As I’ve been using Ardour for a little while now, I would like some clarification on routing audio around in Ardour, as may be different from other DAW’s.
Specifically, I do a lot of parallel drum processing, where I’ll send a normal, unprocessed drum mix to a stereo drum mix buss (DrumDry). And then, make another drum mix with with only the items needed for the other processing; my DrumCrush buss for example.
How I used to do this, is each drum track had its output patch under the fader unassigned, or unpatched. Then I would create two post fader aux sends on each track - one for the DrumDryMix and the other for the parallel processing (DrumCrush). This works out well, but was thinking if there was another way that puts less items in the processing section of each track.
So, I tried this: For my main drum mix, each drum channel’s output would be patched to the DrumDry buss. Then I would only need one aux send for the needed items to be sent to the DrumCrush buss for parallel processing. This seems to work out well too.
Yet, the log file populates with a lot of lines stating a warning that a buss may already be in use. And, I have not confirmed yet if doing it this way has any negative affects on Ardour’s delay-compensation to keep things phase aligned.
Does it matter which way I do this, or is there a preferred method that keeps things aligned and proper?
Ardour 5 does not handle this particularly well as you are using busses which are not delay compensated. Ardour 6 improves upon this and should handle it fine from a standpoint of delay compensation.
That being said, I would be curious to see the warning lines if you can post them as from what you described I wouldn’t expect to see any issue.
I’m using all the current nightly builds as they come in. My old V5 never populated the log with such things.
So, for all the V6rc builds, my session’s logs populate with lines such as these:
One of my sessions –
2020-04-29T00:00:15 [WARNING]: aux send ID 1 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 9 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 2 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 3 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 9 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 2 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 3 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 9 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 2 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 3 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 2 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 3 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 9 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 2 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 3 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 9 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 2 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 3 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 9 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 2 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 3 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 9 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 2 appears to be in use already
2020-04-29T00:00:16 [WARNING]: aux send ID 3 appears to be in use already
Let’s see whether this works for you, though I’m not sure if I understood well your issue.
I’ll use Ardour 5 for this explanation, even if this also should work for 6rc and so.
We have three channels: Drums track and two busses.
Now press Alt+P and this will open a connections dialog.
Drums will be automatically routed to Master Bus. Choose sources from Ardour Tracks - to Ardour Busses destinations, as seen in the image below. All channels in stereo.
Then, route the track to the busses you want. Not to Master (as I understand), but yes to the other two busses.
Also you can right-click at the stub above “Comments” in the Mixer-type channel and this will open a similar dialog.
This way you save resources, but the send is post-all (post-fader, post all possible processors, post pan…) and you’re not able to send different levels to each bus, though you always will be able to change that volume on the bus.
