[ardour-users] Exporting and latency

[Sampo Savolainen]

Quoting Alex Polite <notmyprivateemail at gmail.com>:

> Hi.
> 
> I just got started with ardour and I love it.

Thanks :)

> I have a question regarding latency and exporting to wav.

xruns don't have anything to do with latency. Do you mean this in the sense
that the larger buffers jackd uses, the more latency you get and thus less
xruns?

> I import all my audio as wavs recorded elsewhere. I don't do any
> recording on the computer.
> 
> Am I correct in assuming that xruns won't result in any hiccups in my
> exported audio?

Yes. And no.

This depends on how you export. If you use the export functionality in
ardour, xruns will be totally irrelevant. Ardour does faster-than-realtime
exporting, which means that jackd is disconnected from the soundcard while
doing this. That means that everything happens at the pace of the computer.
xruns happens if the computer isn't fast enough for the real-world DA/AD
processing, so there is no risk of this happening while exporting.

On the other hand, some people use external hardware in their mixes. In
these cases, to "export" (=to "mix down"), means creating a stereo track in
the session, and recording the final mix in that track. This cannot be done
faster-than-realtime (for obvious reasons). When mixing down, xruns will
cause glitches in the track.


  Sampo