Ardour provides two ways of viewing a session: the Editor and the Mixer. The Editor shows the session by representing tracks as horizontal timeline displays, with material within the tracks (audio, MIDI, video, automation data, etc.) arranged along the horizontal (time) axis. The Mixer shows the session by representing tracks as mixer strips, with controls for gain, record enable, soloing and so forth. More abstractly, the Editor represents the time based aspects of a session, whereas the Mixer represents the signal flow.
However, it is quite possible to control the signal flow aspects from within the Editor as well, without the comprehensive overview that the Mixer provides. For some sessions, especially during the early stages of a session, the Editor may be the only window you need to use.
Lets survey the basic layout of the editor window:
The transport controls are in a tearoff window at the top of the editor, and are described in transport_window.
The editor controls are in a tearoff window, which you can use in the usual way.
This clock shows the current position of the edit cursor. You can edit the position using the clock if you wish.
The zoom buttons allow you to see more ("zoom out") or less ("zoom in") of the session timeline in the track display area. Click on the zoom out button to zoom out, and the zoom in button to zoom in.
The zoom range clock shows the current duration of the timeline that is visible in the track display area. It does not indicate the location of the visible section of the timeline, only its length. You can zoom in and out by editing this clock directly, which may be useful if you want to see a precise duration within the editor.
The two zoom select buttons allow you to go to the maximum and minimum zoom levels with a single button click. The "1:1" button zooms all the way into single sample level, where each pixel on the screen represents a single sample. The "whole session button" zooms out to show the entire session in the track display area.
When zooming, there is always a change in what is displayed in the track display area. However, one position in the display will continue to correspond to the same point in the timeline, and there are several choices of how to define that point. The default behaviour is to keep the left edge of the track display area constant. If it was at a position 1:12:14 into the session timeline before zooming, then it will continue to be at that position after zooming. Other points in the display that you can ensure are in the same position while zooming include the right edge of the track display, the center of the track display, the playhead and the edit cursor. Whichever of these is selected is known as the current zoom focus.
To change the current zoom focus, click on the combo box to see the list of available choices. Click on the zoom focus you wish to use. The list of choices will disappear, and the new zoom focus choice will be in effect.
When moving objects around in the track display area, you have the choice of moving them freely or having their positions be limited to certain points along the timeline. This applies to region, the playhead, the edit cursor, curve control points and markers, among others. If you want the positions of objects to be limited, then you can choose from several different possibilities. We call this "snap to" because when moving objects around with the mouse, they appear to "snap to" various positions.
The most obvious source of "snap to" positions is the tempo map, but ardour offers many different possibilities:
| Snap Option | Action |
|---|---|
| BBT | you can select 64th,32nd,16th,8th,quarter and whole beat positions, as well as beat triplets and whole bars (measures). |
| Region beginnings | |
| Region ends | |
| Region sync points | |
| Region boundaries | (combines regions beginnings and ends) |
| Marks | |
| Edit Cursor | a single snap-to point. This is useful when aligning several objects at the same point. Set the edit cursor to the desired position, then select this snap setting, and then move the objects, which will immediately snap to the chosen position. |
Table 2.1. Snap Control
When moving regions around in a track, it is sometimes desirable to leave spaces between regions and sometimes to force regions to always be placed directly next to their neighbours. Which is more appropriate depends a lot on the nature of the project and the regions themselves.
By default, Ardour uses slide mode which allows you to freely place regions in a track (subject to the current snap setting, of course). If you cut part of region, an empty space will remain where the part you removed used to be. If you move a region along the timeline, it will move independently of other regions, and will stay wherever you place it.
If you are editing a session and require behaviour where regions are forced to always to be directly adjacent, you can switch to splice maybe. In this mode, cutting part of region will cause all later regions in the track to move up (earlier) the timeline so that there is no intervening space between them. Moving a region will cause other regions to move around so that the moved region fits "between" them.
Sometimes when editing its nice to be able to move objects by predefined amounts rather than just positioning them freely or using snap-to. This kind of motion is called nudging. At the present time, only the playhead, playlists and regions can be nudged. The distance an object is nudged is set by the nudge clock (see below).
To nudge one or more regions forward by 1 second, first edit the nudge clock so that it specifies that time. Then select the region(s) by clicking on them, and finally click the nudge forward button.
Nudging backwards is identical to nudging forwards, except that you should click on the nudge backwards button.
To nudge a playlist forward or backwards, first set the nudge clock to the desired nudge distance. Then in the track that is using the playlist. Choose Nudge Nudge entire track fwd or Nudge nudge entire track bwd as desired.
You can also nudge all regions in the playlist positioned after (later than) the edit cursor. To do this, follow the steps for nudging the playlist, but choose Nudge nudge track after edit cursor fwd or Nudge nudge track after edit cursor bwd, as appropriate.
You can edit the clock value to alter the distance that regions/playlists will be nudged. (see Section 2.7, “Clocks” for instructions).
