We grasp the concept.
Sure. For now you can use the workaround Louis mentioned (I’ve personally never tried it). Alternatively (?) you could set your template up with a send or direct output to a dedicated path for recording effects and simply record them and bring them in as separate audio tracks and then turn off the FX tracks.
I understand that neither is what you’re asking for btw.
I have just tried the Freeze function with the audio track trick and it works!
Although there is no waveform displayed inside the audio event, the audio is properly rendered.
Again I don’t see how we could directly freeze an FX or Group track since they contain no audio data. What would be the rendering range then? Render and Freeze is based on Events/Parts.
Freeze automatically detects the first and last Event on the track and renders the whole thing “As One Event”, except it doesn’t visually fill the gaps. It still renders effects like reverb during empty spaces and plays it back fine (in this case I believe there is a small display bug with the freeze function).
This cannot work on an automation lane. So the only way is to use the monitor trick which is the most correct way to achieve this.