This feels a little embarrasing as I had used cubase for many years but now, having switched to Linux (mint) and spending many happy hours installing ardour and loads of plugins, I cant seem to change the instrument…!
I have read many posts relating to this but there seems to be no answer that I can get to work.
I wrote a bass line using my midi keyboard, used General Midi synthesizer and it recorded fine. Now I want to change the sound (patch/instrument?) but find that no matter what I select from the many instruments available (right click on context menu, choose ‘patch selector’) I can only get the original bass sound, no other instrument will play. Keep thinking that this is such a basic thing to be able to do, but it is eluding me and I have now spent several hours trying to change the bass sound with absolutely no success…
Please put me out of my misery…
This is when I right click on the red area and select ‘Patch Selector’ (1st pic). It gives me this nice box with all the patches for this channel (is what it looks like to me) but no matter which patch I choose, this sound is unchanged, even though the patch name has changed, tenor sax in this instance…
After trying a few other patches I ended up with a ‘flute’ (2nd pic), which can be seen in a small white box at the bottom of the track (track is called 'Plucked). If I enter ‘Internal Edit Mode’ I can right click this small white box and a different menu pops up which also allows me to choose another patch, in this case I selected ‘Bassoon’.
But is does not matter which patch I choose, it remains the original sound. Have tried to find something in the manual but most of the time the manual reads like a brochure in that it states what Ardour can do, but does not show how… Am sure this is something very trivial, maybe just a matter of clicking on something but it has me baffled and everything has ground to a halt until I can sort this…
Hi! Check the midi channel selector (in the patch selector upper left corner). If for example your midi notes are for the 2-d channel (just navigate on any note in “E”(edit)-mouse mode and you’ll get the information), but your patch selector has the 1-st channel chosen - all the selections will effect only for the 1-st channel - that’s why you can’t hear any changes…
Wow… sound like you have a solution… Must be having a dense day as I dont quite get what you are suggesting… Are you saying that each patch is fixed to each channel? Sorry if I seem a bit slow on the uptake but that does not seem very logical, how am I able to select any patch but not hear it? Why are there dozens of patches seemingly available, selectable but have no effect…?
Kind of expected to be told it is a bug…
Have just given your suggestion a go, changed the channel then picked a different patch… No change… Selected Channel 2, then patch ‘Solo Vox’, but the sound is unchanged as before…
The keyboard in the patch selector works fine… Allows me to hear all the funky sounds… Even have ‘Audition on Change’ selected which automatically plays each sound for me (feels like it is teasing me with all these sounds)…
But no matter what I select, I only hear the sound that I orginally selected when I created the track… Changing Channel or patch, in either of the way I mentioned before results in no change…
No. Every patch can be selected to the current midi channel (upper left corner). When you choose the 1-st midi channel - you’re able to select any patch to this channel, if choose the 2-nd - for the 2-nd channel you’re able to select etc. …
The power of it is that you can record few notes in one region (clip) with different channels. And all that notes will play different patches (because you’ve chosen different patches for every single channel). All this works fine in my case (Ubuntu 18.04.2, Ardour 5.12)
If you play now, you should hear the selected plugin.
Double-clicking onto its label in the channel strip opens its graphical user interface to make changes, load patches, …
If you do not hear anything, check the output routing of the audio:
Okay… Finally got it to change… Had not noticed that I was not in ‘Draw Mode’ and once I had selected this, I was able to go into right click on the context menu, select a different Channel (2) and then the patch I chose worked…!! Thank you…!
It still says the old sound in the white box at the bottom of the track so I still think I have not quite cracked this yet but at least I can change sounds now… Does that mean I am limited to 16 different sounds in Ardour…?
Perfect Flightvision… !! That works a treat and also as a bonus, it makes sense to me…
Think I may stick to the Mixer mode to change sounds, much easier…
Any idea what the small white box is on the bottom of the track that seems stuck on an older sound?
Thanks for your patience guys, thought this would be a a gentle learning curve after all my time with cubase, will keep at it and appreciate your help…
Been playing for a few hours now and it becomes more obvious the more you use it… Amazing software, doubly so being free…
The little white boxes are for patch change points throughout the track and defaults to the start before using that facility… Am sure you guys know this but thought worth mentioning in case any other noobs like me come across this…
