The first step in starting a new project with Ardour is to create a new session. When you do this, Ardour creates a new folder named after your session, and stores differents kinds of files and subfolders within it. The two most important subfolders are sounds which contains all the audio recorded or imported for the session and automation which contains automation data for various parts of the session. When you start ardour without specifying an existing session, it automatically brings up the new session dialog. If you want to create a new session at other times, choose Session New Session . Enter a name for the new session. You can use any characters you like as part of the name, but you should know that more or less anything other than alphabetic and numeric characters will be converted to underscores to form the name of the session folder. Next, choose where you want to store the new session folder. If its not in your current working folder, click on the browse button to expand the file selector, and then navigate to your desired location.

Next, configure the basic IO setup for the session. You have several choices here, and doing nothing is one of them. This will give you a session that includes: a stereo master bus with its outputs connected to the first two outputs of your audio interface all new track will have their outputs sent to the master bus all new track inputs will be connected to Ardour’s best guess at the relevant input of your audio interface. However, if you want more control over this, click on the expander next to Advanced options label to show the full set of options: There are two options available for track input configuration: autoconnect or manual. If you select autoconnect (the default) then new tracks will be connected to an input of your audio interface. If you select manual, it will be up to you to configure the input for each track. For output, the first two choices are whether to have control and master outs. Most DAWs assume the presence of master outs, and few (if any) offer control outs.

A Master out is a bus to which all (or most) tracks and other busses send their output. It provides a convenient single point of control for the output of ardour, and is a typical location for global effects. Because of this, using master outs is enabled by default, and the master out bus is setup to be stereo (2 inputs, 2 outputs). However, if you are feeding Ardour’s output through a hardware mixing console, you may not want master outs. In such cases, disable them by clicking on the radio button next to “Use master outs”. Alternatively, you may want some other channel configuration for the master output (for example, 8 channel surround sound). Select this by using the clickbox (see clickboxes) next to the radio button.

Control outs are unusual for DAWs, but because Ardour is designed to be as flexible as possible, and in particular is intended to be useful as a live mixer, they are included here. Using control outs provides you with a dedicated bus to which all tracks have an additional output connection. As well as feeding their regular outputs, they send data to the control outs as well. In an unadjusted session, this means that the control outs carry the same signal as the master outs. However, once you start soloing tracks, the control outs will carry only soloed tracks while the master outs continue to carry the entire mix. A typical use of control outs is when doing live stage work. The mix engineer will be listening to the control outs, and can therefore solo tracks without affecting the signal being sent to the master outs (the main speakers).