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plugin overhead when off?

Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 5:23 pm
by finotti
Sometimes in the middle of mixing I want to rerecord some guitar parts, but by then the tracks and buses are loaded with plugins. If I try to record with all these plugins I get lots of xruns with low latency.

So, if I disable all the plugins, is there a overhead for them to just be loaded on the tracks (even if not "on")? If I remember well I tried it once, and was surprised I still had xruns... (I use Ardour, by the way.) I expected that the overhead would be minimal. Any one with more experience or technical knowledge can confirm or contradict my experience?

I was thinking of creating a template with all the plugins I usually use loaded (but off) to save sometime, but if it will make it harder to record, I will leave it for the mixing stage.

Also, I was surprised that even on disabled tracks, it seems that Ardour loads the plugins. I had a MIDI track with Drumgizmo that was disabled (I had already printed the drums) and was surprised that Ardour would load Drumgizmo when starting the project....