[ardour-users] Using external processors

[Joe Hartley]

On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 20:21:50 -0500
Jon Morin <jon.j.morin at gmail.com> wrote:
> How would one go about using an external piece of
> gear for processing in realtime in Ardour.  Say that I'm using an
> M-Audio 1010 card (which I'm looking at).  Would the procedure be to
> create a new bus in Ardour, set the input and output of the bus to an
> input and output of the 1010, and patch in my compressor, reverb, or
> what have you?  Or is this done with an insert?  

The answer (like so much with Jack and Ardour!) is that either will work.
I like to create a new track for the effected take, and route the
output of the old track to my effects chain then into the new track.
I have a patch bay to connect my Delta 1010 (8x8 to the patch bay), mixer 
(4x4 to the patch bay) and a half-dozen or so racked effects units.  
(Side note - this went from being a right pain in the arse to brilliance 
once I understood patch bays and how to use a normalized path.)

> On a related subject, have others done this sort of thing, and are
> there latency issues involved with using outboard analog processors? 

I was curious about this myself so I ran a little experiment, by zooming
in to a gnat's hair and trying to see how far back the effected track was
after going through a compressor and a reverb.  The unscientific answer
was that I couldn't see or hear any latency at all.

-- 
======================================================================
       Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh at brainiac.com
Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa