Ableton Forum

Right now, disabling a plugin removes its CPU load but memory and latency are kept (presumably so you can A/B without audio glitches). I would like the option to completely shut down the plugin, reclaiming the memory and latency. I don't mind if the audio glitches or even if I need to stop playback in order de/re-activate a plugin.

Rationale:
When I'm in the writing phase, I like to try out all kinds of things and trying out lots of plugins on a track is a part of that. I like to keep these plugins or even whole chains handy in case I want to see how they sound out when I introduce this whole other track I have in my head. Since I can only do one thing at a time, I like the control of being able to come back to things once more tracks are added and see how these plugins sound in the greater context. But I don't like all this memory/latency buildup in my project. The only workaround I can think of is stash the track in my browser, delete unused plugins in the project, and bring back the saved track should I want to revive the deleted plugins. But this is terribly inconvenient. You might say just delete the plugin and re-insert it if I want to revisit it, but keep in mind, I probably made changes to the plugin's parameters that are relevant to this project/track and I don't want to lose that work nor do I want to save these changes as presets.

Moreover, since I do my own masters, I'll have mastering plugins on my master track as part of my default template. Mastering plugins are subtle but tend to be CPU-heavy with lots of latency. So I would like to mix hot with these plugins deactivated. As of now, at mastering time, I have to pull them in every time. It would just be easier to have them in the template *deactivated* and then turn them on when it's time.

I'm surprised this feature request didn't get more attention so I'm going to try to bring some more

There's also a reddit thread about it : https://www.reddit.com/r/abletonlive/co ... _a_plugin/

To be fair this is a feature that I strongly need. I'm constantly switching between live settings and mix/master settings. Some plugins create latency and the only way I have to remove the latency is to completely remove the plugins ! As said on reddit, every single other DAW allows this.

This would be awesome.

I allreadey suggested a plugin browser with the abiility to show the plugin related latency and cpu load to be able to identify the problem cause with the possibility to turn OFF/ON the affected plugins.

...but a simple right click on title bar and "DISABLE Plugin" would do as well. As mentioned before by nautonnier: If this means that you have to stop, I,m pretty sure most of us can get over it. The problem is probably to build in the RE-Enable function so that the plugin maintains previous settings.