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6 <chapter id="ch-using-existing-audio">
7 <title>Using Existing Audio</title>
9 There are two primary ways to bring data into Ardour: recording it
10 within a session from a live sound source or importing pre-existing
11 audio files. This section covers the various ways to import audio into a
15 <section id="importing-and-embedding">
16 <title>Importing and Embedding</title>
18 Importing and embedding are two different methods of using existing
19 audio files on your computer (or network file system) within a
20 session. They differ in one key respect:
25 <term>Importing</term>
28 An existing audio file is copied to the session's sounds folder,
29 and is converted into the session's native format (WAVE or
30 Broadcast WAVE depending on your choice) and sample rate. At
31 this time, no control over the conversion process is offered. If
32 sample rate conversion is required, it will be carried out at
33 the highest quality that Ardour can provide. This means that it
34 can be rather slow (many minutes to import an audio file lasting
41 <term>Embedding</term>
44 An existing audio file is used as a the source for a region, but
45 is not copied or modified in any way.
52 <section id="supported-external-audio-file-formats">
53 <title>Supported External Audio File Formats</title>
55 The list of audio file formats that Ardour can import/embed is quite
56 long. It is based on the functionality offered by libsndfile, an
57 excellent and widely used software library by Australian programmer
58 Erik de Castro Lopo. As libsndfile's capabilities expand, so will
59 Ardour's abilities to import (and export) new formats. Ogg/Vorbis (an
60 excellent, unpatented and license free audio compression format
61 similar to MP3) is planned for the near future. Currently, supported
92 Paris Audio File (PAF)
134 Portable Voice Format
152 Sample encodings supported include:
158 Unsigned and signed 8, 16, 24 and 32 bit PCM
164 IEEE 32 and 64 floating point
224 <section id="using-audio-files">
225 <title>Using audio files as tracks or regions?</title>
227 When you want to use existing audio files in an Ardour session, the
228 first choice you need to make is whether you want to bring the files
229 in as tracks or as new regions. Consider the two following scenarios:
235 you have an 8 track recording of existing material, with 1 audio
242 you have a sample library containing 500 small audio files
248 In the first case, your goal is probably to have 8 tracks (at least),
249 with each track containing a single audio file. In the second case,
250 its a lot more likely that you simply want to be able to use any of
251 the samples easily, but do not want any tracks created as a direct
252 result of the import/embed. It is very important that you understand
253 this distinction: many new users think there should be a "simple" way
254 to import existing audio without understanding that the goal of
255 importing/embedding is not always the same.
259 Ardour provides two different options when importing. You can
260 import/embed audio files as new tracks, or you can import/embed them
261 into the region list, where they will be available as regions to put
262 into new or existing tracks. You can also insert import/embed audio
263 files directly into an existing track.
267 <section id="how-to-import-embed">
268 <title>How to import/embed</title>
270 There are three pathways for importing/embedding an audio file into a
271 session. One is initiated from the File menu, one is initiated from
272 the track context menu, and one is initiated from the region list.
273 These methods are all equivalent: they open the file import dialog.
274 Once the dialog is open, you can choose to add new audio as new
275 tracks, as regions in the region list, or as audio in the selected
276 track. You can change this behavior once the dialog is opened.
282 If you want to import a file directly into an existing track, you
283 must have the track selected in the editor before beginning the
287 If you use Nautilus as your file manager, you can easily import files
288 into your project by dragging them onto the desired track, then
289 releasing the mouse button. The file will then be
291 linkend="gt-embed">embedded</link> into your session.
295 <section id="how-to-embed-a-file">
296 <title>Working with Tags</title>
298 A "tag" is bit of information, or <emphasis>metadata</emphasis>, that
299 is associated with a data file. Specifically, tags are keywords or
300 terms that you feel have some relevance to a particular soundfile.
301 Ardour can store these tags in a seachable database so that you can
302 quickly search for sounds based on the tags that you have assigned to
303 them. For example you can assign the term "120bpm" to a sound, and
304 then when you search for this tag, the file will appear in the search
305 list. Tags are independent of the filename or anything else about the
306 file. Tags, and the file paths that they are associated with, are
307 stored in a file called "sfdb" in your Ardour user folder.
310 <section id="embedding-via-the-region-list">
311 <title>Adding tags to a file</title>
315 Select a file in the import dialog.
320 Enter the tags in the box to the right labeled "Tags".
325 Tags are stored when the input box loses focus, there is no reason
326 to explicitly "save" them.
330 <section id="embedding-from-a-track">
331 <title>Searching for files using tags</title>
335 Select the "Search Tags" tab on the import dialog.
340 Enter the tag(s) to search for and press "Search".
345 Files which have been "tagged" with the input terms will appear in
346 the results window. You can audition these files and apply tags to
347 them from this window.
352 <section id="searching-freesound">
353 <title>Searching Freesound for soundfiles (optional)</title>
355 Freesound (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/) is an online database with
356 thousands of soundfiles which can be freely used in many projects
357 (visit Freesound for the exact licensing terms). Ardour has an option
358 to download files directly from freesound directly from the import
359 dialog. Freesound files are tagged with metadata which you can use to
360 search for relevant sounds.
364 To enable the Freesound search engine inside Ardour, you must build
365 Ardour with the option FREESOUND=yes, and you must have the "curl"
366 library installed. This is currently optional but may later become a
367 standard feature of Ardour.
371 To download files from Freesound, you must first register for a
372 username and password on the freesound website. Enter this information
373 into the text entry boxes, enter your tags to search for, and then
374 click "Start Downloading". Ardour will begin downloading files, and
375 the "Start Downloading" button will change to say "Cancel". Clicking
376 the "Cancel" button will wait until the currently downloading file is
377 finished, then the button will switch back to "Start Downloading". The
378 button will also say "Start Downloading" once Ardour has downloaded
379 all of the files that match the given tag. In the future there may be
380 better indication of the file progress and better filtering on the
381 filetypes that are downloaded.
385 If you later search for the same terms, you will see that the files
386 appear in the list more quickly, because any files in the search set
387 that are already downloaded won't have to be downloaded again.
391 Sounds that are downloaded from Freesound will automatically be given
392 tags in Ardour that match their tags in the Freesound database. This
393 means that once they are downloaded, Ardour can search for the local
394 files very quickly using the "Search Tags" tab.
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