I want to work in a big project with only a handful of its current FX or prochannels enabled, without haven't to manually DISable everything else, only to re-enable it later.
At low latency, the track doesn't even play back.  I'm in a state where I want to record new parts and monitor it through a plugin.
 
The lower the latency in ASIO, the more FX hit the CPU.  When you have enough FX to get you into an unstable playback/record state, you could notch up the latency.  This may be ok if you're mixing, but to record a live instrument while monitoring through its effects, I need to stay at low latency.
 
You can't click "FX" to disable them all, because you need the FX enabled that you're playing through (Guitar Rig, etc).  I've found a way around this by bringing up a standalone version of Guitar rig or the effect I need.. but I also need a few pro channels and FX enabled in addition.  For example, so the drums have some of the punch and shaping I want to hear while recording bass or guitar.
 
I've looked at what causes the most CPU usage and in this particular project and it appears to be pro-channel.  The project is big and I have a lot of tracks using it, so temporarily disabling pro channel on them is a little annoying..  not all tracks use prochannel and I'm bound to forget to re-enable something later or activate a prochannel after the recording that was never activated.  I thought I'd buy enough CPU cycles by freezing all of my synths.  nnnNope. 
 
The conclusion I'm coming to is that I'll simply need to manually keep record of all the effects I want to disable temporarily when I'm recording new parts.  That would be easier than bouncing a temporary submix or some other silliness. Just curious if anyone else has tricks for this.  Conclusion #2 will of course be to get a higher powered machine to sweep this issue under the rug. 
 
I get myself into this situation because I like to mix and tweak a song before I'm done with all of the tracking.
 
It would be nice if Sonar lets you disable all FX, then selectively solo some of them temporarily.  Anyhow, thanks for reading and I welcome your thoughts.
 

Can you try letter "e"

Hi Phrygiann.  I don't want to disable all FX. I want to selectively enable only a few with the rest disabled.

How about disable all and select few tracks you want enable. Or you can create groups..

+1 on disabling all with a quick hitting of 'E', then enabling the ones you want to have on.
 
I also am wondering if you are ending up with a bunch of tracks using essentially duplicate effects, such as reverb or delay.  If so, look into sends and effects busses, to cut down on memory and having to manually repeat changes to the same effects for multiple tracks.
 
And, you have provided no information on your computer's specifications, and I am wondering if your system has enough horsepower.
 
Bob Bone
 
 
 

From the console view, select all the tracks and control right click the pro channel power button and add to group. Now, click on one you click on all. Control click any in the group to invert the setting for that track. ,

Thanks gswitz!  I will give that a go.  Phrygiann, it indeed sounds like groups is what I need to work with.  
I don't suppose one could use this to toggle/invert entire effect bins as well.. that would be sweet.
 
Robert, I don't believe that one can enable any effects after pressing "E" (disabling fx) until they enable all effects again.  That would be an awesome feature and would resolve things nicely... sort of a "solo" feature for effects. 

If you use FX bins in pro channel, you can enable and disable any combination of things with a single click if everything is either on or off. Since you can have multiple FX bin modules, you can toggle any combination of FX .

Cool.  Got it.  I'm on it.  I should be more familiar with groups having used this software since the 90's when there weren't even any effects bins! (and probably no groups either).  Thanks!

And yes..  this is a great reason to move effects bins over to prochannel!  Two places for effects (and worrying about pre/post arrangement) is confusing anyway.