hey guys,
I have track presets where I load certain plugins by default, like EQs and sidechain compressors, but I disable them in the inserts because I might not need them right away. If I create many tracks in a session, does having these disabled plugins still take up RAM or cause performance issues, or are they completely unloaded until I enable them? basically, the reason I’m asking is because I would rather have those plugins there by default and enable them when needed instead of inserting them manually each time. I just want to know if this is a good habit or if it could cause performance issues in the long run, and thus not saving them in my track presets
I think, once you load a plugin, it takes a certain amount of memory out of the RAM, even if you disable it.
The way I understand it, the only way to completely disable the Plugins, is to disable the track the plugin is on the track’s inserts.
Hi there,
Yes, they do take up RAM even if they are disabled.
100 Mono Audio Tracks - No inserts:
100 Mono Audio Tracks - 1 Disabled Insert:
100 Mono Audio Tracks - 2 Disabled Inserts:
100 Mono Audio Tracks - 3 Disabled Inserts:
100 Mono Audio Tracks - 4 Disabled Inserts:
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What I do is to keep in my templates the inserts disabled with alt-click. I can’t assure that this is as they weren’t present at all, but I know they take less resources.
According to my tests above, 400 disabled (fab-filter) inserts take about 3Gb of RAM in my machine, but there is no CPU load.
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Thanks a lot for this test. So, it does consume RAM but not computational resources (CPU). Good to know and to be aware of this.
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Luckily, with today’s RAM sizes, having a couple of 100 Megs (or even Gigs) of Memory used with some Eq or compressor plugins permanently loaded isn’t a real issue, so if it benefits your workflow (and you are not on a super old system), just keep doing it…
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