[Ardour-Users] Hm...

[Paul Davis]

On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 10:19 AM, David Kastrup <dak at gnu.org> wrote:
>
> I wish I had made a desktop recording of the last three hours or so.  I
> am a new user to ardour2.
>
> Task: take a recorded WAV file, crop a piece away from the beginning,
> pick a point of time where one starts fading out, pick a point of time
> where the fade out is complete (alternatively, just pick the point of
> time where the fadeout starts and specify a fadeout length).
>
> Save the result from the chosen start position to the end of the
> fadeout.
>
> Would you believe that I have not managed yet?  I am amassing project
> directories, since not even "quit without saving" is working: invariable
> a _lot_ of the previous failed project is saved and interferes with the
> new attempt.
>
> So far the only gain adjustment I have found to be possible is from
> start of project to end (meaning that the fadeout starts at the
> beginning of the recording).
>
> It is, in general, impossible to click on any graphical element with the
> intent to change/move/whatever it.  You first, if at all, have to change
> some internal ardour modes around (with obscurely named mode switcher
> buttons or menu entries elsewhere) to facilitate the desired operation.

This is false.

If you'd like help with using Ardour, how about you start by simply
describing what you want to do, and then ask for help, rather than
offering inaccurate assessments of what is possible and what is not.

Do you understand that Ardour is a DAW and not a soundfile editor? You
can certainly do what you described, and do it very easily. But you
are apparently imagining the kind of operation that would occur in a
soundfile editor such as Audacity, and that's generally quite a
different thing.

> I had to restart jack+ardour even in order to manipulate a 44.1kHz file
> when jack happened to run at 48kHz sampling frequency.

What do you propose should happen otherwise? Automatic resampling
because you chose not to pay attention to the most fundamental aspect
of digital audio that exists? Ardour isn't a single-file editor - why
would it pay any attention to the SR of a particular file that you
import, and switch its audioengine rate because of it?

> This does not make much user interface design sense.  If I want to
> manipulate the operation at a certain graphic element, I don't want to
> have to move the mouse elsewhere in order to switch into some mode where
> this is even possible.

there is never any need to do this. first of all, all mouse modes are
accessible via keyboard bindings and secondly, no mouse mode changes
are required to do what you describe.

you just haven't read the manual, and expect things to be as they
would be in a soundfile editor. i suggest that you either start with

  http://en.flossmanuals.net/Ardour/WorkingWithRegions

or consider using a soundfile editor like Audacity or Rezound or Sweep
etc., since that appears to be a more appropriate tool for what you
want to do (not that Ardour can't do it, its just not its primary task
and so it may not be quite so obvious what is going on).

--p