One thing I really wished Ardour could have to optimize it for podcaster-use, is a clip-list.
Like one can have in Pro Tools or in Hindenburg - a panel on the right side of the screen, where I can “ctrl + drag” any clips to - maybe even import files straight into, and rename them.
That would be a massive improvement for someone like me: a podcaster that makes bigger montage/reportages with a lot of tape to navigate. But I’d imagine it’d be for others too, since Avid put it in their awfully proprietary machine. (I dopn’t own it, just wanted to see what it could do that ardour couldn’t. The clip-list was the only feature I found to be really worthwile).
Can anybody relate to this for a feature-request?
And if so, do you know how to make it an official request? (I’ve no knowledge of bug-tracker/feature requests).
Thank you in advance for any response! Also any viable workarounds, other than moving everything far off to the right of the screen and pick it back, are welcome
The source list seems to be kind of like this: it lists all the files that you’ve imported to your session, whether you’ve used them or not, and you can either drag them into your timeline or select the one you want and type “i” to insert it. I think of it as a clip library that I can pull from as needed.
Go to “View” and choose “Show Editor List” and then look for the “Sources” tab.
When you import files, one of the options is to import it to the source list rather than to a specific track.
Thanks for the tip! - I just checked it out, and while this indeed is a good beginning, and even placed in the right place (UI-wise) the “Sources List” method misses two key features for me:
1: The ability to rename the files from the list. (and to play them back from there would be cool too)
2: the ability to hold actual clippings from the long files in the tracks (like a handful of good quotes from a two-hour interview)
Ardour doesn’t really do “file names”. The things that have names are Regions (and in fact, the Sources List is technically a list of Regions that are slightly special in that they represent the whole file(s) they refer to. Because file names are not generally important inside Ardour other than as a starting point for naming regions, we don’t offer a way to rename files, and because these specific “whole file” regions are intended to act as proxies for the files, you can’t rename them either. Once a region is in the region list or in a playlist (i.e. in a track), you can rename them from there.
I don’t understand that this one means, or what it is you want to do but cannot do at present.
I suppose you could do this with ranges, and you’ll see that you can find all the ranges in your tracks in the Editor List as well.
What you’re asking for is very similar to what an NLE (video editor) does: you have a media library and from there you can select ranges and assign them names or star them as favorites. You can create named ranges in Ardour that would function similarly to this, but you can only create ranges in regions that are on your tracks.
thanks for the reply.
Sorry for the confusion. I might not be using the correct terminology.
1: That I can understand then. I’d just like to be able to rename the clips held in my imaginary “Clip-list” (the one I’d like to see in ardour). Like, for instance, if I have imported a long file from a tho hour interview about i.e. coffee-tables into my DAW, and then go through it picking the places where the person interviewed says relevant stuff regarding oak coffee tables (might be one placed at 0:33:00 and one placed at 01:56:11) - then in the “Clip list” (NB: the one I imagine, not the “region list”, I could call the first clip Oak-tables 1 and the second Oak tables 2, or something like that, so they’d be easily found again and dragged onto the tracks for the montage.
2: I would like for the “Clip list” (again, referring to my imagined feature, not the current suggested solution of the sources list) to only hold or refer to the clips I’ve selected from the imported tracks, so I’d be able to do as described above, and then later browse the selected regions and drag them back in to the different tracks.
Cheers. This might be a viable solution. I’ll try that right away!
I thought I’d tried that before, actually, but might have done something wrong the first time around.
Maybe not, though, because the ranges list doesn’t show the ranges’ names, only their times. Whoops, actually it does but you have to drag out the editor list window quite a way to the left in order to see them. But you can see them!
wow, yeah!
Nice! - I still miss the ability to cut/copy the selected ranges, hold them somewhere and put them back in, though. This just lets me navigate the track, it seems. I’d still have to put all the useful clips far off to the left, and move them back once I need them, risking to mess up other transitions along the way.
Could you just make a track for your “useful clips” and give them all marker names or range names? Then you’d have a track full of keepers that you can just drag down to other tracks as needed. You can keep the track hidden until you need it.
The region list would have everything but I think Lindisfarne wants an easily accessible collection of “favorites” or best clips. As I mentioned above, this is how NLEs work: you have a media library (equivalent to the sources list in Ardour) and from there you determine which regions (aka clips) will be added to your project, and then you review your clips and create named ranges, assigning keywords or marking them as favorites. Those are the clips that will make it into your video.
I could see how this workflow could be useful for podcasting. Some video editors will do a stringout of favorite clips on one track that they can then copy/paste or drag/drop into their timeline. So that might be handier than having to navigate through the region list or even a range or marker list.
I suppose I’m unclear what these favorites are. Introductory voice over and music? Bullets and filler audio? They presumably are not taken from the actual contents of a given podcast, because I would not think you would re-use them. If you’re editing new per-episode material, why not just edit in a track? Why go through the extra step of putting things that are the actual new material in a separate list?
I think the key is in Lindisfarne’s item number 2 above “the ability to hold actual clippings from the long files in the tracks (like a handful of good quotes from a two-hour interview)”
I have about 30 hours of video from which I’m building a one-hour documentary. Having the ability to create named ranges and favorites is indispensable. I think that’s what Lindisfarne is after and I do think it’s possible to recreate this in Ardour with ranges and markers but those items have to be on your “timeline” first (you need to put them on a track or tracks). In an NLE you can create those ranges and favorites on items that are not actually in your timeline, and I think Lindisfarne was hoping for something similar where you could create a collection of favorite clips in a bin.
You have a source viewer in an NLE that allows you to view any clip in your project and create ranges in it without dropping it into your timeline (kind of like how Ardour allows you to listen to files in the import window). You can assign names or keywords to those ranges, making it easy to find, for example, every clip that has a statue in it, or every clip that is an interview, or every clip that is b-roll of a beach. You can create smart bins that automatically organize all your clips by keywords, so all the clips that show a beach are automatically organized into a bin, making them easy to find when you’re assembling your timeline and you need a shot of a beach.
You can also mark clips as favorites or “good takes,” which makes finding your best material easy.
Thanks for clarifying! This sounds exactly like what I’m looking for.
My podcasts are more related to the audio documentary style of shows like “This American Life” than it is to the shows where a number of people are sat around a table, talking.
This has been my solution until now (minus the hidden part, I’ll try that now ), but we have had to use another DAW for work, called Hindenburg, that had this other feature - the list -, and I really fell for this nice and tidy way to keep my favourited/picked clips in view, while I was working on the tape.Then I also discovered that Pro Tools had it, so I figured it might be useful for musicians too somehow.
In Hindenburg they call it “Clip Board” - as described in this video: Hindenburg tutorial - Organize - YouTube (video prompted to start where he describes what it is).
Thanks for the persistence! I have now learned a bit more about the region list (range list was a bad one), and it does seem to go a long way in this regard Especially when used in tandem with Bhurleys suggestion that I quoted here also.
The list is more bloated and the process is a bit less easy than in Hindenburg (the latter maybe just a question of practice) but it keeps me using Free Software, and for that I am grateful
Especially when used in tandem with Bhurleys suggestion that I quoted here also.