[ardour-users] Is Ardour Invented Yet?

[Mike Jewell]

2.8 GHz Pentium 4
Linux Fedora Core 1
Ardour 0.9beta28
Planet CCRMA Audio environment


Hi Ardourers,

Well, I just spent an afternoon trying to work on a couple of tracks I 
exported from Audacity.

I learned alot.  But mostly I learned that (at least as far as I can see) 
Ardour is a long way from being useable!  That said, I hope some of you 
point out (in detail) how wrong I am!    8^)

My only other experience is using Vegas Audio LE a while ago and Audacity 
quite a bit recently.

But, based on that, I just kept running into roadblocks, missing features 
and bugs that make it a real challenge to keep going.  (I was using it 
mainly for the education, not to get work done.)

I'm hoping some or most of these are just because I don't know how to run 
it:

Here gos:

1) Is there a simple way to position the edit and playhead cursors without 
dragging them from whereever they are?  I tried every combination of Alt, 
Shift, Ctrl with mouse clicks, etc.

2) Is there an Undo history window so you don't have to go one step at a 
time and be able to see where you're going?

3) When dragging a region (terminology?) vertically from one track to 
another, can you lock it's horizontal position?

4) Is there a way to go back to the last zoom level?  This one drove me 
crazy.

5) Is there an easy way to switch from latched soloing to unlatched?  
Audacity uses Shift-Mouse1 to solo just that track and just Mouse1 to add or 
subtract from the soloed tracks.  Very intuitive and fast.

6) I noticed the red Play Head line (and triangle) sometimes dissappears.  
Clicking "Play" makes it show up ok and start playing.  Just a bug, I guess.

7) Ardour crashed three or four times during the afternoon.

8) At the end, I tried to export the track I'd been working on as a wav 
file.  Never would let me do it.  Error messages, etc.  (Sorry I can't 
remember what they were.)

9) Several handy editing tools I use alot in Audacity seem to be missing.  
Like "silence a selection".  Maybe I'm just not seeing it.

10)Zooming seems very strange.  It would often zoom differently than I would 
have expected.  And I was constantly getting burned by being in the wrong 
mode:  Zoom, Range, Object, etc.  Maybe it's because I'm so used to 
Audacity's U/I but Ardour just seems a lot less intuitive with more mouse 
clicks, etc.

Sorry for the long, somewhat critical, message.  Please don't get me wrong.  
I'm absolutely blown away by this amazing piece of software that the 
talented developers have given to the world and I also realize that it isn't 
even finished yet.  I'm mostly just giving feedback (It's a gift, you 
know...  8^)   )   and hoping some of you might have some suggestions and 
answers to make it all make a bit more sense.  I really, really, want to be 
able to use it.

But for the recording/editing I do, Audacity seems way more intuitive.  I 
just wish it had the great cross-fade capability and JACKosity of Ardour.   
I don't want much...  Just the perfect tool.    8^)

One more:
The Ardour web site says something to the effect that "Ardour is NOT an 
audio editor".  What the heck does that mean?

Hoping for enlightenment,

utah
Mike Jewell