Do muted tracks/plugins use CPU?

[davetron5000]

For the purposes of resource usage, are muted tracks treated the same as if they are not even there? What about bypassed plugins?

I'm trying to get an idea of how to keep the buffer size low while tracking and to see if muting tracks as any effect (e.g. making a scratch mono drum track from a 8-track take and muting the 8 drum tracks).

It's kind of hard to tell by experimentation since the Resource meters are basically useless (usually they sit low until they spike and I get a -6086).

[Slim Shady]

Muting does not affect the CPU use at all, as the track has to be ready to instantly play when you un-mute, so it's doing it's normal thing whether muted or not. If you wish to disable tracks, use the 'Make Selected Tracks Inactive' command, and you can disable plug-ins by control-command-clicking on them in the insert area.