Cakewalk Sonar - Freezing Tips (you may not know)

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In this video we look at how to freeze track in Cakewalk Sonar or Cakewalk by Bandlab. This really helps if you are experiencing pops, clicks, or dropouts!
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• Cakewalk Sonar - Freez...
CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:23 What and Why
01:40 Freezing
05:33 Quick Freeze
07:27 Freeze Options
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[@gertmostert1323]

Mike you forgot to mention if you are using sidechain on a plugin of the track you want to freeze, you have to freeze in real time.

[@richardbeeth6956]

Thanks Mike! I'm another old timer who never knew there was a "quick freeze". Cakewalk should have hired you as their instructor years and years ago.

[@BarryRatter]

Never crossed my mind to right click the freeze button. Thanks for that.

[@jeremiahpeterson7490]

Same!

[@unclepaulsband6946]

Wow - I appear to be in the minority here, but I actually didn't even know about the freeze function at all! Super helpful, Mike - this is why I love your channel!

[@zahnadumusic6692]

Mike, I've been a Cakewalk user since it first came out in '87. Your teaching method is so well done. Please keep up the great work

[@Dontloseyourlight100]

I'm definitely an "old timer", Cakewalk user since 1998. Thank you for all your help Mike!

[@pierrecarter3090]

Thanks a lot Mike. I sure do want this channel stays up! I'm an old timer who learned so much from you with new techs. See you soon

[@riccardimario4890]

5 years user and didn't know about this. Thanks so much Mike. Your video are so useful and clear. A big plus for I'm French: your English is very articulate !

[@StefCaron]

Si seulement Mike avait le temps (et les ressources) pour faire une version française des ses vidéos. J'embarque si jamais il y a quelqu'un qui veut tenter l'affaire...

[@arnoschaaf8115]

Really helpful. Didn't know the options in Freeze

[@charleshuguley9323]

Freezing is such a useful feature.

[@markconnell4898]

I've been using Cakewalk since ver. 1.1 for DOS and I'm only now learning about quick freeze??? Thank goodness you've chosen this life path. Your an amazing instructor.

[@Promidi]

Here is me thinking that this was going to be tips to help if your Cakewalk Sonar was “freezing” every now and then.... something I have to honestly say, I have very rarely experienced with Sonar - even on my 10 year old clunker.

[@robnilsen]

Mike, I'm definitely still a raving fan of this content... please continue! Thanks.

[@KeithWillis1990]

Hi Mike, (“I hope you’re well”). I just want to say a huge thank you for all your tutorials with all the tips and tricks, they have been so useful for me over the past few years. I retired back in 2016 but because I used to be a singer both pro and semi pro since I was 18 I have always had music playing a huge part in my life. I don’t perform anymore but took up songwriting as a pastime and fing the whole process absolutely fascinating. OK the voice is not what it used to be but it has allowed me to be creative. I have some songs on Spotify and all the other places which I get a kick out of but what I need to say again is “thank you for all your help”. I also used to live in South Australia when I was youth, in fact my first public performance with a band was at the ex-naval men’s club in Whyalla when I was 18. Anyway I could prattle on for ages so I’ll leave it at that. Many thanks and best wishes, Keith

[@davebops2478]

Thanks Mike. I find that freezing tracks soon becomes pretty essential as each project grows - and as you say, you can unfreeze easily enough. Enjoying your new channel. 👍

[@twiglet5848]

As a newbie, I've been scared to push buttons that I didn't understand ... Now I have another button to push :) Thanks

[@JerrySchneyer]

Thanks for all your help, Mike. I'm a long time Cakewalk user, but I'm always learning something new, or remembering rarely used tricks.

[@AndreasHogstrand]

Thanks for continuing a Cakewalk channel! I love your videos. I have done a lot of recording but you have taught me so much about DAWs

[@demartinimusic]

Great tips here, Mike! I always use freeze because of the limits of my machine's resources. I use a lot of virtual instruments.

