manual/include/patchbay.html

<figure class="right">
  <img width="50%" src="/images/connection-manager.png" alt="An example patchbay">
  <figcaption>
    An example patchbay
  </figcaption>
</figure>

<p>
  The <dfn>patchbay</dfn> is the main way to make connections to, from and
  within Ardour's mixer.
</p>
<p class="note">
  Notable exceptions are internal aux sends and connections to the monitor bus
  (when using one): these cannot be controlled from a patchbay, and are
  basically not under manual control at all.
</p>
<p>
  The patchbay presents two groups of ports; one set of <dfn>sources</dfn>
  (which produce data), and one of <dfn>destinations</dfn> (which consume data).
  Depending on the relative number of each, the sources will be placed on the
  left or the top of the dialogue, and the destinations on the right or the
  bottom. Thus, in general, signal flow is from top or left to right or bottom.
</p>
<p>
  Both sources and destinations are divided up into groups, with each group
  being given a tab:
</p>

<table class="dl">
  <tr><th>Hardware</th>
      <td>These are ports which are connected to a physical piece of hardware
      (a sound card or MIDI interface).</td></tr>
  <tr><th>Ardour Misc</th>
      <td>These are other ports that do not fit into the previous two
      categories; for example, the ports on which the metronome click
      is output, and MIDI ports for things like control surfaces and
      timecode.</td></tr>
  <tr><th>I/O Pre</th>
      <td>All ports of I/O Pre-Process Plugins.</td></tr>
  <tr><th>I/O Post</th>
      <td>All ports of I/O Post-Process Plugins.</td></tr>
  <tr><th>Tracks</th>
      <td>All ports belonging to tracks.</td></tr>
  <tr><th>Busses</th>
      <td>All ports belonging to busses.</td></tr>
  <tr><th>Other</th>
      <td>
      If the Jack backend is being used and if there are other JACK clients
      running, their ports will be found
      here. If there are no such ports, the tab will not exist (on one or
      both axes of the grid).</td></tr>
</table>
<p>
  The main part of the patchbay is a <dfn>matrix grid</dfn>. Within this grid,
  green dots represent connections, and any of the squares can be clicked on to
  make or break connections. Clicking and dragging draws a line of connections,
  which is sometimes useful for making many connections at once.
</p>
<p>
  In the example patchbay shown above we can note various things. We are
  using the <kbd class="menu">Ardour Tracks</kbd> sources tab, so we see
  the output ports of the three tracks in our session: Fred, Jim and Foo.
  Our destinations are from the <kbd class="menu">Ardour Busses</kbd> tab,
  so we have the inputs of a session bus, Sheila, and the inputs of the
  master bus. Fred and Jim have stereo outputs, so have L and R connections.
  Foo is a MIDI track, so it only has one connection, and its squares in
  the grid are coloured light grey to indicate that no connection can be
  made between Foo (a MIDI output) and our busses (which are all audio-input).
</p>
<p>
  The green dots in the example show that both Fred and Jim are connected
  to the master bus, left to left and right to right.
</p>

<h2>Variants on the Patchbay</h2>
<p>
  Slightly different versions of the patchbay are available from different
  places in Ardour. A global view of all audio connections is available, in
  <kbd class="menu">Window &gt; Audio Connections</kbd>, or by pressing
  <kbd class="mod2">P</kbd>. A corresponding MIDI Connection Manager can
  be opened using <kbd class="mod23">P</kbd>.</p>
<p>
  There is also a patchbay available when connecting individual tracks;
  clicking on the input or output buttons of a mixer strip will open a
  connection manager which has the corresponding track input or output as
  the only destination or source, with all other ports available for
  connection to it.
</p>

<h2>Other patchbay features</h2>
<p>
  <kbd class="mouse">right</kbd>-clicking on a port name in the connection manager
  opens a context menu which provides a few handy options:
</p>
<table class="dl">
  <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Add audio port</kbd><br> and <br><kbd class="menu">Add MIDI port</kbd></th>
  <td>
    These options add audio or MIDI ports to the clicked source, if this is
    possible. In this way, for example, tracks and busses can be extended to have
    more inputs or outputs.
  </td></tr>
  <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Remove <em>port_name</em></th>
  <td>
    Removes the given port, if possible. <kbd class="mouse mod3">Right</kbd>-clicking
    a port will do the same.
  </td></tr>
  <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Disconnect all from <em>port_name</em></kbd></th>
  <td>Disconnects everything from the given port.</td></tr>
  <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Rescan</kbd></th>
  <td>
    If Ardour is using the JACK backend, Ardour will try to keep abreast
    of any changes to the JACK ports on
    the system, and reflect them in any connection managers which are open.
    If for some reason this fails, this can be used to re-scan the list of ports and
    update the manager.
  </td></tr>
  <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Show individual ports</kbd></th>
  <td>
    If a session has lots of multi-channel tracks or busses, it may be an
    unnecessary detail that left has to be connected to left and right to right
    every time a connection is made. This obviously gets worse with higher
    channel counts (such as for 5.1 or Ambisonics). To make life easier with
    such sessions, Show individual ports can be unticked. After that, the
    channels of tracks and busses will be hidden, and any green dots added in
    the connection manager will automatically connect each channel of the source
    to the corresponding channel of the destination (left to left, right to
    right and so on). In this mode, a half-circle in the connection grid
    indicates that some (but not all) of the source's ports are connected to the
    destination.
  </td></tr>
  <tr><th><kbd class="menu">Flip</kbd></th>
  <td>
    This will flip the visible ports on the vertical axis with those on the
    horizontal. If, for example, the top of the connection manager is showing
    <kbd class="menu">Ardour Busses</kbd> and the right is showing
    <kbd class="menu">Hardware</kbd>, flip will swap the view to the
    opposite. Flipping can also be done by pressing <kbd>f</kbd>. Note that if
    there are no matching tabs on both axes, flipping will be impossible.
  </td></tr>
</table>