[Ardour-Users] New user and 'large' projects

[John Emmas]

Hi Paul,

I don't know if your question was rhetorical but my original query was to do
with the concept of layers.  For example if a playlist contains 120
sequential regions, they can be split into as many as 120 distinct layers
but all the layers replay as long as the regions aren't mute.  Therefore
what purpose do the layers serve?  Why couldn't a playlist have just one
layer whose regions can either be transparent or opaque?  Only one opaque
region can be 'active' at any given point in time (with all simultaneous
regions considered mute) whereas any number of transparent regions can be
simultaneously active (depending on the hardware capabilities).  That would
seem to be a sensible arrangement to me - unless there's some particular
feature which layers facilitate that I haven't yet latched on to (which is
really my question.... what do layers achieve that you couldn't achieve
without them?)

For example at the moment, if I have 2 x overlapped (transparent) regions
which are both on layer 0, playing over them doesn't sound the same as if
the first region is on layer 0 and the second on layer 1.  Obviously the
layers are being taken into account but I don't understand what affect
they're having or why they're needed.  Are they there to facilitate the
graphical display maybe?  I don't know - I'm just asking the question.

Hope that makes more sense.

John



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Davis" <paul at linuxaudiosystems.com>
To: "John Emmas" <johne53 at tiscali.co.uk>
Cc: "ardour-users" <ardour-users at lists.ardour.org>
Sent: 27 December 2007 16:34
Subject: Re: [Ardour-Users] New user and 'large' projects


> On Wed, 2007-12-26 at 09:05 +0000, John Emmas wrote:
>> I assume that this probably isn't the intended behaviour but it raises
>> the
>> quesion:-  why have layering at all?  What is its purpose?
>
> What else do you see happening when a user moves one region over
> another?
>
>