[@silvaanosvs8783]

Thank you for doing this work for us. It will be an invaluable library of tips and tricks. Looking forward to the new Sonar.

[@CraigRodmellMusic]

Thanks, Mike. While I knew about (and used) Freeze/Unfreeze, I didn't know about all the options. Cheers!

[@motionstasis]

If clips overlap, the expected behavior is that it would see these as "one" clip in most of the programs I've used. Makes sense from the "computers point of view". Bur you bring up an interesting thought about virtualized behavior. The clips freeze in their separate states, but without baked in fade, it's "live" There is some issues with this, for example if you are freezing in cross clip effects, their behavior would be "undone" at the points of join & fade... or you would have a whole layer of complexity to address this. In the end, I think freeze & unfreeze make sense in the current manner. As we are making music, not trying to "get micro with metadata baby"! [said in Austin Powers accent] :) Love the channel.

[@RossD-qy4lm]

I use the freeze regularly, however I've never opened the dialog box. Thanks for the info Mike!

[@WillKruger]

Thanks Mike. I have used the freeze feature before with midi but I did not know that it had a property setting, thanks for that. Also as far as I can tell everything you did worked with the old CWBL.

[@grammophone1]

Old Sonar user here... The close clips are coalesced when frozen due to the the "Freeze Tail Duration" option which makes them overlap.

[@tdismusic57]

The only thing I will find useful in my normal work is the freeze tail thing. What I've been doing is just dragging the end of the track to where the tail decayed. This will be much easier. Thanks.

[@truthslight866]

Before this video, I hadn't learned about freezing tracks at all so thanks for explaining what it was as well rather than assuming that knowledge.

[@CakewalkRevealed]

Awesome! Glad it helped thanks!

[@philcoulson]

Yep - the freeze options were new to me - thanks Mike

[@jeremiahpeterson7490]

Hey Mike, I never knew about the quick freeze option, very handy.

[@robertbowes7111]

A useful feature I've never gotten around to trying.Thnks, I will now.

[@kevinjackson99]

Thanks for these great tips on freezing.

[@AnthonyBAUS]

Thanks! Long time user and I'd never used the Freeze feature! Now that I have a better understanding of it, and WHY you might use it, I will definitely be using this feature in the future!

[@abc456f]

Good stuff. We're all getting old waiting for the new Sonar to be released. Coming up on a year since the announcement was made.

[@PeteBrazierTheBigFishCafe]

I would be interested in seeing a video on how well time stretch behaves in new Cakewalk, particularly alongside freezing - I've had some iffy moments occasionally with Old Cakewalk in that respect.

[@MatthewSwasta]

I don't know for sure, but I think if those track clips are connected via fades it sees it as a whole clip.

[@CakewalkRevealed]

Yeah, I thought that at first - but after experimenting, it's not the case :(

[@TpFriery]

Thanks Mike, as ever, I keep learning from you.

[@savelsuma-tonejam8349]

Thanks again for information. This video taught me new things about freezing!

[@epicdreamery9031]

Learned about this "Freeze Options" right click thing recently on a thread in the Cake forum, and really appreciate your clarity of explanation here . . . great stuff !

[@TimothyDean100]

Regarding near-overlapped clips freezing as a single clip: You have the Freeze Tail Duration set to five seconds. Because of that, if two clips have a gap between them of less than five seconds, the freeze tail of the first clip will overlap with the second clip. The two clips become virtually overlapped. It looks like Cakewalk represents overlapped clips (or virtually-overlapped clips) as a single frozen clip.They could have designed it to indicate the underlying clips by showing vertical lines where the underlying clips start and stop, but this might be confusing, and it's hard to see what benefit such indications would have. What you showed at 8:33 seems like intended behavior rather than a bug. You can test this by freezing again with Freeze Tail Duration set to zero. These two separated clips will then probably show as two distinct clips after freezing.

