This window exposes the different audio options to be used by Ardour for the current work session, for hardware and software and is made of:
| Audio System | Depending on the operating system, Ardour can possibly use different audio systems, e.g. on Linux, both ALSA, PulseAudio, and JACK are available. On Mac OS X this will typically be CoreAudio. Advanced users on all platforms may also use NetJack which provides network audio I/O. |
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| Input Device | The selector should show all available interfaces provided by the audio system above and which are capable of capturing audio. |
| Output Device | The selector should show all available interfaces provided by the audio system above and which are capable of playing audio. |
| Sample Rate | The selector will allow to select from any sample rate supported by the device selected above it. |
| Buffer Size | The size of the buffer used by the audio interface can be adjusted to allow for either lower latency, or lower CPU usage and higher latency. |
| Periods | Number of frames between each hardware interrupt (analog-digital or digital-analog conversion). |
| Hardware Monitoring | This section allows choosing whether Ardour or auidio hardware should be handling recording monitoring. |
| Advanced Settings | This section contains several lower-level settings listed below. |
| MIDI System | This allows choosing a MIDI driver. On macOS, this will be CoreMIDI. On Linux, the choice will be between ALSA sequencer and ALSA raw devices. Choosing "None" will disable the connection to the external MIDI backend and prevent Ardour from being exposed to external MIDI ports while allowing to route MIDI events inside the program. |
| Setup & Calibration | This button runs a semi-automated guided process to obtain precise hardware latency measurements for available MIDI ports. |
| Hardware Input/Output Latency | Specify the hardware delay in samples for precise latency compensation. |
| Calibrate Audio | This button runs a semi-automated guided process to obtain precise hardware latency measurements for available audio ports. |