mute each fx one at a time.   Then I add the new fx.  I work with the new fx till I think it sounds good.  You can now leave the track as it is but it is best to un freeze the track and refreeze with the newly added fx.  This will reduce confusion later. 

Edit - just a note - after you unfreeze be sure to unmute all the fx before you refreeze the track.

Edited February 28, 2021 by Max Arwood
added info

[bitflipper]

I'd suggest un-freezing the track, add the new plugin and then re-freeze without freezing the fx bin.

I normally don't freeze FX when I freeze a track, just for this reason: there'll always be some tweaking to fx right up until the end of the mix process. If you decide to go this route, after un-freezing the track, right-click on the freeze button to bring up the freeze options and un-check the "freeze fx" box. 

[Blogospherianman]

Like Max said, if the track is already frozen and you don’t want to un-freeze, you can simply right click the FX Bin and Un-bypass it allowing you to use more FX.  (Bypass the ones you previously froze to prevent double processing) Same with Pro channel.  Just click the button to re-enable it.
I personally Bounce to Track (to a new track)  then do further processing.  That gives me options to easily go back a step if needed without losing any work done prior to freezing.  Then I archive and hide em till or if they are needed, or disconnect synths via Synth rack.

Edited March 6, 2021 by Blogospherianman

[Max Arwood]

On 3/6/2021 at 12:35 PM, Blogospherianman said:

Like Max said, if the track is already frozen and you don’t want to un-freeze, you can simply right click the FX Bin and Un-bypass it allowing you to use more FX.  (Bypass the ones you previously froze to prevent double processing) Same with Pro channel.  Just click the button to re-enable it.
I personally Bounce to Track (to a new track)  then do further processing.  That gives me options to easily go back a step if needed without losing any work done prior to freezing.  Then I archive and hide em till or if they are needed, or disconnect synths via Synth rack.

That's a great idea. That was I could add 10 more plugins and bounce to another track and add 10 more plugins and so on.

 

[Mánibranðr Studios]

Another way would simply be to create a chain of patch points, I think you can bounce with FX that way too, that way when you want to go back a step you can unfreeze until you get to the point you want to change and then refreeze the tracks.

The reason this is useful is that there are some FX you'd want to freeze as they take up a lot of CPU and add a lot of latency, and/or a part of the sound design process. Or maybe you just want to generate samples to add to your sampler.