5.7 Session Sidebar

The Session Sidebar provides quick access to various aspects of the session.  This includes the ability to quickly access regions and chunks, change visibilty or order of tracks and busses, show or hide groups of tracks, and even switch snapshots quickly.

5.7.1 Region List

The region list, which uses a tree display to show all regions in the session.  Regions may be added or re-added to a session by dragging and dropping the region name from the region list onto a track in the editor canvas.

Just because a region is listed in the region list, does not mean it is actually being utilized by a session at any given time.

5.7.2 Track List

The Track List displays a list of all the tracks in a session and provides the ability to show or hide tracks as well as reorder them in the editor.  The visibility of a track can be modified by clicking on the check box 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 check box will make it visible in the editor. Finally you can reorder tracks in the editor by left clicking on their name in the track list and dragging them to a new place in the list.

Hiding a track does not affect its playback which can be controlled by either muting or deactivating it.

The order and visibility of tracks in the editor window can be independent of their order in the mixer window, which has its own similar controls in the Mixer Sidebar.

5.7.3 Snapshot List

The Snapshot List provides quick access to any snapshot for a current session.  You can switch to any snapshot by double clicking on the name of the snapshot in the list.

This is a very convenient way to organize songs in snapshots and switch between them while working on an album.

5.7.4 Edit Group List

Edit groups are different from mix groups. Whereas edit groups are about visibility and grouping in the Editor Window, mix groups are about visibility and grouping in the Mixer Window.

The edit group list on the fourth tab of the session sidebar. It lists all edit groups for the session. Edit groups can be created and deleted with the large "plus" and "minus" buttons at the bottom of the list. Left-Click on a group's name to change it.

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. Click the check box under "Show" by the name of the edit group to toggle its visibility.

An edit group can be visible and yet have hidden member tracks, and vice versa.

Latest versions of Ardour have a special "all" group. You cannot assign a track or bus to this group, but all tracks and buses automatically belong to this group, even if they are manually set to an other group. The "all" group cannot be deleted or renamed.

Effects of grouping Tracks

As soon as an edit group is active, the selection of regions will be linked between all members of the group. If one region is selected in one track, all corresponding regions in other tracks of the same group will be selected, too. Accordingly, all actions, such as trimming, splitting or moving the region(s) will effect the automatically selected regions as well. Ardour determines which regions are corresponding by their start and end times. That means regions that were recorded simultaneously in different tracks can be edited as a unit if grouping is active.

Takes

With edit groups it is possible to manage playlists for several tracks at once. In an active edit group, a track's playlist menu has an entry "new take", which creates a new playlist for each track in the group and switches to it. As long as the group is active, switching between playlists for one track automatically switches the corresponding playlists for the other tracks.

5.7.5 Chunk List

The chunk list provides a visual list of all "chunks". Chunks are collections (possibly discontiguous) of ranges. In order to create a chunk, select a range with the range tool and Button3-click on the range. Select Create chunk from range from the menu, this will ask for a name of the chunk.

The name will apear in the chunk list. Now it is possible to select one element from the list and insert the chunk at the current edit point. For this to work, at least on track must be selected. Button3-click on the track and select Edit - Insert Chunk.

Currently it is not possible to assign a shortcut to the "Insert Chunk" operation. Since you have to move your mouse while selecting from the context menu, it is best to have your edit point set to "Playhead" or "Marker" for acurate positioning.