Deactivate plug in Patchwork?

[jonshamieh]

Is there a way to deactivate plug in Patchwork? Like not just mute or turn off but inactivate it from DSP from my cpu?

[whyterabbyt]

That's something that depends entirely on the host, I believe. A disabled/turned off plugin should just be bypassed.

[Burillo]

Is there a way to deactivate plug in Patchwork? Like not just mute or turn off but inactivate it from DSP from my cpu?

when you "turn it off", you're bypassing it. however, that may not be desirable since some plugins will introduce latency, and bypassing/unbypassing them may cause audible crackle due to buffer readjustment. in that case it helps if the plugin itself has bypass functionality.

however, if you mean "unload it from memory", then no, i don't believe PatchWork allows doing that.

[Blue Cat Audio]

When you bypass PatchWork using the bypass button provided by PatchWork, the latency is still reported to the host (so thre is no buffering issue), and the DSP is deactivated, so it does not uses CPU anymore (it may take a bit of time before CPU is fully released though, if some effects have a tail, such as delays or reverbs).

[jonshamieh]

Latency is still reported meaning ADC in Pro Tools, for example, is still compensating for it, right? I want to load up a Patchwork instance with a ton of CPU intense plugs, but only activate one at a time depending on my need.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Yes, it should indeed work this way. You can also load lots of CPU-heavy plugs in parallel chains and activate the chains one by one without having any latency issue.

[jonshamieh]

I mean, I don’t want Pro Tools compensating for latency of the “off” plug-ins in Patchwork, but it sounds like it’s going to still compensate for them. So the stress of my ADC would be as if they were all active on tracks in Pro Tools.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Indeed. That's the way it is supposed to be so that there is no glitch and latency compensation issues when bypassing/unbypassing PatchWork (this is the behavior recommended by AVID). However it does not use CPU at all, it's just a delay.

[Burillo]

When you bypass PatchWork using the bypass button provided by PatchWork, the latency is still reported to the host (so thre is no buffering issue), and the DSP is deactivated, so it does not uses CPU anymore (it may take a bit of time before CPU is fully released though, if some effects have a tail, such as delays or reverbs).

does that apply to bypassing plugins inside patchwork? e.g. if a plugin introduces latency and i bypass it using patchwork's bypass button for that plugin, would that work the same way?

[Blue Cat Audio]

does that apply to bypassing plugins inside patchwork? e.g. if a plugin introduces latency and i bypass it using patchwork's bypass button for that plugin, would that work the same way?

Yes, unless the plug-in has implemented a custom bypass method that does not implement latency properly (each plug-in can implement its own optional bypass behavior).

[jonshamieh]

Gotcha. And would it be a viable feature request to add the option to inactivate the plugin completely (maybe use a pop-up warning to the user that ADC is not supported on deactivated plugs)?

I really don't want to add stress to ADC in my templates.

Indeed. That's the way it is supposed to be so that there is no glitch and latency compensation issues when bypassing/unbypassing PatchWork (this is the behavior recommended by AVID). However it does not use CPU at all, it's just a delay.

[valankar]

UAD plugins unfortunately still consume CPU when bypassed. Is it possible to add a 'disable plugin' to Patchwork? This currently exists in Kushview Element, and some DAWs like Bitwig.

[Blue Cat Audio]

That's indeed something that could be useful for latency compensation. We'll think about it!