Ardour

Future Development

This is a tentative list of features/changes/redesigns to be considered as Ardour progresses. It is in no particular order.

  • Performance.
  • Improved crossfade manipulation, including animating of crossfades as regions are dragged.
  • Take management.
  • Track/region comping.
  • Folder tracks.
  • Revisit scrubbing
  • Record path management, including the ability to set a record path for each track, independant of the session record path.
  • Region colour management - See Mantis entry 2755 ( http://tracker.ardour.org/view.php?id=2755 ).
  • Edit audio in external editor.
  • Arbitrary region grouping.
  • Tempo ramps.
  • Make vari-speed controls more usable.
    • Separate shuttle functionality and playback speed - Playback speed should be a constant between transport starts and stops. The current control for shuttling forwards and backwards can remain, but always return to either 'Stop' or the currently set 'Playback speed'.
  • Cloned regions (audio and midi).
  • Definable record point within mixer channel ie input or anywhere in the redirect/plugin chain.
  • Media management.
  • VCA style Master and Slave grouping, with unlimited depth of nesting.
  • Multi-resolution peak files. Including clipping indication data
  • Reverse logic of opacity for regions. Change to transparent, which should be off by default.
  • modularize Session?
    • move static methods into utility namespace?
    • move vectorized methods?
  • Improve surfaces code, add surfaces.
  • Copy/paste of regions and/or chunks between instances?
  • Tear off groups for mixer strips.
  • Performance.
  • Finish "operation applies to selection" - no more clicked_regionview, clicked_trackview etc. as targets.
  • All plugins on/off button.
  • Option for recording stereo (or any multi stream) tracks as one file rather than split into two (or more) files.
  • Automation overhaul - Including global Automation on/off control.
  • Make Aux busses more aux-like - both visually and functionally.
  • Per region Plugins.
  • Save as ...
  • Add clocks and other info to preferences dialogue for incoming external timecode (MTC, LTC) - provides confirmation of external TC presence and format.
  • Define more precisely what happens when chasing external timecode (MTC, LTC, JACK) and the timecode varispeeds or stops.
  • Define more precisely what happens when EBU, SMPTE or Film timecode goes outside the legal range ie 00:00:00:00 -> 23:59:59:23/24/29. Examine the two cases of either chasing external timecode or not.
  • Comment/Remark tracks.
  • Allow region sources to be changed dynamically.
  • Allow media location searching to optionally traverse the file system into lower levels.
  • Scenes - Implement Scene storing and recalling, including scene sequencing.
  • Theme manager Window showing the widget/elements of the UI that the colours are being changed for.
  • Larger panning control window open-able on each channels panner, allowing finer control and more info. Particularly for the new stereo panner.
  • Implement more comprehensive panning.
    • Identify (and name) the places where panning/positional information must be applied (e.g. outputs from ardour, summing points in busses), and deliver positional information along with audio data to them, then pan according to the i/o configuration.
    • Allow panners to be disconnected from the above if, for example, sends need to pan independently of the main route panner.
  • Option to number tracks (Numbering is now implememnted as an option in 4.0) and have track jack port names include this numbering.
  • Shuffle/Ripple edit mode overhaul.
  • More comprehensive click management.
    • Ability to define different sounds for each beat.
    • Ability to place accent on different beats.
    • Change tempo with vari-speed.
  • Add transport keys and a clock to the monitor section.
  • Add the ability to insert plugins in the monitor section. Mainly for adding meters
  • Performance.
  • Rework sorting of the region list in the Editor Notebook Tabs.
  • Allow track/mixer strip reordering by dragging directly on track headers or mixer strips, including dragging multiple non-contiguous tracks/strips and have them become so on dropping.
  • Allow the loading of audio directly to the time line from any file type and of any sample rate without conversion i.e. real time SRC.
  • Template manager
  • Prevent user playhead-locates when slaved to external timecode-source, while the transport is rolling (or the slave is locked).
  • Improve auditioning in both the import dialogue and the region list.
    • In the Import Dialogue add a waveform view of the file being auditioned. Have a playhead on this view and allow clicking to locate within the file.
  • Performance.
  • Pre and Post roll.

Done (or in progress)

  • Remove/hide stub files -- Partially implemented 07/2010 - Completed 03/2011.
  • Key bindings not tied to menu entries -- Partially implemented 08/2010.
  • Export multiple individual tracks - Stem export implementation started.
  • Joining regions (Composite regions) - Partially implemented 05/2011. Now complete.
  • Native linux VST plugin support - Added 09/2011.
  • Input monitoring selectors - Partially completed 10/2011 - 'Cue' still to be added.
  • LTC chase through any input. - Implementation started 10/12
  • Cairo-based canvas. Impelentation started June 2013
  • Meterbridge. Impelentation started June 2013. Now complete.
  • Video track and associated re-sizable video monitor window with overlays to show, for example, Timecode, ADR wipes etc. Implemented and released in 3.2
  • Latency compensation for busses. First incarnation started June 2013
  • Improved metering. Implemented and released in 3.4 and 3.5.
  • Boolean automation - ie automation of Mute buttons and other on/off buttons. Implemeted in the upcoming 4.0 release