[@VentureOffroadAustralia4x4]

Thanks Mike, as always very clear instructions on a handy feature.

[@sean16hall3]

hopefully next video you can show us how different freezes effect cpu differently

[@ChrisM541]

A hugely powerful feature, thanks for the headsup Mike. As far as freezing close together clips as one clip, I think that's by design - primarily if you have fade in/out onto the clip from another clip. It thinks your intention is to have a single clip since there would be no boundary between them (you've essentially overlapped them). Cakewalk's programmers would be able to clarify this pretty quickly on the forum. You can check this by not overlapping/fading into another clip - try butting one clip against another as the primary test, with audio data at either end and not.

[@imcstudios]

Great info, Mike! You did indeed share some things I hadn't discovered in the Freeze Options!

[@timothyreynolds6255]

Uncheck "single track" still will "group" anything that is fading together. If you have a reverb or other FX that causes a clip to overlap with another clip on the same track, Freeze will create a single track (obviously, right?). For example, a long reverb would cause a track to overlap with a nearby track. It might not appear that they overlap, but the sustained reverb tail will actually overlap. Am I saying that correctly? Mike, if this is true, you could make a KZbin short that explains why this happens. Love the new channel!!!

[@bartholomeusclever]

Thanks Mike ... I do enjoy all the videos you make with such a great passion

[@scottmallard6297]

Good video, Mike! Just installed the NEW Sonar today.

[@stevenhowell3691]

Thanks for the vid Mike - I'd been wondering if there was a way to avoid one big long WAV after freezing, so your video has answered that question for me! I prefer to leave breaks between the clips because then, at a glance, it is more easy to tell if a track is playing anything in a particular section of the song. With one long frozen WAV file you have to actually look at the wave shape to determine if the track is doing anything or not - much harder.

[@CakewalkRevealed]

Good point Steven, thanks!

[@venturahowie]

I never knew about these properties!

[@innocentbystander2673]

Great video and thanks. I'm in Melbourne, so freezing was right on point, lol. :)

[@JanMichalSzulew]

I wish one could set a different freeze options on a per track basis. For some tracks I know I'm done with them and can freeze everything, for others I'd just like to freeze the CPU-intensive synth underneath but still be able to tweak the FX

[@CharlesWright1]

Very handy tips. Really clarified how freezing works including the quick freeze. Thanks! Love the new channel.

[@CakewalkRevealed]

Thank you Charles!

[@raydecampos7327]

Exactly what I needed Mike! Cheers then!

[@BhaskarMallick-pk8sw]

Thanks Mike.... sustainable...n trusted "Cakewalk" ❤

[@marianomazzieri6560]

The removal of silence in the freze options looks interesting. I usually freeze drum chanels, this is with a drum library, to save some CPU. I always notice there are a lot of regions where there's only silence. I wonder if this trick will imporve storage utilization overall.

[@pjr779]

Great tips! Thank you!

[@happyron]

Amazing how many features we don't know about. Maybe we should all read the manual!

[@MJSDENVER]

Wow, great information. Thank you.

[@scottstahl1797]

Well done! Useful info!

[@danaelston9848]

Hi Mike. Great video, thanks! Not using Sonar yet but thankful for showing how the freeze looks now. Yeah I never include the FX in my freezes. If you make cuts, its very unpredictable how the applied fx will work in the arrangement (reverb or delay cutting off). Can't wait for a paid version of Sonar to be available.

[@vjchariot2358]

Useful knowledge Mike!🤘

[@dempseyelks]

As always super useful info in this video. Keep up the good work.

[@d1g1dave]

As always Mike, more useful stuff - many thanks :)

[@martynroach182]

Some great info here Mike, many thanks👍

[@TimothyPeierls]

Great return to classic CS video form, thanks, Mike!

[@antmayer9788]

Very useful tips. Thanks

[@RemedyRx1]

Hey Mike! Great vid!

[@sergioguardado6733]

Thank you for everything Mike. You're great

[@garyingram4692]

Good info!

