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7 <section id="sn-setting-up-to-record">
8 <title>Setting Up To Record</title>
10 This page needs massive work
14 It is very important that you check your system is connected and
15 configured correctly before attempting to record. See Hardware
16 Installation for more information on this topic.
19 <section id="setup-connections">
20 <title>Connections</title>
24 <section id="setup-levels">
29 <section id="setup-clipping">
30 <title>Clipping</title>
34 <section id="record-enabling-tracks">
35 <title>Record Enabling Tracks</title>
39 <section id="setup-monitoring">
40 <title>Monitoring</title>
42 While monitoring is a broad term, here we use it to refer to the
43 signal a track delivers to its channel for further processing. There
44 are two available monitoring states. These are 'input' (the signal
45 being delivered to a track for potential recording), and 'off-disk'
46 (material you have already recorded, or silence in the absence of a
51 <section id="setup-hardware-monitoring">
52 <title>Hardware Monitoring</title>
54 Some multichannel audio interfaces have the ability to route an input
55 signal directly to an output with very low or no latency. This is
56 useful if your computer hardware is connected to the tape sends and
57 returns of a mixing console. Whenever monitoring is set to input on a
58 track, the track's input port is connected to its output in hardware
59 (as would happen on a multitrack tape recorder). Hardware monitoring
60 provides the best quality assurance for an engineer, as the signal
61 path is exactly the same for input and off-disk monitoring. Level
62 differences can be heard immediately, as can other gremlins that may
63 ruin your recording. The hardware monitoring setting is only useful
64 for interfaces supporting this feature.
68 <section id="setup-software-monitoring">
69 <title>Software Monitoring</title>
71 Software monitoring uses software to perform input monitoring. When
72 set to monitor input, a tracks input signal is passed to its channel
73 as if it were coming from disk, allowing plugins to be heard while
74 recording. This introduces an inevitable processing delay, or latency,
75 to the input signal. The size of the delay depends on the current JACK
76 configuration, which should be set to as short as possible while
81 <section id="setup-latency">
82 <title>Latency</title>
86 <section id="setup-external-monitoring">
87 <title>External Monitoring</title>
89 External Monitoring will silence the output of a track whenever the
90 track is set to monitor input. It is useful if you are listening to
91 the input signal using a path outside your computer (eg a mixing
96 <section id="tape-machine-mode">
97 <title>Tape Machine Mode</title>
99 Nearly all traditional tape recorders use the same monitoring model.
100 Normally only tracks that are record-enabled will monitor input with
101 the transport stopped. Tape machine mode emulates this behaviour. Some
102 simpler machines (like a famous product by Alesis) switch all tracks
103 to input on stop when auto-input is enabled, regardless of
104 record-enable state. Disabling Tape Machine Mode switches to a
105 behaviour that mimics this type of recorder. Be warned that if you
106 disable Tape Machine Mode, many tracks sharing the same input (in
107 software monitoring mode) will sum that input through the master buss
108 (potentially including several plugins) whenever the transport is
109 stopped. Since setting up a sound usually involves listening to the
110 input with the transport stopped, you might not be hearing the sound
111 you are about to record! Disabling this mode can also lead to
112 surprising acoustic feedback. Tape Machine Mode is off by default.
116 <section id="setup-auto-input">
117 <title>Auto-Input</title>
119 When a track is record-enabled, it is set to monitor input regardless
120 of the transport state. Auto input switches to off-disk monitoring
121 when play is engaged. When Ardour is actually recording, the track
122 will be set to monitor input again. Auto-Input is useful for
123 performing punch-ins. Disable auto-input when performing 'dry runs' of
124 an overdub to allow a performer to hear themselves while the transport
129 <section id="setup-track-naming">
130 <title>Track Naming</title>
134 <section id="setup-default-names">
135 <title>Default names</title>
139 <section id="disk-allocation">
140 <title> Disk Allocation </title>
142 It is of course possible to use Ardour on a single-disk system, but
143 you are more likely to have performance problems this way.
147 If you have more than one disk available, we highly recommend using
148 one "system" disk and one or more "audio" disks.
