external effect processors

Can I use external effect processors like jack-rack, ams and jconv for adding effects on tracks in Ardour? How?

thanks… audio inserts… I’ll think I’ve to take a look in the manual for that…

yes, use ardour inserts for that.

no big deal :

in the track signal flow, it’s like creating a deviation that forks outside from point A and comes back to point A. In this outside loop, the signal is processed by the external proc. I think it’s called aux and return on h/w mixers but I never used one so it’s only a guess.

In ardour, choose where you want to place the insert, e.g. either in the track prefader or postfader area depending on your needs, and create an insert object (right click, insert). Then, connect the insert’s OUTs to your external proc’s INs and insert’s INs to external proc’s OUTs. And then, activate the insert from the context menu. Very easy. You can deactivate it, which will bypass the insert loop. If you want to visualize your master bus final signal in realtime and master it a bit, you can use Jamin as an insert in the master bus post fader. This will allow you to export the whole ardour session with this external effect.

I think it’s called aux and return on h/w mixers but I never used one so it’s only a guess.

On hw mixers it’s called inserts as well. Aux is what is called “send” in ardour. The difference is that the insert is routed back into the same track whereas aux sends are not.

Aux sends could be used for monitoring (pre fader) or for effects (post fader) - e.g. a reverb you would like to apply to multiple tracks without having to put an effect plugin in every single track. You would create a bus, put the effect(s) there, then route the sends to that bus and the bus outputs to the master.

If using external effects (software or even hardware, if you are running real low latency) you could route the sends to those and then route the effects back to a bus or maybe even the master directly.

It depends on the kind of effect if you want/need to use inserts or sends. Compressors, gates etc. should be inserted, whereas you usually would use a send for reverbs, echoes etc.