[@AlCuming]

Thanks Mike, looking forward to more videos !

[@evansnape3878]

Great advice Mike, thank you.

[@Transtaganu]

Hello Mike, thanks for another very useful video

[@PekkaImmonen]

Thanks Mike. Keep up the good work.

[@larryt689]

Thanks Mike. Very useful information. 🎶🎵🎶🎵

[@robm1188]

Thank you!

[@davidnollmusic363]

Thank you Mike!

[@bruceboome]

Hi, Mike. Thanks for that, most helpful

[@AndreasSchoter]

This was good!

[@internalmethods]

Thanks 🙏

[@joegrint6280]

Thanks Mike - Really useful - never realised there was so much to the freeze function!

[@pro_influence]

Great Job Sir, a detailed video, I don't that's a debug, I love it that way and I have been looking toward having that setting in CBB and it's updated here, so I as if they read My Mind, it's cool for Me and a Mono Clip won't bounce to stereo image, I love to see it the way it is. ❤

[@tomshepard5308]

good explanation, very succinct.

[@derekoram4856]

Really good

[@wadesummers4102]

Thanks Mike.

[@rager1969]

I'd like to see you do a video on beat matching. Specifically, take an audio track that has inconsistent timing and have the DAW's BPM match/follow the changes so that you could add virtual drums. Challenging? Yes. Useful? Maybe. Worth you doing? Probably not, but I'm asking anyway.

[@im2cxe4u]

Thanks Mike

[@Capgpro1]

Thanks for posting your Cakewalk knowledge.

[@CakewalkRevealed]

My pleasure thank you :)

[@chrisstringer375]

Another great video Mike. I'm not sure about the usefulness of applying effects to frozen audio that then can't be heard until the audio is unfrozen. Bit like flying in the dark.

[@user-ei5tz4ui6x]

Thanks, very nice! 🎉🎉🎉👍😃👏😁

[@AversuzMusic]

Спасибо!!! Это полезно!!!

[@crawlingman7003]

👍 Thanks Mike.

[@punckfuelcell]

Awesome

[@JoaquinGonzalez2014]

When freezing, it adds to the length of the clips to allow for fx tails (like reverb), so they wont be cutoff. If a clip is too close to another it will just make them one whole clip. It seems to follow that same rule even when not freezing the fx . I never use it that way so I hadn't noticed, but that seems to be the case. Maybe making freeze tail duration shorter when not freezing fx will fix that.

[@frankdigiovanni5575]

at 8:40 approx, talking about the potential bug. I can't say for sure, but I wonder if it has to do with the fade/crossfades at the beginning and end of the adjacent clips, and if the 'tail' adjustment you mentioned later on have an effect on how far after a clip it decides that they are actually separate or not when it freezes/renders. Just a hunch. Thanks for the video on this topic.

[@markjbastable]

Cheer, Mike,

[@StefCaron]

My theory as to why you might have made one clip with the first two sections of the mono track instead of the two: tail duration, which you mention at 9:57. I can't test it right now because I'm not in the studio at the moment, but I bet if you set the tail duration to 0.00, those first two clips will render / freeze to two clips. The 5-second tail duration creates an artificial 5-second 'overlap' (for lack of a better term), therefore creating one clip. If I have time later this evening, I'll try to get my ass into the studio to test my theory. If someone else has the time, please let us know what comes of it.

[@KreativeDevices]

🔥

[@sadicus]

~ cool video

[@MichelMusicien]

All I'm waiting for from cakewalk is a new vst mapping mode that would replace the problematic and non-functional ACT mapping

[@loganunknown]

Nice concise teaching method, as always, I've noticed if something else is solo'd and you try and freeze a midi track you get a flat line and no sound waves. Can you make a video on how to kck and bass sidechain ducking with TDR nova as l can't get it to work. Thanks

[@DesSherwoodGuitarTuition]

Cheers Mike;-)