The editor tool selector is in a tearoff window, and contains a series of buttons used to select what the mouse (and often the keyboard) will do when editing tracks. The tools include:
| Mouse Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| object |
Left-clicking Object will place the mouse in object mode. When in object mode, the mouse pointer appears as a hand whenever it is over the track canvas or the rulers. The mouse can now be used to select and perform operations on objects such as regions, markers etc. |
| range |
Left-clicking Range will place the mouse in range mode. When in range mode, the mouse pointer appears as a vertical line whenever it is over the track canvas or the rulers. The mouse will now be able to select a point or range of time. Time ranges can be selected over one or several tracks. |
| gain | |
| zoom |
Left-clicking Zoom will place the mouse in zoom mode. When in zoom mode, the mouse pointer appears as a magnifying glass whenever it is over the track canvas or the rulers. This mode is used to zoom the display to any range that is subsequently set using the mouse. |
| timefx |
Left-clicking Timefx will place the mouse in timefx mode. When in timefx mode, the mouse pointer appears as a distinctive 'expanding' illustration whenever it is over the track canvas or the rulers. This mode is used to resize regions using a timestretch algorithm. |
Table 2.2. Snap Control
The Track List displays a list of all the tracks in a session and provides the ability to show or hide tracks aswell as reorder them in the .
The visibility of a track can be modified by clicking on the checkbox next its name in the track list. If a track is visible then the box will be checked, if it is unchecked then the track will be hidden and clicking on the checkbox will make it visible in the
To show or hide all tracks or only tracks of a specific type right-click within the track list to bring up a pop-up menu.
Note
The visibility of a track in the has no effect on the visibility of the for that track in the which can be modified from the , also hiding a track does not affect its playback which can be controlled by either muting or deactivating it.
Tracks may be reordered in the by rearranging them in the Track List. To rearrange the list click on a track name and drag it up or down to a new position.
Pressing the ESC key while rearranging the Track List will cancel the move.
Note
The order of tracks in the is independent of their order in the .
Below the track list is the edit group list, which lists all edit groups for the session, including a default group called “all”. To the left of each group name is a checkbox which indicates whether or not the group is active (a checkmark means its active). Click on the checkbox to change the active status of an edit group.
The edit group list can also be used to toggle the visibility of all members of the group. Visible edit groups are displayed in cyan, hidden ones in orange. Click on the name of the edit group to toggle its visibility. Note that an edit group can be visible and yet have hidden member tracks, and vice versa.
To the right of the track display is the region list, which uses a tree display to show all regions in the session. There are sections in the region list, “Captured” and “External”. “Captured” contains all regions that were either recorded by Ardour or imported as native audio files. “External”contains regions created using audio files external to Ardour (from a sample library, for example).
In both sections of the region list, any regions containing multiple channels will have its name followed by “[N]” where N is a number indicating the number of channels. Any region that ends in “-N”, where N is a number, is a region that describes an entire audio file. Any region that ends in “.N” is a region that describes part of an audio file. Any subtree within the region list can be hidden or displayed by clicking on the box left of its name.
Within the Captured part of the tree, each track is represented by its own subtree (strictly speaking, its not each track but each playlist that is represented). Within that subtree is an entry for each take recorded for that track. Remember that each take is stored as one and audio files (strictly, one per channel). Within the take tree is an entry for each region created from that take.
Within the External part of the tree, there is a subtree for each audio file embedded into the session. Within that subtree are entries for each region created from that audio file.
Click on the box to the left of the name of part of the tree to hide/show that part of the subtree.
Click the name of a region and then drag it to the track display area to insert a region into a track.
Click on the title bar of the region list to display a menu allowing you to
| Menu Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Find | |
| Show/Hide All |
fully expand or collapse the region list |
| Sort | |
| Display Automatic Regions normally, | Ardour does not display regions created as a result of a side effect of user actions. If this option is selected, all regions will be included in the region list. |
| Import audio files |
copy (and if necessary convert) audio files into the session. See Importing for more details. |
| Embed audio file |
embed external audio files into the session. No new files are created, and no format conversion is done. See [[editing:Embedding]] for more details. |
Table 2.3. Region List Context Menu
Below the region list is the Chunk List, which provides a visual list of all "chunks". Chunks are collections (possibly discontiguous) of sections.
This is the main area within the editor. Each track or bus is represented by a horizontal "stripe", with a set of controls on the left side, with the timeline above them all.
At the top of the track display area is the timeline display. This consists of a number of rulers, a meter track, a tempo track and the marker display.
The available rulers include:
| Ruler Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Frames | this ruler measures audio frames. The number of audio frames per second depends on the sample rate in use. |
| SMPTE | this ruler displays SMPTE timecode. The SMPTE format (25fps, 30fps, drop frame etc) is selected in the Options Editor option_editor. |
| Min:Sec | this ruler displays time in minutes+seconds, measured since the start of the session. |
| BBT |
(Bars,Beats,Ticks) this ruler displays positions based on the tempo map. |
Table 2.4. Ruler Types
To show or hide one or more of the rulers, click on the area to the left of their names. A menu will popup that has a check item for each available ruler. Click on the name of the ruler to toggle its visibility.
The tempo and meter tracks display the tempo map for the session. The tempo track contains 1 or more tempo change points, with a default tempo of 120 beats per minute. The meter track contains 1 or more meter change points, with an initial default meter of 4/4.
on a tempo/meter change point to edit it. Click in the tempo/meter track to add a new change point. Click and drag on a change point to move it. on a tempo/meter change point to remove it.
There is more information on using the timeline in editing_basics.
Each track has a set of controls on its left side. Which controls are present varies depending on the type of track (audio, bus, automation, MIDI, etc.). Every track type has a "hide" button marked with a cross. Click on this to hide the track.