Trigger Mixer scene from OSC or MIDI

thetzim · June 27, 2026, 5:53pm

Hi,

I’m looking to use Ardour together with a multi-channel soundcard to replace my aging Yamaha 01V.

I need a way to recall mixing presets automatically from external control sources such as OSC or MIDI Control Change messages.

I’ve looked into Mixer Scenes, and they seem to match what I need for storing mix snapshots. However, I have a few questions:

The number of available scenes (8–12 in the UI) seems too limited for a full live show.
I’m not sure how to trigger scene recall from external sources like MIDI or OSC (or possibly a WebSocket API, if one exists).

Could someone point me in the right direction regarding:

whether Mixer Scenes can be addressed beyond the UI limit
and how they can be triggered externally (MIDI/OSC or otherwise)?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

x42 · June 27, 2026, 11:46pm

Under the hood there is no limit (well, 2^64). Scenes > 12 can currently be triggered via Lua scripting or select ctrl surfaces only.

OSC allows the following messages:

/store_mixer_scene i
/recall_mixer_scene i

e.g. on Unix Terminal, one can run

oscsend osc.udp://localhost:3819 /store_mixer_scene i 12345
oscsend osc.udp://localhost:3819 /recall_mixer_scene i 12345

thetzim · June 28, 2026, 8:16am

Perfect ! That I did not find in the documentation .

As our show controller can send arbitrary osc messages, it’s what we need.

However, a small lua script allowing to store (and recall) scenes directly from would be useful. Any idea were to start ?

x42 · June 28, 2026, 12:00pm

Ardour comes with a session script (Menu > Edit > Lua Scripts > Script Manager) to recall scenes as you roll through markers on the timeline. That may also serve as example:

github.com

Ardour/ardour/blob/master/share/scripts/trigger_mixer_scene.lua

ardour {
	["type"]    = "session",
	name        = "Mixer Scene Sequencer",
	license     = "MIT",
	author      = "John Devlin, Robin Gareus",
	description = [[Recall a Mixer Scene when the playhead passes over a Marker named 'MS <number>' where <number> indicates the scene to recall.]]
}

function factory ()

	local MIXER_SCENE_MARKER_PREFIX = "MS "

	return function (n_samples)
		if (not Session:transport_rolling()) then
			-- not rolling, nothing to do.
			return
		end

		local pos = Session:transport_sample() -- current playhead position
		local loc = Session:locations() -- all marker locations

This file has been truncated. show original

As for general API, search for “mixer_scene” in the reference manual: The Ardour Manual - Lua Bindings Class Reference

I hope that helps to get you started and don’t hesitate to ask if you need more information.