I have three mono tracks. I need to collapse them into a new single mono track, and then delete the three original source tracks. How to do this?
Create an new mono track.
Make your existing tracks be inputs of the newly created one.
Arm the new track for recording.
Record.
I would also ask why you need to perform this specific action.
It’s more normal to mix the tracks, but keep the individual tracks.
If, for example, you were trying to create a mix of all three tracks as a wav file to send to someone else, you can do this simply by running a standard export. The result will be a single export file containing the 3 tracks mixed together, but you retain the 3 individual tracks in Ardour.
You would not, in this case, need to create a separate combined track. Your project would have the 3 tracks and the master bus and that is all.
Cheers,
Keith
No need to record.
Drag (possibly with the primary modifier (Ctrl or Command) to make a copy) the regions from each mono track onto a new track (or one of the existing tracks), layering them as desired. Done.
Thanks Robert. Yeah, that’s kind of what I’ve been doing except I make the connections in Qjack. It works… The only problem with this process is if your session is five minutes long, it takes five minutes. I was hoping for a few mouse clicks and 20 seconds. There must be another way.
Keith,
I am primarily a guitar player, not much of a bass player. My task is to collapse mutiple bass tracks into a single bass track.
I have three separate mono bass tracks, each track having multiple entities, none of which represent a complete bassline. The goal is to collapse all three bass tracks into a single entity in a single track which represents a complete bass line, and then delete the three original source tracks.
Today the task is bass, but tomorrow it could be keyboards or even flute or harmonica. I’m kind of the utility infielder of the band. I’m just okay at a lot of things but not really great at most of them. Collapsing multiple tracks together allows me to create a track which I can give to a real bass player or keyboard player as a starting point for a real track.
Paul,
Interesting. My only concern with this idea is maintaining alignment of the entities along the timeline. When I drag an entity from one track to another, is there any way to lock its position along the timeline so that is does not slide forward or backward in time? If so, that would be perfect.
Thank you for giving me the details of your use-case. It seems your aim is to consolidate multiple instrument tracks into a single track?
What I’m not 100% clear of is whether you want all of these tracks in their entirety combined (so, for example, as if there were multiple bass players playing different, overlapping parts), or if you are trying to get a single “take” by taking bits of each bass track and combining them into a single track that sounds like a single bass player, using the best bits of each track.
By the way, the latter is called “comping”.
It sounds a bit like you have already done the “comping” on each track and have a bunch of regions (I think this is what you mean by “entities” on each track which, when combined, gives you a whole track?)
If this is the case, I would like to suggest some different workflow, practices, and tips which might make things easier, both now and in the future.
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One easy way to combine three (or more) “complete” tracks is to create a new audio bus, and then set the output of each track to the input of the bus. The output of the bus then goes to the master bus and represents all three tracks combined.
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If you want to, you can then hide the 3 tracks - there no need to delete them. In fact, deleting material is not something you should generally do, as there’s no knowing when you may want to come back and do something with it. Ardour (like many DAWs) is “non-destructive” meaning it’s possible to do things without destroying the original source material.
To hide the tracks, in the Edit view, press CTRL-L to get the Editor List (if it’s not already visible), select the “Tracks& Busses” tab and click the tick box against the V (visible) column:
Then you can just act as if the three original tracks no longer exist, but they are still there if you need to bring them back for any reason.
By the way, this bussing technique is most appropriate for instruments where you may have multiple tracks for the same instrument, such as an electric guitar that has multiple mics on the cabinet, or a drum kit which may have multiple mic for different parts of the kit. It allows you to create a “submix” which is a local mix of those individual tracks into a single bus representing the instrument. That can even include stereo panning.
- When “comping”, rather than recording each take into a separate track, it’s usually easier to record them all into the same track. If you simply re-record the track, the new recording will overlay the last one, but the last one is still there, and you can put the track view into “stacked” mode to see them all. You can then do the comping by cutting and pasting within the track.
See “region layers” in the manual: The Ardour Manual - The View Menu
- The other approach for comping is to use “playlists”. Playlists are a different approach to recording multiple takes into the same track. See The Ardour Manual
The benefit of recording multiple takes into the same track is that it allows easier editing, and the tracks should automatically be aligned.
I hope this is useful, and if you have questions on any of this, please feel free to ask.
Cheers,
Keith
And, as a follow up, if you are looking to send the tracks to someone else, when combined into a bus, you can do a stem export, and just export the bus, which will then create a single track for the combined parts.
You can export multiple stems in a single operation and you will get separate files for each track/stem. These can be individual complete tracks, or busses comprising multiple other tracks.
Cheers,
Keith
Yes there is. It’s called a constrained drag. The default is to hold Shift when dragging the region (you can change this in Preferences > Editor > Modifiers). The drag is then constrained in the first direction of movement (either horizontal or vertical).
Alternative yo can change the edit mode to “Lock” using the dropdown top-left:
(default is “slide”)
Once all the regions are layered on a new track (switch to layered view in the track-header). make them audibly transparent so underlying regions will also be played. (Region > Gain > Opaque). you will end up with layered regions like
Or my personal favorite way to do this… Middle Mouse Button click and drag will lock in time as well.
Seablade
On this occasion an “Idea for Ardour”:
- select several tracks that contain regions
- “create new track with regions” → drops/copies all regions of the selected tracks into the new track at their timeline position
From what i know this could be done in a Lua script, right?
Yes, though it’ll probable be easier to start with
- select several regions.
…
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