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7 <section id="sn-what-is-different-about-ardour">
8 <title>What's Different about Ardour</title>
10 If you are someone who has used other audio software, particularly
11 software generally referred to as a Digital Audio Workstation (or
12 "DAW"), then there will be a number of things about Ardour that may
13 puzzle you on your initial and early encounters with the program.
16 <section id="no-default-session">
17 <title>No default session</title>
19 You must explicitly create a
20 <glossterm linkend="gt-session">Session</glossterm> before you can do
21 anything else, and if you choose not to use one of the provided
22 <glossterm linkend="gt-session-template">session templates</glossterm>
23 , you will also have to create
24 <glossterm linkend="gt-track">tracks</glossterm> and
25 <glossterm linkend="gt-bus">busses</glossterm> in order to record
26 and/or edit existing audio material.
30 <section id="where-do-plugins-and-sends-go">
31 <title>Where do plugins and sends go?</title>
33 Ardour doesn't have any fixed number of "slots" for
34 <glossterm linkend="gt-plugin">plugins</glossterm>, or
35 <glossterm linkend="gt-send">sends</glossterm>, or
36 <glossterm linkend="gt-insert">inserts</glossterm> : you can have as
37 many per-track as your system has the horsepower handle. The two black
38 boxes above and below the mixer strip's gain fader are
39 <glossterm linkend="gt-redirect">redirect</glossterm> lists where you
40 can add, reorder, remove and generally control plugins, sends, and
41 inserts, both pre- and post-fader.
45 <section id="no-builtin-eq">
46 <title>No builtin EQ</title>
48 Most people don't think much of the EQ's built into other DAWs.
49 Moreover, you cannot meaningfully do equalization with 3 knobs marked
50 "Lo", "Mid" and "Hi". Since good-quality EQ plugins are available for
51 no-cost on Linux, Ardour prefers to allow you to choose one which you
52 prefer. Of course, you can save your session configurations as
53 templates, so if you have a particular EQ that you prefer, you only
58 <section id="a-smaller-set-of-tools">
59 <title>A smaller set of tools</title>
61 Most DAWs have evolved towards providing the so-called "smart tool"
62 which allows you to use the mouse for several different kinds of
63 operations without changing to a different tool. Ardour has taken this
64 approach from the beginning, so that the "Object" tool actually allows
65 you to carry out many different operations depending on how and where
66 the mouse is used. Ardour does not provide a destructive "pencil" tool
67 as some other DAWs do, for some fairly deep technical reasons. Needing
68 to use a "pencil" tool for waveform repair nearly always indicates a
69 problem with the setup of your session and/or recording hardware. The
70 different tools that ardour does offer include the "Object" tool which
71 has many different uses including region trimming/moving/copying,
72 automation editing, and more; a "Range" tool for defining ranges of
73 time; a "TimeFX" tool for timestretching; a "Gain" tool used
74 exclusively for editing region gain envelopes; and a "Zoom" tool to
75 manipulate temporal zoom. Many other operations are accessible via
76 context menus or <link linkend="sn-key-bindings">keyboard
79 a href="/manual/intro/mouse_and_keyboard">keyboard bindings/a
85 <section id="no-restrictions-on-track-io-configuration">
86 <title>No restrictions on track I/O configuration</title>
88 Tracks and busses in ardour do not come in pre-determined
89 configurations. You can create a mono track, and convert it to a
90 stereo track at any time. You can convert it to a track with 3 inputs
91 and 7 outputs if you want, because Ardour also doesn't restrict track
92 I/O configurations to a fixed set of mono/stereo/5.1/7.1 etc. In
93 addition, because of Ardour's use of
94 <link linkend="sn-configuring-jack">JACK</link> , a track with one
95 input can actually receive data from many different locations. You can
96 also connect any track to any number of other tracks and busses. In
97 Ardour, the only difference between a track and a bus is that a track
98 plays back pre-recorded material from your disk drives and can record
99 to them. Both tracks and busses can have plugins, sends, inserts,
100 automation data and more.
104 <section id="your-audio-hardware-is-not-the-only-io-option">
105 <title>Your audio hardware is not the only I/O option</title>
107 Because Ardour uses <glossterm linkend="gt-jack">JACK</glossterm> ,
108 your session isn't limited to receiving and sending audio to and from
109 your audio interface. It can freely send and receive audio signals to
110 any other JACK application, in some cases even JACK applications
111 running on other computers. On the one hand, this makes understanding
112 the I/O options for a track or bus a little more complex than in a
113 conventional program, but it also adds incredible power to Ardour, as
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