123 lines
4.3 KiB
HTML
123 lines
4.3 KiB
HTML
<p>
|
|
The Cue window allows working with music ideas in a non-linear fashion.
|
|
Instead of navigating the timeline and placing regions of audio and MIDI
|
|
data at a particular point in time, you deal with short clips that contain
|
|
rhythmic and melodic patterns and can be triggered to play a certain amount
|
|
of times, then automatically trigger another clip to be played.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
The concept has been introduced and popularized by Ableton and since then
|
|
found its way into many other applications. Ardour draws many ideas from
|
|
Ableton Live, as well as from several other digital audio workstations,
|
|
and adapts them to Ardour's specifics. If you are familiar with Live, you
|
|
will find many aspects familiar, but you should not expect the Cue's feature
|
|
set to be a 100% copy of that from any other application.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Here are some basics concepts of the non-linear workflow shared by multiple
|
|
applications including Ardour.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<h2>Grid and scenes</h2>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
All clips are organized in a kind of a grid. The grid provides an overview
|
|
of all the musical ideas, all the rhythmic patterns, short melodies, and sound
|
|
effects that you can use in a composition.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
One dimension of the grid, usually represented by a track, would accumulate
|
|
clips played with roughly the same kind of an instrument, e.g. all drum
|
|
patterns, or all basslines etc.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The other dimension, usually called scenes (or cues, in Ardour) would
|
|
organize these clips so that you would be able to play multiple clips at
|
|
the same time by pressing just one button. So if you want a particular
|
|
bassline played along a particular drum sequence, you would place them in
|
|
the same scene.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Ardour specifics are explained in the
|
|
<a href="@@cue-window-elements">Cue window elements</a> chapter.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<h2>Slots and clips</h2>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Cells in a grid are usually called slots. They are a kind of a container
|
|
that can hold an audio or a MIDI clip. Typically, a clip can be loaded
|
|
into a slot from a disk by pointing the file selector to it, or loaded
|
|
from a pre-recorded library of reusable clips, or recorded in place.
|
|
You will find more information about that in the
|
|
<a href="@@populating-the-cue-grid">Populating the cue grid</a> chapter.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<h2>Launching</h2>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
In a non-linear workflow, a clip can be triggered to play in multiple ways.
|
|
Most of the time it's either pressing a corresponding silicon pad on an
|
|
external grid controller attached via MIDI, or scrolling the mouse wheel
|
|
downwards over the slot that contains the clip, or just clicking a 'Play'
|
|
button next to clip's name.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Usually you can configure a slot to respond to some ways to trigger clip
|
|
playback and ignore others. We'll talk about it in the
|
|
<a href="@@clip-launch-options">Clip Launch Options</a> chapter.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<h2>Follow actions</h2>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
A clip can play in a loop until you stop it directly, or it can play
|
|
a user-defined amount of time and the trigger another clip in the track.
|
|
Say, you start a composition with one rhythmic pattern played four times
|
|
and you want the next rhythmic patterns to play eight times, then move
|
|
to a third one.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
This is typically achieved through so called follow actions. In an example
|
|
above, for the first clip (or, rather, slot) you can set a follow count
|
|
(4 times), and use the follow action usually called "Next". This will get
|
|
the clip in that first slot to play 4 times then trigger the playback of
|
|
a clip in the second slot.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Every application has its own set of follow actions. Most common ones are
|
|
repeating the clip indefinitely, triggering the previous/next slot,
|
|
or jumping to a slot in a particular scene.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
You can read more about follow actions in Ardour
|
|
<a href="@@clip-follow-actions">here</a>.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<h2>Musical time and stretching</h2>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
In a non-linear workflow, all work is happening in musical time: both audio
|
|
and MIDI clips are measured in bars and beats.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
By default, an application that supports a non-linear workflow will attempt
|
|
to estimate beats per minute in an audio clip and then stretch or squeeze
|
|
the clip so that it would match the bpm of the session and wrap neatly around
|
|
bars. That way, a clip that originally has a different tempo that the one in
|
|
the session would stay in sync with other clips.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Stretch options in Ardour are explained
|
|
<a href="@@clip-stretch-options">here</a>.
|
|
</p>
|