all plugins in ardour are applied in realtime, non-destructively.
if you want to get them applied so that a region has the effect permanently, you have two choices:
Freeze the track (track context menu -> Freeze)
Bounce the region (region context menu -> Bounce)
The first applies to all regions in the track, and produces one large region. The second creates a new region from the one selected (stored in a new audio file). However, bouncing still doesn’t do quite what you want, even after this many years. I’ll correct this before 2.5 is released.
The Fast Track is a very popular, UNSUPPORTED interface. Why does everyone have this thing? The worst thing about it is that for some people it works perfectly and others it barely works at all so people still try their luck with it.
If you are curious about compatible hardware check out my site where you can compare many devices: http://www.linuxstudiopro.com
My site also lists devices that are “reported to work”, which are not officially supported but simply work out-of-the-box or with a little configuration.