I believe I found the solution to being able to freeze properly, given FL Studio's unique playlist workings.System - Improve freeze and unfreeze [#2622]
But first of all, some notes :
Freezing would be insanely useful to save CPU / loading / saving times by having the ability to unload plugins so that they don't ever use any CPU or RAM while frozen. This alone would save immensely on CPU, RAM, project loading/saving since the plugins aren't loaded.
The problem these days is that many plugins, even if idle and doing nothing, use a lot of CPU. The more and more plugins there are, even idle usage can be too high and remove from the available CPU headroom you have to use, even though they're not even doing anything. Eventually you can hit a theoretical ceiling.
While consolidating a track is good and will obviously save CPU during playback / render, this "idle" CPU and loading / saving project times is still there because plugins are still loaded (also, RAM usage). Furthermore, you can't remove the plugins because they serve as your backup, and removing it would be potential disaster if you need to change anything. With instruments, removing it (which is the only option to remove idle CPU and RAM) also deletes the associated patterns. So we really need a way to freeze instruments so we can keep all the patterns and associated automation data, and they are will be 0% CPU/RAM usage since they are unloaded
P.S. Optionally freezing mixer effect slots would be useful too as a secondary thing. Definitely optional, because even if an instrument is consolidated or frozen, you may not want effects frozen.. Or you may, which is why it's optional
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So, it was said before that FL Studio is unique and you can place anything on a track. Because of this, it's impossible to properly "freeze" a track. Well, I have an idea that will fix that problem
My solution:
- When implementing the freeze feature, focus it on only freezing specific instrument plugins. This has the advantage of allowing you to freeze a plugin project-wide no matter where it is.
- In light of what I said above, any frozen plugin can internally be consolidated and replaced with a consolidated wav file per pattern.
- For any frozen plugin, automation clips for that specific plugin cannot be edited until unfrozen (this will preserve the status quo). You also can't edit or add any frozen instrument's notes in patterns (obviously). Additionally, a frozen instrument's automation clips and any patterns that contain said frozen instrument cannot be moved from their position in the playlist - the reason they can't be moved is to preserve the ordering of automation clips and patterns together
- Obviously, internally, this freeze function would probably have to consolidate and render to WAV (all you'll see in the playlist is a grayed out and unmovable pattern, not the wav audio clip, unless you specifically use the consolidation feature)
- To get a track-like freeze function, you can also internally combine the consolidate feature along with freezing any additional specific instrument plugins found in patterns in that specific track. This track can be grayed out and "disabled" if frozen. If an instrument is found in patterns on other tracks, the rules above ^^^ will be followed for every specific pattern ^^. So this solves the fact that patterns may be elsewhere.
- Regarding patterns, I want to note that while patterns that contain a frozen instrument will not be movable on the playlist, you can STILL add and edit notes to any pattern that has frozen instruments in it, as long as that specific instrument is unfrozen. Only frozen instruments notes are uneditable. You can still delete patterns that contain frozen instruments. (see notes below on patterns for more detailed description)
- Regarding patterns, the way to solve multiple instruments on patterns can be as follows
- If an instrument is frozen, any patterns that contain said instrument must be unmovable on the playlist. Also automation clips will be unmovable also. This enforces keeping positions synced together.
- editing of patterns with frozen instruments in them is allowed, however you cannot edit notes of frozen instruments. You can only add, edit, or delete notes of unfrozen instruments.
- Disallow editing of frozen instruments notes in patterns (not disabling the entire pattern from editing - only those frozen notes can't be edited), while internally consolidating ONLY those frozen instrument's notes, internally keeping the instrument associated with that pattern (so there's no pattern splitting or messy stuff going on). The pattern will still have to be frozen on the playlist due to automation data and pattern position syncing, but otherwise it's pretty seamless. You can even still delete the pattern(s) of a frozen instrument without issue, regardless whether it's only the frozen instrument or contains multiple instruments
- The above allows you to still add instrument notes to patterns of single instruments that may be frozen. The only tradeoff is that if a pattern contains something frozen, it will be unmovable on the playlist.
- Automation data isn't a problem, as that would affect the instrument normally during freeze / consolidation rendering, just as it does now
- Allow freezing groups of track
- Allow selecting and freezing/consolidating multiple tracks together (this can render to one consolidated wav file internally)
- I believe that these rules above will also force people to order and organize their playlist better so that freezing doesn't make a mess of their playlist.
Are these ideas already on the to-do and part of the one I mentioned above? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. I'm just putting this out there in case it wasn't considered yet.
This idea was inspired by other DAW's, and the fact that plugins are eating up my precious CPU doing nothing. Consolidating helps to a degree, but if freezing is a concept, then consolidation is a slushy drink - half frozen half thawed.
