How to measure range duration with Ardour 5.8 ?

Installation & Configuration Linux
#1

In Ardour 4.7 it was a simple thing to measure time between elements in a session. You just selected the mouse tool “range” and dragged across the time you wanted to measure. The “Selection” display showed the duration of the range selected.

Ardour 5.8 seems to have got rid of the range duration display in order to make room for other things.

Range duration measurement is a really important tool for many workflows. Is there still some way to measure duration of the selected range in Ardour 5.8 ?

You need range time measurement for example when you edit audio for a video and there is a gap you need to fill with sound effects or when you put together a compilation of songs for a dance performance and you need to know the total duration.

You need time measurement also when you adjust the total duration of a song and you need to know how long each part is.

Duration measurement is such a basic tool you need it in most of workflows. I hope we did not lose it with the upgrade to Ardour 5.8.

#2

Yes, you can display the Selection Clock in the Toolbar via Preferences -> Appearance -> Toolbar.

A Selection Clock is also always visible at the top of the Editor List (View menu -> Show Editor List)

#3

…or you can set the secondary clock to delta-mode.

The basic idea was that the toolbar by default only shows tools useful for any window, the selection and punch clocks are editor-specific.

#4

Thanks guys. I’m glad to find out that you can still display the selection clock :slight_smile: The delta - mode is also quite handy and a nice addition to the “toolbox”. It’s a very quick way to check durations compared to the playhead position.