[ardour-dev] issues with plugin in/out counts

[Michael Schnake]

Hi all,

this is my first post here, so please be kind ;-)

When reading through this topic discussion seems to focus on finding 
*the one right way* do wire up plugins together while facing not only 
different numbers of plugin in/outs, but also different plugin 
dependent *meaning* (e.g. while for most 2 in/2 out plugins it may 
make sense to simply connect a mono stream to both in's, it does not 
make sense for TAP Stereo Echo with Haas effect) and many other 
implications.

Currently there is an <invisible ardour magic> part like in

Input
<invisible ardour magic>
Plugin 1
<invisible ardour magic>
Plugin 2
<invisible ardour magic>
Plugin 3
...

When I first used ardour (just playing around) and found myself 
putting together plugins with different in/out port numbers, my first 
intuitive reaction was "Ok, where are those adapters to choose 
from" ;-)

So what about doing something like this instead:

Input
<adapter 1>
Plugin 1
<adapter 2>
Plugin 2
<adapter 3>
Plugin 3
...

You could provide *all* (well, most of) the different "connecting 
policies" that are beeing discussed here by providing a special 
adapter type for each policy (and perhaps even some "customizable" 
type) and let the user choose. But you can still automatically add 
the standard "best for 95% of all use cases" adapter initially. But 
the user could easily spot from the adapters how the plugins are 
actually wired.

This would work for the "sequential plugins order" ardour provides. 
Everything more sophisticated should still be done with busses or 
e.g. some external modular synth wiring via JACK. 

Hope this did at least make some sense ;-)

Regards,

Michael