Let me establish from the beginning that there is no single "right" way to use Bidule for live performance. The modular paradigm means that there are an infinite number of ways to use Bidule for live performances - your creativity and music styles being the only limitations.

That said, there are a few techniques that lend themselves extremely well to using Bidule in a live performance setting. Specifically, the two presented here are designed for those who use a MIDI controller with Bidule, to play instruments or to trigger other events.

The following two tutorials will show you:
A How to use MIDI program change messages to switch audio processing between different groups of bidules (simple),
and B how to automatically switch VST plugin presets with a MIDI controller (more advanced).

A1 The purpose of this tutorial is to connect live audio input to an Audio Switcher bidule, which will route the audio through one of three different VST effects, and switch between these effects via MIDI Program Change messages.

Right-click the patchbay and select Routing > Audio Switcher. Rename it to Audio Switcher (from input), then connect the incoming audio and incoming MIDI to the inputs on the Audio Switcher bidule.

A2 Next, add three VST effects plugins of your choice to the layout. When you've chosen the three plugins, connect the first three Audio Switcher outputs to the respective inputs on each of the three plugins. Connect the output from the plugins to where ever you want them to go.

A3 The trick to this configuration is to link the Processing Mode parameter of each of the Switcher's outputs to the Processing Mode parameter for the connected plugin. When linked, the connected bidule will only be active when its output is active. This means that only the plugin in use will be using CPU cycles, instead of all three at once.

Press Ctrl+P to open the Parameters dialog box. On the Source side, select the Audio Switcher (from input) > Processing Mode Output 1 parameter, and on the Target side, smexFreeze > Processing mode. Repeat the same steps to link the other two plugins.

A4 Activate audio processing, then double-click the Audio Switcher bidule to open it. At first, all three plugins are still active. Note your CPU usage.

Now, change the active output to Output 3. The first two plugins will mute themselves, leaving only the third plugin active. Check your CPU usage now - it should be lower, as only one plugin is processing audio.

If you have a MIDI keyboard controller, you can also switch outputs by sending a Program Change message. Each of the 16 outputs on the Switcher correspond to the matching Program Change message. I.e., send Program Change 1 to select Output 1, Program Change 2 to select Output 2, etc.