Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk
]

Bristol_Jonesey

It might be prudent to freeze your synths whenever a project is 'finished' (define finished ) and to save the resulting audio only project down with a different name, just in case you decided to re-visit it at some time in the future and you find that a particular synth is no longer on your system.

+1. Freezing a project before archiving it is your best insurance against a synth getting obsolete. I do this on every project of mine. Lets say you want to  open up that project 5-10 years from now for a remix or some reason. You have a new OS new machine and the old crusty synth no longer exists. You have all you need to work with that project again. Unfreezing gives you back the MIDI data should you need to reassign it to a different synth.
Another good reason to freeze - an update to a synth may change the way it sounds which could be a problem if you have a finished project and just need to remix. Also some synths generate non-deterministic output which can vary slightly on each bounce.


Or in SONAR you can use the quick unfreeze feature to quickly audition differences between a prior part and a new one. Many reasons to freeze besides saving CPU. 

This is very valuable info for me.... I had old projects (PA 9) I wish I would have at least saved the midi files...I'm now recreating them from scratch from a stereo wav.
Just to make sure I completely understand this procedure of archiving I would save as a cwb right?
Thanks Noel,
Randy

No problem ........

synkrotron


I'll generally freeze a synth and then straight away I'll drag/copy the wave clip to a brand new track (just by dragging it into space). I'll then unfreeze the synth so I get the MIDI data back and archive it, or just mute it or now.

Yeah, that's exactly what I do too.  I prefer to work in just one environment, audio.  But the safeguard is there in case I need to change anything in MIDI, in which case I just re-freeze, move resulting audio and unfreeze.

g_randybrown

This is very valuable info for me.... I had old projects (PA 9) I wish I would have at least saved the midi files...I'm now recreating them from scratch from a stereo wav. 
Just to make sure I completely understand this procedure of archiving I would save as a cwb right?

Randy

X2 will read even PA9 files so you should get all your MIDI tracks back intact as long as you have the .wrk or .bun files.
There is no need to save as a cwb. You can save as per project audio files and then archive the entire project folder. Thats actually the preferred way. 

I always bounce all tracks first.

This allows me to see the dynamic range of the final mix and subsequently apply various mastering touches if necessary. I then export and archive the mixed track. This method, I have a 'history' of subsequent mixes within the project file itself in case they are needed for reference/reversion in the future.

seems to me bounced tracks get saved, "frozen" track are not saved (deleted when "unfrozen").

A bounce will create a brand new wav in a brand new track, or tracks

A freeze will, in the case of a soft synth, create a new wav and place it in the audio portion of a Midi/Audio pair fo tracks. When you unfreeze - you go back to the Midi so naturally, the Audio is discarded.

Freezing a track should not delete the original waveform.

Make sure you know what you're freezing - tracks or synths

BTW, Sonar Plus's BULK FREEZE still works in X1D, just so you know. Just make sure all folders are expanded as it won't freeze any tracks hidden inside a collapsed folder. I still don't get why Cakewalk doesn't just give us a Bulk Freeze option, Benstat nailed it years ago!
 
This might have been mentioned here somewhere, but the other reason to freeze ALL tracks and BOUNCED busses is for archiving reasons - it saved my bacon on more than one occasion when a client suddelny wants a remix or a backtrack and the plus have become obsolete!