152 lines
6.0 KiB
HTML
152 lines
6.0 KiB
HTML
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<p>
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This section will help you get acquainted with the basic terminology and
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concepts associated with Ardour. More detailed information on each aspect
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of the program is provided in later chapters.
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</p>
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<h2>Sessions</h2>
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<p>
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An <dfn>Ardour session</dfn> is a container for an entire project. A
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session may contain an arbitrary number of <dfn>tracks</dfn> and
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<dfn>busses</dfn> consisting of audio and <abbr title="Musical Instrument
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Digital Interface">MIDI</abbr> data, along with
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information on processing those tracks, a mix of levels, and everything
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else related to the project. A session might typically contain a song, or
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perhaps an entire album or a complete live recording.
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</p>
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<p>
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Ardour sessions are held in directories; these directories contain one or
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more <dfn>session files</dfn>, some or all of the audio and MIDI data and
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a number of other state files that Ardour requires. The session file
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describes the structure of the session, and holds automation data and
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other details.
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</p>
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<p>
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Ardour's session file is kept in
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<abbr title="eXtensible Markup Language">XML</abbr> format, which is
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advantageous as it is somewhat human-readable, and human-editable in a
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crisis. Sound files are stored in one of a number of optional formats, and
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MIDI files as <abbr title="Standard MIDI File">SMF</abbr>.
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</p>
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<p>
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It is also possible for Ardour sessions to reference sound and MIDI files
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outside the session directory, to conserve disk space and avoid
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unnecessary copying if the data is available elsewhere on the disk.
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</p>
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<p>
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Ardour has a single current session at all times; if Ardour is started
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without specifying one, it will offer to load or create one.
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</p>
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<p>
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More details can be found at
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<a href="@@sessions">Working With Sessions</a>.
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</p>
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<h2>Tracks</h2>
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<p>
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A <dfn>track</dfn> is a concept common to most
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<abbr title="Digital Audio Workstation">DAWs</abbr>, and also used in
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Ardour. Tracks can record audio or MIDI data to disk, and then replay
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it with processing. They also allow the audio or MIDI data to be edited
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in a variety of different ways.
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</p>
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<p>
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In a typical pop production, one might use a track each for the kick
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drum, another for the snare, more perhaps for the drum overheads and
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others for bass, guitars and vocals.
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</p>
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<p>
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Ardour can record to any number of tracks at one time, and then play
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those tracks back. On playback, a track's recordings may be processed by
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any number of plugins, panned, and its level altered to achieve a
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suitable mix.
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</p>
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<p>
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A track's type is really only related to the type of data that it stores
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on disk. It is possible, for example, to have a MIDI track with a
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synthesizer plugin which converts MIDI to audio. Even though the track
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remains MIDI (in the sense that its on-disk recordings are MIDI), its
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output may be audio-only.
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</p>
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<p>
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More details can be found at
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<a href="@@tracks">Working With Tracks</a>.
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</p>
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<h2 id="busses">Busses</h2>
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<p>
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<dfn>Busses</dfn> are another common concept in both DAWs and hardware
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mixers. They are similar in many ways to tracks; they process audio or
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MIDI, and can run processing plugins. The only difference is that their
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input is obtained from other tracks or busses, rather than from disk.
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</p>
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<p>
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One might typically use a bus to collect together the outputs of related
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tracks. Consider, for example, a 3-track recording of a drum-kit; given
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kick, snare and overhead tracks, it may be helpful to connect the output
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of each to a bus called "drums", so that the drum-kit's level can be set
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as a unit, and processing (such as equalisation or compression) can be
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applied to the mix of all tracks. Such buses are also called
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<dfn>groups</dfn>.
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</p>
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<h2>Regions</h2>
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<p>
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A track may contain many segments of audio or MIDI. Ardour contains
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these segments in things called <dfn>regions</dfn>, which are
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self-contained snippets of audio or MIDI data. Any recording pass, for
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example, generates a region on each track that is enabled for recording.
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Regions can be subjected to many editing operations; they may be moved
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around, split, trimmed, copied, and so on.
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</p>
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<p>
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More details can be found at
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<a href="@@working-with-regions">Working With Regions</a>.
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</p>
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<h2>Playlists</h2>
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<p>
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The details of what exactly each track should play back is described by a
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<dfn>playlist</dfn>. A playlist is simply a list of regions; each track
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always has an active playlist, and can have other playlists which can be
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switched in and out as required.
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</p>
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<p>
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More details can be found at
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<a href="@@playlists">Working With Playlists</a>.
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</p>
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<h2>Plugins</h2>
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<p>
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Ardour allows you to process audio and MIDI using any number of
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<dfn>plugins</dfn>. These are external pieces of code, commonly seen as
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VST plugins on Windows or AU plugins on Mac OS X. Ardour supports
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the following plugin standards:
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</p>
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<dl class="wide-table">
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<dt><abbr title="Linux Audio Developers' Simple Plugin API">LADSPA</abbr></dt>
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<dd>the first major plugin standard for Linux. Many LADSPA plugins are
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available, mostly free and open-source.</dd>
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<dt><abbr title="LADSPA Version 2">LV2</abbr></dt>
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<dd>the successor to LADSPA. Lots of plugins have been ported from
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LADSPA to LV2, and also many new plugins written.</dd>
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<dt><abbr title="Virtual Studio Technology">VST</abbr></dt>
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<dd>Ardour supports VST plugins that have been compiled for Linux.</dd>
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<dt><abbr title="Audio Units">AU</abbr></dt>
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<dd>Mac OS X versions of Ardour support AudioUnit plugins.</dd>
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</dl>
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<p>
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Ardour has some support for running Windows VST plugins on Linux, but
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this is rather complicated, extremely difficult for the Ardour
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developers to debug, and generally unreliable, as it requires to run a
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large amount of Windows code in an emulated environment.<br>
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If it is at all possible, you are strongly advised to use native
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LADSPA, LV2 or Linux VST plugins on Linux, or AU on Mac OS X.
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</p>
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<p>
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More details can be found at
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<a href="@@working-with-plugins">Working With Plugins</a>.
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</p>
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