Feature Request : Group Templates

https://tracker.ardour.org/view.php?id=5691

It would be a great improvement to workflow to have this feature!

It would be nice to have Group templates that would allow tracks and busses to be quickly added to a project. I am sometimes using the same setups for reverb(s), guitars, synths, drums. I have projects I would like to export some of the groups from to be used in other projects as well.

I had thought of creating a large template, and deleting what is not needed, but that would likely turn into a CPU hog of a session and take a long time just to load.

Thoughts ?

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You should already be able to do this using Session templates, just setup your project with all your tracks and busses, remove any audio/midi clips and/or automation from it save it as a session template and next time you launch Ardour then open the saved template and it will open with all your tracks and your plugins.

No. I want to add specific group templates to existing sessions.

While you are not incorrect it isn’t quite the same as say, having a Drum Group Template that brings in a standard 8-16 piece drum kit, takes care of routing to busses for processing and parallel compression, etc. a Background Vocals Group, that takes care of dropping inreverbs etc. and compbining these and others to build a session from the ground up. This works better when you aren’t working with the same instruments repeatedly, as opposed to session templates which work better if you are working with the same band or instrumentation repeatedly.

 Seablade
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To have someyhing like that would be very nice
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hm. This does sound interesting.

Regarding this, along with @jmantra suggestion about Session Template, I’m not sure about the fears you have about load times nor cpu usage, but can one create a session with all the bells and whistles turned on that you want, but then deactivate all the tracks, then save the session template? Then you can go in and re-activate any desired tracks, and ignore or delete any undesirables? I’m not sure how Ardour behaves in that scenario.

Depending on the requirements, it might be possible to script a solution using Lua.

At one point, I was contemplating a Lua-based “session template” for the Virtual Playing Orchestra, with a little GUI at the start to allow selecting the sections / instruments / articulations to include. I punted then because of an issue, I believe since fixed by @x42, preventing setting up an instrument plugin on a new MIDI track.

That is a good idea worth trying.

With the ability to have a group template, it would be easier to add to an existing session though. Mostly for on-the-fly ideas.

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