Q: Bypass vs Enable?

[DarkStar]

What's the difference?

I can Bypass a plug-in or a Band in an MB plug-in, or Enable/Disable some functionality (e.g. Sync in MPhaserMB) or a MOdulator or Multiparameter.

[dmbaer]

Vojtech once advised me (in a private email) to turn on Bypass rather than turn off Enable for MXXX modules. Doing so is more efficient. In fact he enhanced the grid display to indicate bypass status as well as enable status.

So, unless there's a visual aspect to it (like an MP being "gray-ed" to show disabled status), I now exclusively use Bypass in all cases.

[jmg8]

Be aware the two have different routing types in the generator of MSF.

[MeldaProduction]

Bypass : Bypasses the module, but the plugin may still be working if it has latency, if so, you need to disable the Smart bypass. Then you lower the CPU consumption to pretty much the same level as disabling the module. The big advantage is that the bypass itself requires pretty much no processing at all, so you can automate it etc.

Enable: Enables/Disables the module, which definitely lowers the CPU consumption, minimizes latency (if it has some), but the problem is, it may require LOTS of processing to enable/disable a module, depending on where you are doing it. In Order module it is fine, there enabling is pretty much the same thing as bypass. But in Modular/MXXX/MSF/... enabling a module requires the whole processing grid to be recalculated, connections may change etc... That may cause audio drop outs (when rendering using automation it would be a big problem), CPU peaks, DAWs may need to recalculate the latency compensation as well as the engine itself may need that etc...

So if you expect something to be automated, you must use a bypass!

[dmbaer]

Thanks for that detailed explanation. The whole thing seems much more logical now.