Long time (hobbyist) user here but admittedly never really used Freeze. I’ve always tried to work within my CPU capabilities and typically never pushed a track that hard.
That said, one of the most annoying things that’s happened to me through the years is going through updates, year after year, then trying to open songs that are many years old only to find out that I am missing “X” plugin so the song doesnt fully load. Embarrassingly this happens more often than like to admit.
The obvious way to control this would be to be diligent about what plugins you use, always making sure you keep older versions on your system, opening up each song that uses an older version and replacing, etc. That, or making sure you always render your tracks to audio before saving. I am just not in habit of doing either.
This brings me to my question. If you were to make a habit of always freezing your tracks before you save, would this solve the issue? What happens to a frozen track (say frozen instrument track with frozen plugins) if said plugins no longer exists on your system? Can you still play the track and get to the audio? Either to use said audio, recreate audio, or decide if you need to dig up missing plugs.
Again, I know rendering tracks beforehand would always be the better option but wanted to know if freezing them basically does the same thing but maybe with less hassle. The Lazy way.
Any info would be greatly appreciated!
