I did a recording session, made 10 snapshots (one for each take) and everything looked fine. No errors, no problems.
Now I wanted to edit these recordings and Ardour couldn’t find all audio files except from the first two and the last snapshot.
I’m running Ardour 8.11.0 (flatpak) on Debian 13. And I’m using a NTFS partition as storage location for the sessions. When I open Ardour it logs “WARNING: Your system has a limit for maximum amount of locked memory!”. Could that have something to do with the problem?
I can’t really use this program as long as I’m not sure if I lose a lot of work on a bad day. Therefor I would really appreciate if you could help me find the problem.
I’ve found the problem. My workflow was the following:
Record
“Snapshot (& switch to new version)”
“Discard last take” to empty the timeline.
I was not aware, that the “Discard last take” button removes the take from EVERYWHERE (also previous saved snapshots). Is this wanted behavior?
I thought that the “Discard last take” button removes all regions from the timeline so I don’t have to do it manually, but DOES NOT impact previously saved snapshots.
Is there a way to empty the timeline without impacting other snapshots?
What’s the reason for taking snapshots while recording?
Snapshots are mostly intended for mixing and arranging; if you need to go back to a previous version and compare with the current one.
It effectively creates a separate backup of your .ardour xml file so you can go back to older settings and edits if you want.
To quote the manual : "For example, creating a snapshot before changing the entire arrangement of a piece, or drastically altering the signal processing provides a reference to come back to, should that not work out. " :
The manual says this about “Discard last take” : "deletes the last finished recording(s), effectively removing the audio file(s) from the hard drive, hence destructive. " :
“Your system has a limit for maximum amount of locked memory” is a warning that you haven’t allowed Ardour unlimited memory.
Unless your system allows for a very limited amount of locked memory it’s usually not a problem but you may want to have a look at this :
I’ve done this workflow before, but merely selected everything and used the delete key. I suspect the problem arises because audio and midi regions are essentially pointers to a physical file, and the “discard last take” is actively removing that physical file…as such all references to it will become broken.
I think it’s probably best to use that feature specifically in the case of an obvious mistake while tracking, rather than a convenience feature like this. The current behavior makes a lot of sense in proper context, I think, to help alleviate clutter build-up.
That said, there is a whole set of project session clean up features too, so maybe there is some way to make this behave differently if it can recognize that it is being used in a snapshot that was not the original snapshot that recorded that take.
Based on Peder’s response though, I suspect you and I were looking to use these tools in “the wrong way” for the sake of convenience…but it does indeed make sense to me to do it this way while tracking too. In my current workflow, I’ve opted to use a template file and “Save As…” instead for a similar end result.
I use snapshots quite intensely and I think that they are just perfect for your use case, despite of what manual says they are meant for. The problem, like Peder said, is that “Discard last take” operates at files level, whereas you don’t want to delete files you only want to delete your regions on the timeline.
Your workflow could be something like this:
Record
Create & switch to new snapshot
Select all regions (Ctrl+A should do the trick) and delete them
Optionally add or delete tracks (which is harmless for the previous snapshots)
Discard does indeed delete files from disk. It is the only directly destructive action:
I’ll change the dialog to reflect that the files are indeed removed from disk.
But the snapshot situation is tricky. Likely the best option is to no longer allow “Discard” after the session is saved (either as snapshot, or explicitly the current snapshot).
I already thought that my use of the snapshot feature is not exactly like intended. It’s just a fast workflow: Because I don’t need to edit much, I can do editing and exporting of 10 recordings in short time while staying in the same project.
I probably should check the template & save as feature as @NicroHobak said.
It’s convenient to use the “Discard Last Take” button instead of Ctrl + A and Del because I can stay in the Recording View the whole time. Maybe it would be better if this button only deletes the source file when no region points to it (in any snapshot).
Or if this button has the exact same behavior as deleting all regions from the timeline (so it would be just the Ctrl + A and Del equivalent of the Recording View) - this would also make it possible to undo the change and the popup can be removed. For clean-up from discarded recording files we could add a button that removes all these files that have no region pointing to it. No matter if the region was removed by selecting and Del or the “Discard Last Take” button.
Templates are great, and essentially just as if you opened a brand new blank project with the exact same track layout and everything except the content itself. Saving a template is really quick and easy to do as well. It’s similar to using a starter template file and then using Save as..., but the core difference is whether or not you need the previous content in any way.
For example, I started a MIDI-based project template and included some quick cut&paste material in the pre-roll (scales and chords and a few drum patterns)…so for this template, since it intentionally contains content, it can’t just be a true template…so it’s a Save as... scenario instead. However, when I’m setting up a typical recording session, real templates are basically perfect as you can start with a generic template to get you started, and once it’s tailored for your band/session you can then just save that new template for each track.
From all of my testing like this, whether or not you need initial content is the difference. Proper templates are indeed the way to go for most things though, I believe.
