collaborative freeze mini-documentation

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collaborative freeze mini-documentation
  • yellow_forceyellow_force Ω Profile
    In the Rack Header, you have two buttons : one is a snow flake, the other a speaker. Follow the instructions to use what we call 'collaborative freeze'. Beware, this freeze is somewhat different from what other DAWs usually mean.

    For each rack track, there may be a "frozen sample" that is a bounce of the corresponding rack. That "frozen sample" is shared between all users. 

    Press the snow flake button to create a new bounce (frozen sample) and trash the previous one, if any. Then the Ohm Studio will render it. Once done, the snow flake will become blue, which means that the freeze has just been synchronized with the MIDI partition.

    This "collaborative freeze" is shared between every user. While uploading or downloading, you can see a white spinning circle in the rack track header.

    When a collaborative freeze is available, users can click on the speaker to hear it. It also disables all the plugins of the rack. So even when you're working alone, it's a good way to save CPU.

    Below are 5 possible states:

    image
    No freeze available (speaker is greyed, meaning unavailable)

    image
    Freeze available and played (blue speaker) ; freeze synchronized to current partition (blue snowflake)

    image
    Freeze available but not played (speaker available) ; freeze synchronized to current partition (blue snowflake)

    image
    Freeze available but not played (speaker not greyed) ; freeze not synchronized to current partition (standard snowflake)

    image
    Freeze available and played (blue speaker) ; freeze not synchronized to current partition (standard snowflake)


    Basic use case: 

    Mr. A has got Reaktor and makes a track using it. Mr B. hasn't got it.

    Mr. A presses the snow flake. After rendering it, the snow flake becomes blue which means that the freeze is synchronized to the edit.

    Mr. B now sees a speaker icon that is no more greyed. He clicks on it and can now hear the Reaktor track.


  • cookiecookie Ω Profile
    I'm still a bit confused with the freeze. It seems to just loop whatever you froze all the time while playing. Also, moving the blocks of frozen sequences around doesnt change anything?? Is it not possible to move and chop up frozen audio?

    I think it should render the audio and present it like the audio on a audio track..
  • harry2611harry2611 Ω Profile

    Another freeze question...

    I started a project, got two tracks down, froze them, saved them with the save/revert as part of the song....then got out...

    But when I went back in, a couple days later...I recorded addition tracks...but the new tracks would not freeze, the two I recorded the day before were still frozen and ok, but whatever new tracks I recorded in the new session would not freeze at all....I tried many different things like highlighting the new tracks, changing the input options, etc...but the new tracks still will not freeze ...... and ideas....Im running Windows 7.....

    thanks

    harry2611

  • crimson_forcecrimson_force Ω Profile
    @Cookie: Once you freeze a track, you cannot manipulate it as an audio file. It's just part of the background for playback, so to speak. Obviously, this implies you cannot drag 'N' drop frozen audio. The only way to "update" the freeze is to process again pressing the snowflake button.

    @harry2611: Poke me the next time you see me online, I'll try to enter your project to see what's going on.
  • harry2611harry2611 Ω Profile
    thanks Crimson...I noticed that when you are in a session, the new tracks will not freeze, but, when you get out and go back into a new session, the tracks you recorded in the previous session that would not freeze, will now freeze in the new session...
    Also, I was a little premature in saying the VSTs 'forget' their presets had been fixed...seems that the first two VST tracks always remember their presets, but the others still 'forget' their presets, so you still have to reload which preset you had recorded in the previous session...
    thanks
    harry2611
  • cookiecookie Ω Profile
    Ok, thanks for the answer..too bad, I still think its a major flaw..Everything should be collaborative.
  • orange_forceorange_force Ω Profile
    The freeze function is meant to be "non destructive".
    You can move the blocks (patterns) even after you have frozen a Rack in current version, but we may prevent people from doing so in a future release.

    You can still bounce the output of a Rack to a wav file (see "batch bounce" in the menu bar) then import that file on a new audio track, and then delete the previous Rack.

    That could be another feature, some sort of "bounce and replace" in one click. Would you find that useful?


  • harry2611harry2611 Ω Profile
    Yea, that would be helpful...
  • cookiecookie Ω Profile
    Hey, sorry been away for a while. Yes that would be very useful!
  • artlegereartlegere Ω Profile
    i have an idea for this. perhaps there can be a function implemented whereby person A can freeze the track, person B can now then hear it, but then has the option to copy that frozen audio to a new track where it can be edited. this way person B can be creative with the audio while person A still retains control over the original part. perhaps a new button next to the snowflake/speaker icon.
  • pljonespljones Ω Profile
    That could make it hard to fold the changes back into the original.  You'd end up with:
    [A] <MIDI track>[rack: <A's synth><A's effect 1><A's effect 2>] {snowflake}
    B: {freeze to new track}
    [B] <audio track>[rack: <B's effect 1><B's effect 2><B's effect 3>] {snowflake}
    C: {freeze to new track}

    [C] <audio track>[rack: <C's effect 1><C's effect 2>] {snowflake}

    C would have to be limited to working on the "latest version" - B's - or you'd have a fork in the project.

