Freeze bus plugins

[kagunmarx]

Why can't we freeze the bus plugins?

In this day and age anything should be possible.

Cakewalk would rule the world if it allowed us to freeze the plugins on any and every bus.

[David Baay]

Freezing means rendering audio to a file. Currently a bus can't play an audio file, though I suppose that capability could be added. In the mean time you can bounce the bus to a track that outputs to the same destination, and mute the bus. 

[Syphus]

34 minutes ago, David Baay said:

Freezing means rendering audio to a file. Currently a bus can't play an audio file, though I suppose that capability could be added. In the mean time you can bounce the bus to a track that outputs to the same destination, and mute the bus. 

I would agree to the above (from @David Baay) as one solution.   But I was thinking and thought why not use the "Mix Recall" function.  I don't know if it would meet your requirements but I did this experiment since I was curious:

I opened a project and added a extra bus called "Sub-Mix1" - no FX added to either

I saved this configuration as a project, then crested a "Mix Recall Scene" called "mix1"

I then added a limiter to the master bus and a "EQ" to the sub mix bus - created a new scene named "mix2"

next I changed the FX on the "Sub-Mix" buss to something else and save that scene as "mix3"

At this point I could go to original mix "Mix1" and no FX in either buss.  Selected "Mix2" scene and each now had FX added.   Selected "Mix3" and the sub buss FX changed.

Now I don't know if that is what you are after (as in trying different mixes).    I myself, do not see a use for freezing a buss (with FX) since I can a bounce the buss to a track (to save plug-in overhead) or just create another buss with a different FX  and then mute the one I don't want in the mix.

Don't know if that helps . . .  But it is an idea . . .

Syphus

[David Baay]

I wasn't sure whether the goal was to just to 'lock in' the bus FX settings and maybe get higher offline processing quality or to conserve CPU and/or eliminate latency.  In the latter case, you would also need to archive related tracks and disable the bus' FX. Certainly not as simple - or as easily reversed - as a  properly implemented  bus-freezing function could be.

[slartabartfast]

Another example of how lack of clarity in a question can lead to confusion in the answers. Rather than say "freeze...plugins," which is an idiosyncratic name for a process that  I think no one except the OP understands, perhaps he should spend a few words to describe in simple English what it is he wants to accomplish and why.