When the contents of one trigger slot has been played a user-defined number of times, Ardour can do one of the two things: stop playing or switch to a different trigger slot. This is defined by follow actions. A commonly used follow action is playing a clip in the next trigger slot down the grid.
Here are the currently available follow actions. Please note that to help distinguishing between them, Ardour will display an icon next to the name of a clip in a slot:
| None | No icon | Play the contents of the slot once and stop |
|---|---|---|
| Stop | |
Stop after playing back the amount of times set with Follow Count or via Follow Length (see below) |
| Again | |
Repeat the contents of the trigger slot over and over again |
| Reverse | |
Play back and go to the previous trigger slot |
| Forward | |
Play back and go to the next trigger slot |
| Jump |
|
Play back and jump to a particular scene. Selecting multi-jump and multiple trigger slots will result in randomly playing one of the selected slots. |
Note that you can set the follow action right in the grid. For that, click the icon that corresponds to the currently selected follow action for a slot and choose a different one in the newly opened menu.
Ardour can help you explore ideas by bringing an element of randomness. You can set two possible follow actions to randonly alternate between, then set the percentage of probability of the left or the right follow action to be triggered.
There are two options here that affect the playback duration one way or another.
Follow Count defines how many times a clip will be played back before triggering the follow action.
Follow Length overrides clip length and defines the new one in beats. By default it's as long as the clip is long. Making this value lower will cut the clip short, making it longer will add some silence at the end of the clip.