151 <section id="using-the-system-disk">
152 <title>Using the system disk </title>
154 The "system" disk is the main disk on which your operating system
155 and (usually) all your installed software reside.
159 If you have any other disks available, it is usually
160 <emphasis>not</emphasis> advisable to put your Ardour session and
161 all its soundfiles on the main system disk. The reason is that this
162 disk may be used at any time by the OS or other programs and, if
163 Ardour is trying to play a large amount of disk data at that moment,
164 in the worst case this can cause Ardour's playback to stop
165 completely. (insert screenshot of error dialog here)
169 Even so, if you have only two disks (the system disk and your audio
170 disk), it is possible that a large session will reach the
171 performance limits of a single dedicated audio disk. In this case,
172 it may be better to put some audio data on the system disk as
173 described in the Soft RAID section below.
177 <section id="using-multiple-disks">
178 <title> Using Multiple Disks </title>
179 <section id="hardware-raid">
180 <title>Hardware RAID</title>
182 You can of course use a normal RAID disk array to spread data
183 across multiple disks. This is beyond the scope of this manual.
187 <section id="soft-raid-path">
188 <title>Ardour's "Soft" RAID Path</title>
190 It is possible to spread the resources for your Ardour session
191 across multiple disks. This can increase the number of tracks or
192 regions you can work with at once.
196 There is no reason to do this if your computer has only one disk.
200 To use the "soft RAID" feature, manually create a new directory on
201 another disk. Open the Options Editor window. Click on the
202 Paths/Files tab. In the "session RAID path" text box, you will see
203 that the default value is the path to the directory where your
204 current session lives. But this Session RAID Path can actually be
205 a colon-separated list of directories. To add your new directory
206 to this list, type a single colon after the existing Session RAID
207 Path, followed by the full path to the new directory. Ardour will
208 now record new tracks to either directory. (question: how does
209 ardour decide which files go where?)
213 You can squeeze some more disk performance out of an existing
214 session by following the above procedure, then manually moving
217 subdirectory of the existing session into a
219 subdirectory of your new directory. Be very careful when doing
220 this! If you accidentally delete these sound files, Ardour cannot
221 magically fix it for you.
226 If you use the "soft" RAID feature described above, take care to
227 remember this when making and restoring session backups! You
228 will not be happy if you forget to back up one of your data
229 directories; and restoring a backup won't work if you don't make
230 sure that the "Session RAID Path" setting corresponds to the
231 directories where you actually put the restored files.
238 <section id="recording-modes">
239 <title> Recording modes </title>
240 <section id="destructive-recording">
241 <title> destructive recording </title>
243 When creating tracks, there are 2 different options: Normal tracks
244 and Tape tracks. Tape tracks implement a "destructive" style of
245 recording that is useful when you will be making multiple recordings
246 to the same track, and you don't want to keep a separate "region" on
247 disk for each take. There is no undo function (yet) and there is no
248 way to edit a tape track (yet). So what is this good for? Well,
249 consider the case where you are doing a final mixdown of a project.
250 You could record-enable two Tape tracks, and send the master bus
251 output to these tracks. Every time you play through a section of the
252 project, the resulting mix will be recorded onto the continuous tape
253 track. Once you reach the end of the project, you can send the
254 resultant wav file directly to the next production step. There is no
255 "rendering" step required. The utility of this increases when you
256 are using an outboard, automated mixer. This type of recording is
257 very common on a film dubbing stage.
262 <section id="setup-loop-recording">
263 <title>loop recording</title>
267 <section id="setup-punch-recording">
268 <title>Punch Recording</title>
270 Once you have recorded material onto a track, the simplest way to
271 punch in (or drop in as it is known elsewhere) is to roll the
272 transport and press the master record button at the desired in point.
273 Assuming the desired track is record enabled, its monitoring state
274 will be switched and recording will begin. Pressing it again
275 disengages record. If repeatable punch-ins are required, you may use
280 <section id="setup-auto-punch">
281 <title>Auto Punch</title>
285 <section id="recording-with-a-click-track">
286 <title>Recording with a Click track</title>
290 <section id="the-click-track">
291 <title>The Click Track</title>
293 Enabling the click Routing the click Specifying click sounds Default
301 manual tempo tap tempo
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