Logical order for session pages (fix)

This commit is contained in:
David Bolton 2013-07-02 16:36:37 -05:00
parent 79bb5e2427
commit 5c3c3ba54d
12 changed files with 292 additions and 0 deletions

View File

@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
---
layout: default
title: The New Session Dialog
---
<h3>New Session Tab</h3>
<p>In this tab you can type in the name of a session to create in the Name: field. You can also select a folder for this session to be created in, and if desired a template to create the new session as a copy of.</p>
<p>Under the Advanced Options, you can select specific behaviors that occur by default. This includes settings whether you wish to create a Master Bus, or a Control Bus, and how many channels you wish either to have.</p>
<p> You can also select whether you want Ardour to automatically connect all inputs to the physical ports of your hardware. If you select this Ardour will do so sequentially, to give an example, the first input of a track or bus will be connected to the first input of your hardware. The second input of a track or bus will be automatically connected to the second input of your hardware, and so on. When Ardour reaches the limits of your hardware, it will circle around and begin connecting with the first physical input of your hardware again. You can limit the number of channels on your physical hardware Ardour uses if you desire, and if that is the case, Ardour will only connect that many physical inputs to your tracks. Useful if you only want to connect the first input to do some voice over recording for instance.</p>
<p> Just like you can tell Ardour not to automatically connect track inputs, you can also modify how it automatically connects the outputs of the track or bus. By default Ardour will connect all tracks and busses to the Master Bus if there is one. However you can also tell it to automatically connect each output to the physical outputs of your interface or sound card, and like inputs can also limit the amount of physical outputs used, so for instance if you only have stereo monitors attached to the first two outputs of your sound card, you would not want Ardour to automatically connect to the next 6 that may be there with nothing attached to them.</p>
<h3>Open Session Tab</h3>
<p>The Open Session Tab will allow you to open an already existing session. You can also open any snapshot of a particular session by clicking on the arrow next to the session name to display all snapshots, and then selecting a snapshot. If a session is not displayed by default in the dialog you can click on the button next to "Browse" in order to bring up a file selection dialog to navigate your hard drive to find the file.</p>
<h3>Audio Setup Tab</h3>
<p>More details on this dialog/tab can be found below. Note that this tab is not visible if JACK is already running when the New Session dialog is displayed.</p>
{% children %}

View File

@ -0,0 +1,83 @@
---
layout: default
title: Audio Setup
---
<p>
This is a tabbed-dialog within the New Session dialog that will
appear only if JACK is <strong>not</strong> already running as you
start Ardour. It provides a simple interface to configure JACK, which
will then be started by Ardour. For more control and options regarding
JACK, it is recommended that you start JACK before using Ardour, via a
JACK control application such as qjackctl (sometimes called "Jack
Control"), JackPilot, etc.
</p>
<h3>Device Tab</h3>
<p> On this tab you can tell Ardour about the device it should use.
The driver setting will tell it what driver to attempt to
access.
</p>
<dl class="wide-table">
<dt>Driver</dt>
<dd>
On Mac OS X this will typically be CoreAudio. On Linux usually
this will be either FFADO or ALSA, depending on whether or not you are
utilizing a firewire device. Advanced users on all platforms may also
use NetJack which provides network audio I/O
</dd>
<dt>Interface</dt>
<dd>
The selector should show all availiable interfaces that driver
provides that are duplex capable for Ardour to
use. <strong>Important</strong> if you are using an Intel Mac running
OS X and the builtin audio interface, you must
first <a href="/setting-up-your-system/using_more_than_one_audio_device">merge
its separate input and output devices into a single "aggregate
device"</a> before Ardour will be able to use it.
</dd>
<dt>Sample Rate</dt>
<dd>
The selector will allow you to select from any sample rate
supported by the device selected above it.
</dd>
<dt>Buffer Size</dt>
<dd>
You can adjust the size of the buffer used by your audio interface
to allow for either lower latency, or lower CPU usage and higher
latency.
</dd>
</dl>
<h3>Options Tab</h3>
<p>
This tab has a few options that should be rarely used by most
users. The Realtime Option allows Jack to run with Realtime
privileges, which allows for smoother audio. The Verbose Output
checkbox is primarily used for troubleshooting, it will cause Jack to
use verbose messaging and output it to the console. The client
timeout will help prevent clients from disconnecting from Jack if they
don't respond to Jack fast enough. The number of ports changes the
total number of ports that Jack will provide to all clients. And the
server dropdown will allow you to change the path to the Jack
executable to match where it is installed on your system.
</p>
<h3>Advanced Tab</h3>
<p>
The Advanced tab will allow you to set some advanced settings that
are rarely needed. By default the input and output channels will
automatically try to give you the amount of inputs and outputs as
requested by the software, however some software doesn't always
request as many as you need, this can provide more to software that
can handle it.
</p>
{% children %}

