[ardour-users] [Jackit-devel] Sends in Ardour, ports in Jack

[Brett Clark]

>> when I found the busses won't record to the spare track
Actually, im doing just that.  Im running Ardour 0.99 and i route tracks to a single bus where i run compression, Eq, and a limiter plugin.  I then route the output of that bus back to a single track for recording.  This is my simplified, quick-n-dirty way to master a recording.
 
Its in the Windows->Connections window that you will want to route the output of the bus to the input of the track.  Then all you have to do is arm the track and record.
 
--Brett
 

________________________________

From: ardour-users-bounces at lists.ardour.org on behalf of audio lathe
Sent: Thu 3/23/2006 2:28 AM
To: paul at linuxaudiosystems.com; ardour-users-ardour.org at lists.ardour.org; jackit-devel
Subject: Re: [ardour-users] [Jackit-devel] Sends in Ardour, ports in Jack


Hello again,
I got the message that I must have been missing something when it came to exporting tracks from ardour and I figured out how to do the region export from the master track to export my song(s), but it's not quite what I was trying to achieve (yet).

I've never really introduced myself even though I've been lurking for a while with the odd question, I'm a noobie to audio production world and an old hat at unixy software. I had Logic with windoze but it was a mess. I decided that I would invest my time learning about audio production with ardour about three years ago and put my efforts into building a kicking Linux Box(s). Ardour is the only audio production software I've used.

I never thought I'd be in a hot band, I've always been a computer geek so the entire music thing is new to me. My band mates are as impressed with ardour as I am,  we just plug in and record all day (no hassles with sludgy filesystem performance late in the day or bsod) so they don't mind my geekyness. So far we've recorded about 17 of our songs, enough for a decent cd, which I'm working on at nights and in the mornings.

So I've been trying not to post unnecessarily and work things out for myself but I have a hard time keeping up with the amount of posts to this list which means I often miss things and end up searching searching searching, I do RTFM. I buy as many audio production books as I can and it's been a serious learning curve. I know what I want to achieve but often don't know how to explain properly so I'm sorry, I don't mean to waste anybodies time (especially you Paul as I can understand a software project such as this must be a HUGE effort). 

I figured with my last post I told you guys what I was doing and not what I was trying to achieve. So I'm gonna try, please forgive or correct my terminology where I get it wrong.

I've been working on our track's 'gain structure' prior to effects sends to identify transient sounds and adjust the gain automation where the transients occur, so I cat get a nice meaty raw volume before I start with the effects (I use some low/band/high pass filtering and eq plug-ins in the pre-fader section). I've got some VU meters and set 0vu to roughly -13db on the ardour peak meters using a 1khz tone as a starting point. From there I record the tracks onto a spare track and look for indications of clipping in the recorded track to adjust the gain automation of certain parts that cause the transient sounds that result in clipping. Once I'm happy with that I recalibrate the vu to my next target and repeat the process two or three times prior to compression and other effects.

I got to the stage of using the busses to put effects in the mix and my intention was to repeat the same process with the effects busses in the mix, when I found the busses won't record to the spare track. To avoid clipping and smooth the transient sounds  produced by the effects into the mix I thought I might be able to record onto a spare track so I can see when I am close or over the line.

Is there any other way I can do this, I don't even know if there is a right way.

I'd appreciate any advice - Thanks 
 


On 3/12/06, audio lathe <audiolathe at gmail.com > wrote: 



	On 3/10/06, Paul Davis < paul at linuxaudiosystems.com <mailto:paul at linuxaudiosystems.com> > wrote: 

		> I checked the jackd manual and tried to use the option to jackd --
		> port-max but got a usage message and jack exited.
		
		what usage message?


	Apologies, my bad, it was the alsa module usage message, I misplaced the --ports-max arg causing the error.  I'm spending too many late nights doing mixes.
	 
	
	

		> I also tried setting the inputs of the busses to the outs of the 
		> various tracks and found that the settings were gone after I reloaded 
		> the session (I double checked that I set the inputs more than once to
		> repeat the problem)
		
		this is typical when running out of ports causes problems.



	that sorted that, deepening my sense of embarrassment for posting late at night.
	 
	
	
	

		> I also found when recording my mix down to a stereo track within 
		> ardour that the busses  I send to don't appear on the recording to the 
		> track, only when I use in's on the bus, am I doing something wrong?
		
		please restate. i can't understand quite what you mean here.
		
		


	Ok, I have track(s) with recorded audio on it and buss(es) set up for effects. The track and buss outputs are to the inputs of the master out via the output button and the bottom of each strip. 
	I have a track setup to record the tracks and effects busses of this mix for this session (Audio12).
	
	When I set up a pre-fader send to a buss it will play fine and I can hear the effect, I record enable Audio12, but when I press master record and play, and start the transport, the busses go silent and are not included in the recording. I've tested this by selecting two tracks only (guitar and kick bass), activating the sends (which plays fine) then disconnecting the output of the tracks from the (input of the) master out so only the effects busses are audible, which worked as expected. When I pressed master record and start, the effects buses again went silent.
	I took it a little further and put a post-fader send from the master to the record track then I tried a post fader send from the buss to the record track but both went silent when I pressed record.
	
	So I'm not real sure what else I should do here or if I'm totally missing something, I know what I want to do, and it sounds right when I do it - it just won't record.
	
	What did work was when I set the buss input to the track output, when I disconnected the track output from the master it recorded the buss effect output ok, but this is not what i am after (huge as it sounds) as I'm trying to send track pre-fader audio to the buss for recording (to support the sound rather than overwhelm it with fx). 
	
	I tried piping the sound through jammin and back to my record track with much the same results but I'm still trying things here (plus I'm not ready to master yet). The same thing is happening when I use inserts. Maybe I could send a screenshot, it might clear some things up?
	
	I hope I made more sense this time around, if you need anymore detail let me know. 
	Thanks for responding.