[Ardour-Users] MIDI recording workflow

[Nando]

Yup, well I preferred the audio track after the bus so you can record the
effects and disable them when working with the "rendered" audio.

My doubt comes when I assume that muting a track disables all processing and
lighten the CPU load. It's not that crazy right?

Thx!

On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 11:32 PM, fred <f.rech at yahoo.fr> wrote:

> **
>
>
> Le 20/07/2011 22:11, Nando a écrit :
>
> Hi!
>
>  I'm trying to establish a workflow that's useful for me. I have a MIDI
> keyboard and jack soft synths like Yoshimi.
>
>  I want to be able to record MIDI and work with effects over the generated
> audio. My idea is to have maximum "editability" (can you say that? hehe), so
> I clearly prefer saving MIDI info to just saving the output to an audio
> track. OTOH, when the project gets big, I like to "render" that MIDI info,
> or in other words, save the output of the synth to an audio track so its
> easier for the hardware to play. If I need to change something, I just
> discard the rendered audio data and use the MIDI info again.
>
>  To achieve this (for each softsynth in the project) I was creating a MIDI
> and an audio track, and routing them like this:
>
>  MIDI Kbd --> MIDI track --> Synth --> Audio track --> Master
>
>  But... I have a problem here. I just can't hear the output of the synth
> when I need to.
>
>  When recording the MIDI notes from the keyboard, I can only hear my
> playing record-enabling the audio track, and thus recording both MIDI and
> audio. I can hear my playing when the transport is stopped though.
>
>  When playing already recorded notes, it is not possible to hear them.
>
>  The MIDI track it's doing its job well, because the output of the track
> (recorded notes AND notes played on the kbd) are flowing towards the Synth,
> which is generating the audio.
>
>  Then we get to the audio track, as if we where recording, say, a
> guitar. The described behavior is when "Record monitoring handled by" is set
> to "ardour" in the prefs. If set to "audio hardware", I just never get any
> sound, except when playing audio data previously recorded in the audio
> track. With "Tape Machine Mode" on (which I'm not sure to understand), the
> behavior is the same, except that when the transport is stopped, I only hear
> sound from the record armed tracks (which might be useful, so I've left it
> like that).
>
>  So, I guess I understand the problem. When you're recording a guitar, you
> don't want to hear the hum or anything from the guitar when playing the
> recorded audio, so it makes sense that it mutes the input when playing. In
> my case, when I'm recording MIDI notes, the audio track is playing so it
> mutes the input and I can't monitor. When playing back it's the same.
>
>  The only solution I see is to put a bus in between the tracks, and route
> it like follows:
>
>  *MIDI Kbd --> MIDI track --> Synth --> Audio Bus --> Audio track -->
> Master...*
> *                                                \_________________/*
>
>  Here we have the same routing as before, but with the bus in the middle,
> and an extra connection from the bus to Master. In that way, if I want the
> recorded audio I can mute the MIDI track and/or the bus, and If I want the
> keyboard or the recorded MIDI data I can mute the audio track.
>
>  This solution also takes effects into account. They are set on the bus,
> so they'll be "rendered" and recorded on the audio track, and they get
> disabled (with the bus) when using the recorded audio.
>
>  Given that muting the bus and the MIDI track really lower processor
> usage, this approach would work. The only problem would be that it starts to
> get cumbersome... 2 tracks + a bus for every synth part you use can get
> difficult to browse and manage. I was experimenting with grouping, narrow
> tracks strips, track heights and hiding, but it's still cumbersome.
>
>  Any idea?
>
> Maybe Synth to Bus & Track and the two of them to master ?
>
> I'm on the same problem these last days...
>
> HTH, let me know please,
> Fred
>
>
>  Thanks!!
>
>
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