View File

@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
---
layout: default
title: What's In A Session?
---
<p>The Session is the fundamental document type that is created and modified by the Ardour workstation. A "Session" is a folder on your computer filesystem that contains all the items that pertain to a particular project or "recording/editing/mixing session".</p>
<p>The Session folder includes these files and folders:</p>
<ul>
<li> The main session snapshot (session_name.ardour)
</li>
<li> Any additional snapshots (filenames ending in ardour)
</li>
<li> the auto-backup snapshot (session_name.ardour.bak)
</li>
<li> the undo history for the session (session_name.history)
</li>
<li> the instant file (instant.xml) which records the last-used zoom scale and other metadata
</li>
<li> a folder called "interchange" which holds your raw audio and MIDI files (whether imported or recorded)
</li>
<li> a folder called "export" which contains any files created by the "Export" function
</li>
<li> a folder called "peaks" which contains a waveform rendering of each raw audio file in the session
</li>
<li> a folder called "analysis" which contains transient and pitch information of each raw audio file
</li>
<li> a folder called "dead sounds" which contains sounds which Ardour has detected are no longer used in the session
</li>
</ul>
<p>A session combines some setup information (such as audio and MIDI routing, musical tempo &amp; meter, timecode synchronization, etc.) with one or more Tracks and Buses, and all the Regions and Plug-Ins they contain.</p>

View File

@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
---
layout: default
title: Where are Sessions Stored?
---
<p>Sessions are stored in a single folder on your computer's filesystem. </p>
<p>The first time you run Ardour, you will be asked where you would like the default location for sessions to be, with the initial choice being your home folder. </p>
<p>You can change it in that startup dialog, or later via <code>Edit &gt; Preferences &gt; Misc &gt; Session Management</code>. You can also specify a particular (different) location for a session when creating it, in the New Session dialog.</p>

View File

@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
---
layout: default
title: Backup and Sharing of Sessions
---
<p>An Ardour session is stored in a single folder on your computer's filesystem. This makes backup very easy - any tool capable of backing up a folder (i.e. all of them) can be used to backup a session. You pick the location of a session when it is created - by default it will be in your default session location, which can be altered via <code>Edit &gt; Preferences &gt; Misc &gt; Session Management</code>. </p>
<blockquote><p>
There is complication: a session may reference embedded media that are stored outside of the session folder. At this time (December 2012), there is no particularly good solution for this. Backing up a session with embedded files will not create a copy of the session containing those files.
</p></blockquote>
<p>The single folder approach also makes sharing a project easy. Simply copy the session folder (onto a storage device, or across a network) and another Ardour user (on any platform) will be able to use it. The limitation regarding embedded files applies to session sharing as well.</p>

View File

@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
---
layout: default
title: Interchange with other DAWs
---
<p>It has never been particularly easy to move sessions/projects created on one DAW to another. There are two "standards" that exist that have reasonably widespread support:</p>
<ul>
<li>OMF (Open Media Framwwork), also known as OMFI. Developed and controlled by Avid, never standardized</li>
<li>AAF (Advanced Authoring Format). Developed by a consortium of media-related corporations.</li>
</ul>
<p>but in practice both of these "standards" have such complex and/or incomplete specifications that different DAWs support them partially, differently or not at all. </p>
<h3>Moving an Ardour session to another DAW</h3>
<p>To move an Ardour session to another DAW, you have 3 basic choices:</p>
<ul>
<li>Stem exports
</li>
<li>Copy the interchange folder
</li>
<li>Use AATranslator
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Moving another DAW session to Ardour</h3>
<p>To move a session from another DAW to Ardour, you have 2 basic choices:</p>
<ul>
<li>Stem exports
</li>
<li>Use AATranslator
</li>
</ul>
<p>More details on these options are available:</p>
{% children %}

View File

@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
---
layout: default
title: Copying The Interchange Folder
---
<p>All media in a session folder is stored in a sub-folder called "interchange". Below that is another folder with the name of the session. You can copy either of these to another location and use the files within them with any other application, importing them all into a project/session. You will lose all information about regions, tracks, and timeline positioning, but all the data that Ardour was working with will be present in the other DAW. Nothing below the "interchange" folder is specific to Ardour - any DAW or other audio/MIDI application should be able to handle the files without any issues.</p>

