94 lines
4.0 KiB
Markdown
94 lines
4.0 KiB
Markdown
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title = "Creating tracks and busses"
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chapter = false
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weight = 3
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#pre = "<b>1. </b>"
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## What is an Audio Track?
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An **Audio** **Track** is a place where you can drag a **Region**
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from your **Region List** and where you can record sounds coming from an
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outside source.
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A Region represents an audio clip, i.e., one of your sound files or just a
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portion of a sound file. In the image below, the horizontal strip areas marked
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"*MyTrack*" and "*short-drone-mono*" are Tracks. The rectangles containing audio
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information are called Regions (for example, the Region "*wheels-mono.1*" is
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contained within *MyTrack*).
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## What is a Bus?
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A **Bus** is similar to a track except that it does not contain its own regions.
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You cannot record directly into a bus or drag regions into it. The area marked
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"*Master*" in your session is an example of a Bus. Typically every session has a
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**Master Bus**. All the audio to be **Exported** from your Session will be sent
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to the Master Bus.
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## How are Tracks and Busses Used?
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Audio-processing **Plugins** and **Automation** can be applied to both
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Tracks and Busses.
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Audio tracks can be routed to Busses. In fact, many Tracks can be simultaneously
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routed to one Bus. Busses are traditionally used as a convenient way to apply
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any kind of signal processing to many Tracks at once. For instance, you might
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find it useful to route all Tracks that contain drum sounds to a single Bus that
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you would call '*drum bus*'. Then, if you decide that all your drum Tracks are
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too loud, you can quickly adjust the level of the '*drum bus*' rather than
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adjusting each separate Track that feeds into it.
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Another use of a Bus would be to have a common **Reverberation** Plugin, so that
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any audio Track which requires the Reverb effect could be routed to a single
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Bus.
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## Adding Tracks and Busses
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Right-Click in the empty area beneath any existing Tracks and Busses.
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Alternatively, click on the menu *Track > Add Track, Bus, or VCA...* (shortcut
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"*Ctrl*" + "*Shift*" + "*N*"). The following window will appear:
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**Add** lets you specify how many Tracks (or Busses) you would to like
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to create.
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Choose **Audio Tracks** or **Audio Busses** to specify whether you want to
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create Tracks or Busses. There are also other options such as **MIDI Track** and
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more. Ardour offers different track types depending on the type of data they
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contain. This tutorial will only cover Audio Tracks and Busses. (see the [Ardour
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Manual](http://manual.ardour.org/working-with-tracks/track-types/) for details
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on all track types)
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You can optionally give a **Name** to the Track or Bus being created.
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The **Configuration** drop-down menu allows you to specify how many
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channels of audio you'd like the new Track or Bus to handle. For
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example, if you will be recording your voice on this track using a
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single microphone, choose **Mono**. If you plan to import a clip from an
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existing song and place it on this Track, choose **Stereo**. The choice
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made here will also affect which Plugins you can use on the track (Mono
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tracks cannot use Stereo Plugins and vice versa).
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The **Position** menu lets you choose where you want the new track or bus to be
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placed: first, last, before or after the selection.
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You can safely ignore the other options for now. To learn more about each of
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them, please check [this page of the complete Ardour
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Manual](http://manual.ardour.org/working-with-tracks/adding-tracks-and-busses/).
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Click the **Add and Close** button to create the Tracks or Busses you have just
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configured, and automatically close the Add Track window. The tracks you just
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created will appear as new rows in the **Main Canvas**. If you still wanted to
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add more tracks after this step, you could alternatively have chosen **Add
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selected items (and leave dialog open)** instead.
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## Continuing
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Once you've added one or more tracks, you will want to put some audio material
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into them to work with. Continue on to the **Importing Audio** and **Recording
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Audio** chapters to learn how to do this.
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Next: [Importing audio](../importing-audio)
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