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