A DAW is a massive multi-track, automatable, non-destructive editing system. It may or may not feature a MIDI sequencer. Although most DAWs do.
Since you keep mentioning Cubase, that started out as MIDI sequencer and moved towards a DAW. Ardour takes the opposite route. It wasn’t until Ardour 3.0 (~5 years ago) that Ardour featured MIDI tracks at all. Cubase has a 23 year head-start
We have generally been upfront with limitations and issues, and it’s not uncommon that we recommend other tools if Ardour can’t meet a user’s requirements.
It’s highly workflow dependent and this promo-video by itself may indeed raise false expectations. I’d have preferred a video like this as a closing session “look what we’ve covered over the past tutorial videos”.
I’m a bit confused about the current state of Ardour’s Youtube channel. While unfa, who used to create the tutorials, has recently made a very enthusiastic video about the release of version 6, he has published it on his own channel. In the comments of the latest Ardour tutorial video (which is already about ten months old), unfa has stated recently that he’s not planning on making any more videos for Ardour’s official channel . So what happened considering that the channel was created as recently as February last year? Are there any plans for new content or was that it?
We would love it if someone stepped up to make videos at the same high level of production values that unfa used on the ones that he made. We did pay him for the videos (not a lot, but not a little either). There is money put aside for this, and will continue to be put aside periodically, but at this point in time, nobody has offered (and we have not gone looking).
As with most things related to Ardour, it requires a high degree of self-motivation. There’s no roadmap for videos, no guidelines, nobody is going to tell the video producer what to do (though Robin and I do have aesthetic judgements that we try to be open about). Someone has to have a vision (like unfa did) and a workflow and just do it, with willingess to accept suggestions about the result.
So unfa has just lost his interest in contributing to the channel? Or is there any other reason he quit? I’m asking because when the original tutorial series was announced, it seemed as if unfa had a fairly long-term dedication in mind for creating these videos.
That is the key,time. I think it is too much time to do both.
This said Unfa 's vids contains tons of things about ardour, i improved myself with ardour by watching his videos, the livestreams are like tuts too, barely all times on ardour and synths
I’ve decided it’ll make sense for me to focus on my own channel and keep covering Ardour there.
There’s many factors, one being that I’ve set quite a high bar, and I’ve felt that keeping that production value is just going to be too costly. On my own channel I am not afraid to alter the quality at will. It didn’t feel right if I would suddenly start posting videos on Ardour channel that are clearly made much quicker and with less effort.
Another factor was that the videos on the Ardour channel overall didn’t get as much exposure as I thought they would.
I can reach a larger audience, and also maybe be more trustworthy when the videos are not sponsored by Ardour, but by my viewers directly. I also can complain about the bugs more
I’d someone would like to pick up the torch, I can share my assets (if the Ardour team would approve that).
Overall I think this was a very intesting project, and I’m happy I was given such an opportunity - it didn’t work out in the long run, but I think it was worth it!
Hi @unfa! I could have guessed that you’re active here in the forums, so first of all: Sorry for not approaching you in person. Your reasons for not adding more videos to Ardour’s channel are all completely understandable. Thank you for being so open since these are what I was wondering about all along.
While your videos didn’t show me many new things because I’d consider myself a somewhat advanced user, I really enjoyed watching them and I’m sure they will help many beginners taking their first steps with Ardour. You did a great job and yes, the bar is now pretty high.
Looking forward to seeing more of your work on your own channel!
There was a discussion on threads sometime ago about everyone making videos that are centered on their own abilities, workflow, audience, etc. but using Ardour. The way you can find however many youtube educators teaching how to produce, mix, master, etc. using ProTools, Logic, or whatever. Simply seeing creators using Ardour to make great music can be a stimulus to get more people supporting the project. I meant to start doing this but I went the wrong path and got demotivated. I’ll try again, but I think anything I do would be best focused on production and recording of rock music. I think others have a better grasp of electronic elements, MIDI, and mixing. I know @Seagate was talking about uploading videos based on the college courses he teaches. I was pretty excited about that.
@drsaamah I believe you meant me for the record, not Seagate:)
That being said, that is still the plan, part of this summer is dedicated to creating materials for my college courses in case I have to teach online again in the fall or spring anyways. I have a collaboration to develop one of the courses with a coworker, but the mixing course I am teaching in the fall and need to work on that as well, so it is very likely you may see some material from me in the fall.
I think I can explain why. To the best of my knowledge, Ardour’s channel wasn’t promoted anywhere but the blog here (on one occasion that I know of) and Ardour’s Twitter account.
Making the YT channel more discoverable would involve, among other things:
having a short intro video for new users, either on the front page or at the top of the Features page (usually the most impact)
having a dedicated Training page (or Tutorials, or what have you) that would list already available video tutorials
having video reviews for every new release at the top of the What’s New section
having social media links in the footer of every page (least impact but still useful)
The demographic is already used to watching videos on the website. Just a few references:
Please note that I’m doing things completely backwards here for the sake of the argument
Of course the point is not to promote the YT channel, the point is to give people the content they 1) want, and 2) expect to find and, currently, can’t. So, in my opinion, Ardour needs a bit of website revamp + quite a bit of new content (I know @paul has some plans for the latter) + highlighting the existing content (IMO, manual.ardour.org deserves more than just one link in the footer).
Just my humble 2 cents as a marketing/content pro.
I feel like most of the people who know about it come from a video on my own channel announcing it, and me linking people to these videos constantly. So yeah. I definitely think such an effort needs more buzz.
