Track stacks, groups, hiding and freezing

Track stacks

Select tracks and choose Create Folder Stack (Ctrl+Shift+D) or Create Summing Stack (Track menu, or the track menu › Create Track Stack):

• A Folder Stack groups tracks under a collapsible main track. Its fader moves every subtrack by the same amount, and its mute and solo apply to all of them. It has no audio of its own, so no plug-ins, sends or meter. Its volume and mute can be automated (see Automation).
• A Summing Stack is also a bus: its subtracks play through its own Channel EQ, plug-ins, pan and fader. Soloing a subtrack keeps its stack audible. A subtrack’s output can still be set to Stereo Out or an aux, to skip the stack.
• The disclosure triangle shows or hides the subtracks. A collapsed stack’s lane shows where its subtracks have regions. Stacks can be nested.
• Drag a track under a stack’s header, or between its subtracks, to put it in. Remove from Stack takes it out; Flatten Stack removes the stack and keeps its tracks.
• Auxes can’t go into stacks.

Groups

Group Selected Tracks (Ctrl+G, or the track menu › Group) makes a group and opens Group Settings, which you can reopen by clicking a member’s group badge:

• Name, colour, and Group on (off makes members act alone without dissolving the group, like Logic’s group clutch).
• What the members share: Volume and Pan (as relative moves), Mute, Solo, Record Enable, Track Selection (clicking one selects all), and Editing (Selection) (selecting a region selects the regions at the same place on the others).
• Delete Group dissolves it. A group nobody is in is removed.

Hiding tracks

• Hide Track (Ctrl+H, Control+H on macOS) hides the selected tracks and selects the next one. Hidden tracks keep playing, and hiding a stack hides its subtracks. The mixer leaves hidden tracks out too.
• Show Hidden Tracks (H, or the H button above the headers) shows them dimmed and puts an H button on every header for hiding and showing tracks one by one.
• Unhide All Tracks brings them all back.

Freezing tracks

Freeze renders a track’s instrument, Channel EQ and plug-ins to a file and plays that instead, with the plug-ins unloaded, so a heavy track stops using CPU.

• Click the snowflake on an audio or instrument track header, or use Track › Freeze Track or the track menu. With several tracks selected it freezes them all. A progress toast shows the render.
• The render is pre-fader, so volume, pan, mute, sends and their automation stay live. Plug-in automation is baked in. It covers the track’s first region to its last plus up to 4 s of tail.
• While frozen, the regions, plug-ins and Channel EQ can’t be changed, and the track can’t be record-enabled. Its regions are veiled, and edits are refused with a message.
• Unfreeze (the snowflake again, Track › Unfreeze Track, or the track menu) loads the plug-ins back with exactly their settings and deletes the freeze file.
• Freeze and Unfreeze can be undone. Frozen tracks stay frozen when the project is saved and reopened. A duplicate of a frozen track is live.
• Freeze files are in the project’s Freeze Files/ folder.

Turning tracks off

The power button at the end of a track’s name, or on its Mixer strip, turns the track off, as in Logic. Where Mute only silences a track, whose plug-ins go on using the CPU, an Off track runs nothing at all, so you can keep takes around without paying for their plug-ins. Use it for heavy tracks you aren’t listening to.

• An Off track plays no regions and runs no instrument, Channel EQ, plug-ins or sends. Its header and strip are dimmed, its regions faded, and its meters fall to nothing. Its plug-in latency leaves the delay compensation (the other tracks glide to their new delays, also while playing).
• The plug-ins stay loaded: you can open their editors and change them while the track is off. When it’s back on they carry on with those settings, their tails cleared, and the track fades in without a click. A VST3 that ignores the host’s request to clear itself may still ring out.
• Switch several at once with the track menu (Track On) or Track › Toggle Track On/Off, which act on the selected tracks. The key command Toggle Track On/Off has no key at first; give it one in Settings › Key Commands. In short tracks the button is in the ⋯ menu, and shows in the header while the track is off.
• Stacks: turning a folder or summing stack off turns everything in it off too. Each subtrack keeps its own switch, which counts again when the stack is back on.
• Auxes: an Off aux passes nothing. Tracks sending to it play on and just lose that send. Stereo Out has no power button.
• Side-chains: an effect or VST3 keyed from an Off track hears silence.
• Mute and Solo work independently: an Off track that is unmuted stays silent, and comes back with whatever Mute and Solo are set to.
• Recording: an Off track can’t record or monitor its input. It keeps its R button, and Record leaves it out (and says so if no other track is enabled). You can’t turn tracks on or off during a recording; stop first.
• Bounces and exports leave Off tracks out, and a frozen track that is off plays nothing. Freeze, Bounce in Place and Export Region ask you to turn the track on first.
• On/Off is saved with the project. Like Mute it isn’t an undo step of its own. Duplicates of an Off track are off too.