View File

@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
---
layout: default
title: Stem Exports
---
<p>Stem exports are covered fully in the <a href="/exporting">Export</a> chapter. A stem export creates 1 file per track, starting at the beginning of the session. You can then import each track into another DAW and begin working on it. You lose all data except the actual audio/MIDI (no plugins, no automation). This is one of the most common methods of interchange because it works between all DAWs.</p>

View File

@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
---
layout: default
title: Using AATranslator
---
<p><a href="http://www.aatranslator.com.au/">AATranslator</a> is a Windows application that can convert sessions/projects from many diffferent DAWs into other formats. At the present time (December 2012), it can read and write Ardour 2.X sessions, and can read Ardour 3 sessions. </p>
<p>The program runs very well on Linux using <a href="http://www.winehq.org/">Wine</a> (a Windows environment for Linux). There are equivalent solutions for running Windows applications on OS X, but we have no experience with them at this time. Ardour users have reported great results using AATranslator on Ardour 2.X sessions.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.aatranslator.com.au/">AATranslator website</a> has full details on which formats/DAWs it supports, but they include ProTools, Live, Reaper, OMF, AAF and many more.</p>
<p><img src="/images/No%20problem.gif"></p>

View File

@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
---
layout: default
title: Renaming a Session
---
<p>Use <code>Session &gt; Rename</code> to give your session a new name. A dialog will appear to ask you for the new name.</p>
<p>This operation does <strong>not</strong> make a new session folder - the existing session folder and relevant contents are renamed. If your session was not saved before a rename operation, it will be saved automatically and then renaming will continue.</p>
<blockquote><p>Ardour has no "Save As" operation that actually makes a new copy of the session folder and its contents. </p></blockquote>

View File

@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
---
layout: default
title: Session Templates
---
<p>Session templates are a way to store the setup of a session for future use. They do not store any <em>audio</em> data but can store:</p>
<ul>
<li>The number of tracks and busses, along with their names
</li>
<li>The plugins present on each track or bus (if any)
</li>
<li>All I/O connections
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Creating a Session Template</h3>
<p>Choose <code>Session &gt; Save Template</code>. A dialog will ask you for the name of the new template.</p>
<h3>Using a Session Template</h3>
<p>In the New Session dialog, choose the desired template from the combo selector.</p>
<p>Note that you can also use an existing session as a template, without saving it as one. This is available as an option in the New Session dialog. Doing this will not alter the existing session at all, but will use its track, bus and plugin configuration just like a template.</p>
<p>See also <a href="/missing">Track &amp; Bus templates</a> for information on templates for individual tracks or busses.</p>

View File

@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
---
layout: default
title: Snapshots
---
<p>Sometimes you will want to save the current state of a session for possible use in the future. For example, you may be about to change the entire arrangement of a piece, or drastically alter the signal processing, and want a reference to come back to should that not work out.</p>
<p>This is easily accomplished using <code>Session &gt; Snapshot</code>. A small dialog will appear allowing you to enter a name for the snapshot. The default name is based on the current date and time.</p>
<p>Creating a snapshot does <strong>not</strong> modify your session, nor does it save your session. Instead, it saves an "alternate" version of the session, within the session folder. The snapshot shares all data present in the session. You can create any number of snapshots. </p>
<p>After creating a snapshot, you can continue working on the session and save it normally using <code>Session &gt; Save</code> and any existing snapshots will remain unchanged. </p>
<h3>Switching to a Snapshot</h3>
<p>If you are already working on a session and want to to switch to an existing snapshot, navigate the Snapshots tab of the <a href="/ardours-interface/introducing-the-editor-window/editor-lists">Editor Lists</a>. Find the name of the snapshot in the list and click it. Ardour will switch to the snapshot. If the session has not been saved, Ardour will ask what you want to do.</p>
<h3>Starting Ardour With a Snapshot</h3>
<p>Since a snapshot is just another session file stored within the session folder, you can specify that "version" when loading an existing session. The browser in the "Open Session" dialog will show an expander arrow for sessions that have more than 1 session file (i.e. snapshots) present - click on it to see the list, and then click on the name of the snapshot you want to load.</p>
<h3>Saving and Switching to a Snapshot</h3>
<p>Sometimes you want to create a snapshot and then have all future edits and modifications saved to that snapshot rather than the main session. This is easily done using <code>Session &gt; Save As</code>. This does not create a new session folder, but saves your session as a new snapshot and then switches the "current snapshot" to the newly created one. All subsequent saves of the session will be stored in this new snapshot, and existing snapshots (and the main session) will be left unaffected. </p>