Disabling Plugin for Purposes of a Project Template

[scottlawson]

Is there a way to have a plugin loaded into an insert slot, but disabled for a particular song because it's not being used on that song? I know that merely bypassing the plugin doesn't prevent it from using system resources. Is there a way to have the plugin "preloaded," as it were, but disabled so that it isn't consuming system resources? I know that Pro Tools allows you to do this, but I can't find how to do it in DP. This is not something I would be trying to automate--just something I'd do while playback is stopped and I'm adjusting the initial mix template for that particular song.

Here's the scenario. I'm setting up a new project template. I would like to set up aux tracks so that I can choose between various plugins that do (roughly) the same thing. So, for example, an aux track for a room reverb, another for a plate reverb, another for a short delay, another for a long delay, etc. Within the insert slots, I would ideally like to have several examples of plugins that accomplish what I'm using that track for. For example, on the "Plate Reverb" aux track, I'd like to have Valhalla Plate, Waves Abbey Road Plates, MOTU Plate, and ProVerb plate convolution impulses all in slots and ready to use on that aux track. That way, depending on the song, I can use whichever plugin has the right characteristics for that song/voice/instrument/etc. Rather than hunt down the various plugins for every aux track for every song and audition them, I'd prefer to have them all there in the slots already, decide which one I want to use, then disable the other alternatives for that song and use only one plugin's worth of CPU resources, rather than four or five.

I'm hoping someone tells me this is a simple hold-two-keys-down-while-clicking-on-the-plugin thing and I'm just an idiot for not knowing about it. Thanks in advance for your help.

[Gravity Jim]

I haven't tried this, but I'm fairly certain that simply disabling the Aux track in question will remove the associated plug-in from the processing load... just like disabling an Instrument track will do the same with a VI. Check to see if you have the enable/disable toggle button (it looks like a power button) included in your TO window.

[scottlawson]

You're absolutely right that I can disable the aux track altogether, but that would unfortunately defeat my purpose. I need the aux track to be enabled to make use of whatever plugin I choose for that aux-track purpose (i.e., I need the "Plate Reverb" aux track enabled to use Valhalla Plate, but don't need the Abbey Road Plate plug that's also inserted on the track).

[HCMarkus]

That's a great idea Scott. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, DP only allows disabling on a per-track basis, in the manner Jim noted.

I guess the alternate approach would be to set up more aux tracks, one per reverb, and enable as required. All verbs of similar type could have signal routed from the same bus, effectively accomplishing your goal.

[daniel.sneed]

Sure, a different workflow, but I achieve something around with v-racks. Hope this helps.

That is a bus parallel fx solution, not applying to insert fx, though.
Same busses, but set to different V-racks.
One v-rack instantiated at once.
It does free up CPU.

Trying to make it clearer, I set this for different reverb fx. One v-rack called *Motu verbs*, one called *Lexicon verbs*.

And same applies to chose between different bus inserts on master track. One v-rack with Motu plugs in master track (low on CPU), one v-rack with Ozone in master track (high on cpu).

[Shooshie]

I do this kind of thing through a combination of V-Racks and Mixes. I put various instruments in different V-Racks so that I can turn them on and off by merely play enabling/disabling them in the Chunks Window, and for plugins and routing, I set that up in saved mixes. Switch to a saved mix and you can have a completely different setup in the mixing board with only one click to change mixes.

Also, disabling an entire channel of plugins by Option-Clicking the top cell can be handy.

Just some ideas to go with the other ones being proposed.

Shooshie

[scottlawson]

As always, this is helpful. I'll explore the v-rack options. If I come up with any revelations, I'll let you know!

[mesayre]

Another thing you could try:

Mix Mode in the Mixer window.

Create a new mix for each plugin set you need, and switch between them.

[HCMarkus]

I ceased using v-racks in single-song projects and most other work quite a while ago due to the lack of v-rack automation. I find I can accomplish the same effect by simply enabling and disabling tracks, plus I then have the ability to automate on both the VI MIDI and Instrument tracks.