    Of course, if A doesn't share some of the effects B and C have added, they'll no longer be able to edit their MIDI track and hear the overall effect...  If the "freeze to new track" had some kind of "auto update", so next time B and C got synced, the project updated, A could then hear it.

    Ideally, though, adding effects to a snowflaked track should be possible (as well as chopping it up and moving the bits around).

  • orange_forceorange_force Ω Profile
    We plan to improve the way freezing/bouncing a Rack works during the next few months.

    We'd be very intersted if you can provide detailed use cases of both real-time and non-real-time collaboration (when your partner is not connected).
    Tell us what you'd think a good colaborative workflow would be.
    Tell us things like what you'd want to do with a frozen rack, what you mean by being creative with audio, how you feel about destructive operations (e.g. not being able to get back Midi data after you bounced a Rack).
    Tell us if you think that freezing(to save cpu) and bouncing online should  be 2 separate things.

    Just keep in mind the main 2 limitations: bandwith and the impossibility of controlling someone else's VST.

    thanks
  • pljonespljones Ω Profile
    Personally, I think it's essential that project participants can hear all the tracks in a project.  I'd love it if the "online bounce" were immediate - as soon as focus came away from a rack where the input is from a MIDI sequence, it should get an online bounce.  It's that important in my view.  Having experienced a few projects, it's the biggest headache -- it's far too easy to forget to "republish" your work so others can hear it.  It shouldn't need to be something you remember - it should just happen.

    As far as possible, I think you should be treating a bounced track exactly like an audio track, allowing all the same operations... but like I said, I can see limiting factors here.

    One solution might be for bounce to "box" what's bounced: I mean, if you've a MIDI track feeding a synth in a rack with a reverb after it and you bounce, the audio needs to sound like it's got the reverb applied.  But that shouldn't stop me adding an EQ to the effects chain -- just I can't adjust the notes in the MIDI sequence, the synth or the reverb.

    I'd love it if the bounced part could be split and spliced and moved around, though - as if it were an audio part...  It might not sound exactly like what doing the same in the MIDI domain would sound like but it's probably close enough to be able to say "What I mean is like this -- what do you reckon?" (a critical bit of communication when collaborating!).
  • artlegereartlegere Ω Profile
    "What you mean by being creative with audio..."

    Here is an example:
         I have programmed a drum part using Symptohm. My production partner rxreference does not own a copy of Symptohm, so I perform the "offline bounce." He proceeds to take that audio and chop it up into slices and arranges them on the grid from beginning to end in a way I never would have thought of... and we decide that we'd like to keep his version. I don't want to have to go back and try to transcribe what he composed and re-program it... I just want the chopped-up audio.
         In many genres of electronic music the chopped-audio sound is desirable anyway, and a lot of the music is composed after resampling instruments and composing with bits of audio rather than MIDI and virtual instruments. With this in mind the loss of control over MIDI data can easily be endured in my opinion.

    "I'd love it if the "online bounce" were immediate..."

    ^^^ this. pljones' proposed implementation is exactly how it should happen. Perhaps you can even borrow from the ProTools approach and have each track create a playlist so when a new bounce is created it just replaces the old one, but they are all saved in a list and accessible at any time.

    This brings up another idea that might help out though (sorry if this exisits but i haven't found it): being able to see a list of someone else's plugins. If I had only used Battery to create the drum part then the whole issue is null because rxreference owns Battery as well (hypothetical, as neither of us own Battery).

    "Tell us if you think that freezing (to save cpu) and bouncing online should be 2 separate things."

    Yes. Although if the above method is used then it would be like the program is sort of "auto-freezing" each track each time it loses focus. At first glance this sounds really neat to me.

    Thoughts?
  • harry2611harry2611 Ω Profile
    Amen....thus a list of plugings owned by a person being used in an Ohmstudio project , either on their profile or even showing up somehow when you join a project, just to tell what the other person has...
  • orange_forceorange_force Ω Profile
    The documentation was updated here:
    https://www.ohmstudio.com/doc/glossary/collaborative-freeze

    More improvements coming soon... hopefully.
  • stikygumstikygum

    I want to be able to take midi data from the frozen tracks. If there was at least an audio to midi convertor, that would work. Also, I've realized that the frozen tracks are only good for using them to bounce into wav files. I find myself wanting to move the frozen sequences around, but Ohmstudio doesn't currently allow that. So the the only way to move them around is to bounce into wav files and put on an audio track (which I put right beneath the original). It works, but it would be nice to move frozen sequences around and also rearrange the midi data. 
    So moving, cutting, copying the frozen material would be nice.
  • stikygumstikygum
    ...
  • irockusirockus
    Can I be included in Beta testing for next version ?  I have posted several suggestions in new features and would love to be a tester !!!    Thank you !
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