Kylotan
Karyn - Well, maybe. You are presuming that he is in a position to bounce down or freeze all his Amplitube tracks. Perhaps he is not, and wants to leave it open so that it can be tweaked later, perhaps in the context of the mix. Nobody wants to be repeatedly re-bouncing every time they tweak a setting. But sure, if he doesn't know that Amplitube can be bounced down but he does just want 3 processed tracks each with a fader, maybe that is the way to approach it.

He clearly states he doesn't want to end up with Amplitube in all the FX boxes in all the tracks because he doesn't think his computer will handle it.

200bpm
The problem with putting Amplitube in each track FX bin is that I have three instances of the plugin running, and I need to keep the project light for the lowest latency.  If I use that strategy everywhere, then I will have a ton of instances running.

 
  He has come up with a long winded solution to use just one instance of Amplitube instead which we're saying won't work.
 
The correct way is to freeze...

Karyn
 

Kylotan
Karyn - Well, maybe. You are presuming that he is in a position to bounce down or freeze all his Amplitube tracks. Perhaps he is not, and wants to leave it open so that it can be tweaked later, perhaps in the context of the mix. Nobody wants to be repeatedly re-bouncing every time they tweak a setting. But sure, if he doesn't know that Amplitube can be bounced down but he does just want 3 processed tracks each with a fader, maybe that is the way to approach it.

He clearly states he doesn't want to end up with Amplitube in all the FX boxes in all the tracks because he doesn't think his computer will handle it.

200bpm
The problem with putting Amplitube in each track FX bin is that I have three instances of the plugin running, and I need to keep the project light for the lowest latency.  If I use that strategy everywhere, then I will have a ton of instances running.

 
  He has come up with a long winded solution to use just one instance of Amplitube instead which we're saying won't work.
 
The correct way is to freeze...

Totally agree! 

Except he's saying it is working. And I can see how he's got it that way. I do a lot of work with amp sims myself so I can see why he wouldn't want to freeze or bounce it, and maybe that's why I understand his situation better.

Kylotan
 
Anderton - Actually, what he said was you're wrong to say he's not getting three separate audio streams through a single instance. You could take that as implying he gets 3 separate streams out, but it seems more logical that he means it as getting 3 separate audio streams into Amplitube and getting something out. The multiplexing issue is a distraction; if the intermediate plugin doesn't support multiple paths then it's going to be impossible, even if you have mux/demux at the ends. (Excepting the very rare case where each sample can be processed in isolation.)

I had already clarified what he wanted before that post, and he said I was correct in identifying what he wanted: "I believe the short answer is no IF what you want to do is mix three tracks into a single VST, then split the output of a single VST three ways so that these outputs join the three tracks that were mixed together, with the output inserting after the FX bin but before the channel fader.
 
Once the signals are mixed together to go into a single VST, there is no way to "unmix" them after the VST."

Kylotan
Except he's saying it is working. And I can see how he's got it that way. I do a lot of work with amp sims myself so I can see why he wouldn't want to freeze or bounce it, and maybe that's why I understand his situation better.

But he won't say how it's working, or exactly the problem he is solving. I think you've figured out a solution if the problem is what you've identified, but see my post above, for what he says he wants to do which seems at odds with what you're describing. I still maintain it is not possible to "unmix" the signals coming out of AmpliTube. If you've figured out a way, PM me and I'll turn you on to a great patent attorney 

I don't think we should be beating ourselves up over this. It is an oddball concept anyway. We have a solution. He can except it or not. He does have that right. Then, I don't know what an insert is. 

Kylotan
Ok, having read all this, it sounds to me like what he's doing is pretty reasonable - he wants to share 1 effect plugin across several tracks, and wants to be able to tweak the post-FX levels with those separate track controls.
 

 
(There could also be per-track pre-Amplitube FX as well, left off to save space.)
The thing that has confused most people, because it was seemingly only mentioned in the first post, is that there is "only one track feeding per time". So the fact that all 3 tracks are getting the same audio back from Amplitube doesn't matter - 2 of the 3 tracks are muted/archived. No need for time-sliced demultiplexing. ;)
 
If this was an external piece of hardware it would be trivial to do with the External Insert plugin, but there doesn't seem to be an equivalent for software. And since Sonar people don't think in terms of Send/Returns (as they only really have Sends), this usage doesn't seem 'normal'.
 
He could do the same thing via routing to a bus with Amplitube set as an insert - but then he doesn't get to have the 3 separate post-Amplitube fx bins and fader levels.
 
A workaround would be to have each track output to the single Amplitube bus, then that sends to 3 separate buses. But now he has to mentally tie his 3 input audio tracks to the 3 output buses. And his pre-Amplitube and post-Amplitube FX (if any) are in completely different places - an awkward workflow.
 
Some have mentioned that he could bounce each track - but that would stop him from experimenting with Amplitube settings in the context of tweaking the different pre- and post- fx and levels.
 
If needed to do this, in Sonar, I would probably just put everything in one track on separate take lanes. They're not really designed for that, but since we lost layers, that's the best we have. Clip automation would handle differences in gain and similar.
 
As I find quite often, REAPER appears to offer this sort of routing in the box - create a new track with your insert on it, then any track you want can Send to it and Return from it. I couldn't get this to work just now, but the functionality appears to exist there. I hope Sonar start to offer better routing options in future for this sort of thing.

Kylotan,
 
You totally understand!  
 
I am happy to hear that Reaper has this routing capability.  THat means there is a precedent and Sonar might decide to add it in the future.
 
Craig, I am/was not resistant to describe what I did, just didn't think it would help anyone as the majority of people in the thread didn't understand what I was doing anyway...  Some of the suggestions were good, but not exactly what I wanted to do.  Going to the effort to "educate" other people who think they know all the answers is an uphill battle.  Just not worth my time.  As they say, ignorance is bliss.
 
Happy Thanksgiving!
 
PS. I think the take lanes is probably the best solution.

Well, I start to see.... Since only one track can be unmuted at a time in this configuration, there's no real benefit over simply disabling/muting/freezing a track/effects on a per track basis - hence the confusion among some very longtime Sonar users. Besides, if you freeze a track with effects in, you essentially disable that track's plugins. You simply unfreeze the *one* track you want to tweak (just as you would be required to do in the current circumstance)  - yet this which allows you to have as many plugin instances on tracks as you want as only one is active and loaded.
 
There's some really smart people here, but I find it hard to believe many would see a benefit to a workflow requiring separate steps that can easily be automated using freeze options.
 
 

200bpm
Craig, I am/was not resistant to describe what I did, just didn't think it would help anyone as the majority of people in the thread didn't understand what I was doing anyway...  

As Kylotan has explained what you meant, then you did not get three individual streams out of AmpliTube, just three parallel routings of the same stream to different places. You got my hopes up that Totalmix did some sort of amazing thing...oh well. The good news is now I don't have to set aside a place for it in my budget.
 

Just FYI - I figured out how to do what he wants to do in SONAR if you're willing to feed an interface output back to an input. If anyone cares, I can describe...but I think Karyn's freezing approach is the simplest way to accomplish this goal in any DAW.