[ardour-users] Is Ardour Invented Yet?

[Jan Depner]

On Fri, 2005-03-25 at 19:14, Mike Jewell wrote:
> 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:
> 

     I can only answer a few of these.

> 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.
> 

    Place the mouse where you want the play or edit head and press p or
e.  You need to be in object mode I think.

> 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?
> 

    Haven't got a clue since I never use undo ;)


> 3) When dragging a region (terminology?) vertically from one track to 
> another, can you lock it's horizontal position?
> 
    Yes.  I've seen this one mentioned on the mailing list.  Not sure
how though.

> 4) Is there a way to go back to the last zoom level?  This one drove me 
> crazy.
> 
    Were you using the little zoom in and out buttons or were you trying
to use zoom mode?  The buttons work pretty well.

> 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.
> 

    Don't know.

> 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.
> 
    Click on Follow Playhead.

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

    Hasn't crashed for me in the last three months.

> 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.)
> 

    Don't know what your problem is there.  I've been doing that for the
last year and a half with no problems (occasional problems before that).

> 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.
> 

    You can cut a section if you want silence.

> 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.
> 

    I don't use the zoom mode, just the zoom in and out buttons.

> 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?
> 

    It really isn't an audio editor, it's a multitrack recorder.  It
does this really well.  It will do cut and paste and some other stuff
but it's main function is recording.  Jesse or one of the other guys can
probably answer all of these questions but I thought I'd throw my 2
cents in.  I've been using Ardour for a couple of years and I've done 4
band demos and a few originals on it.  In the last 6 months it has been
unbelievably stable for me.

Jan