i usually record my acoustic guitar into two tracks.
One is miked, two is direct from the piezo.
Before mixing i put both tracks into an audio bus and level out the two tracks for
a good mixture of the two sources. This is fixed for all mixing which is done after.
This guitar-bus will be what i mix with other tracks like vocals etc
In the editor i can see the bus-track, but no waveforms .
Seems to be what developers wanted, cause the bus is just an aggregation …
Anyway i would prefer to hide the original source tracks and
work only with the bus. But, as there is no waveform i obviously can’t cut/etc
what i can’t see
If the mixing of both tracks is fixed, as you said, I would probably bounce those tracks to a new stereo track, instead of a bus. After that you can disable and hide the originals and work with the new stereo track.
Can we discuss the workflow from two different tracks to one (combined) track - visible in editor
for further work on it.
The following tasks seem to be done:
grouping the two tracks , how can I do this (I can see grouping only when creating a track) ?
creating a new stereo track (or bus ?)
bounce the two tracks
putting the bounced tracks from region editor to formerly created new track/bus
The problem I had trying the suggestion from Piergi:
When I try to drag a bounce-region (there are three, possibly because I overwrote the recording ?)
I can only drag one bounce-region.
Sorry for those perhaps simple questions, sometimes my problem seems to be associated with the fact
that I struggle with terms and definitions used for recording/mixing/handling a DAW.
Left side on the editor, and at the top of the mixer there is a group tab-bar. Simply click + drag to create new groups.
Not sure why you’d want to bounce it. For the case at hand I’d use grouped tracks, and later right-click on the group → Add new subgroup bus which creates a bus for the grouped tracks.
Piergi told me to bounce But I think I misunderstood him.
An astonishing “find” the group-tabbar … ardour as so much hidden features to find
Your suggestion using groups lacks one thing, which I’m aiming for … there’s no waveform in editor.
So, to shorten the discussion … a simple way to get what I want is to export those 2 tracks into a av-file and to reimport it as track ?! If there’s a simpler way. I’m open to any suggestion
They are looking for a single waveform that they can visually reference while editing that is a combination of both of the sources.
Nope you didn’t, what you are seeing is two different workflows to possibly accomplish what you are looking for. Both have pros/cons. Exactly what you are looking for doesn’t exist in Ardour, these are just two alternatives to accomplish the same/similar end result. @x42 's you reference the original waveforms instead of having a new waveform, while @Piergi 's solution you are bouncing the audio to disk to create a new audio region. This by the way shows up in the sources tab in the sidebar and has to be dragged back into the editor in place in that case, I would probably use a new track for this purpose and hide the originals as @Piergi suggested.
So don’t get to confused by the fact you have two very different solutions presented here:)
Am I right when I say grouping means working with the group
has an identical impact on the grouped tracks, all the things I do
are spread on all grouped tracks in the same way ?
I think I should speak more about my intention.
Working on a laptop with not-so-big screen means that it is comfortable
to shrink the number of waveforms I see in the editor.
So, when I have two tracks which are recorded from the same source (here a-guitar: piezo/mic source)
it is easy to mix them that way I like it most (what in reality means I find good balanced volumes).
The balancing is static from the start to the end of the tracks.
When I edit more sophisticated over all tracks with automation/cut/etc, there will be only ONE a-guitar-track which I see and which I work on. When I work with groups, I have three instead of two tracks
belonging to the a-guitar, which is the opposite of what I want, less visible tracks.
My solution now is (if I can’t find a better one) now is to export those two tracks to a wave-file
and import it into a new track. Then I hide the two tracks where the combined track comes from.
As one can see, there re always three regions belonging to one track.
I think this is, because I rewound to the start after two false song starts.
What I’m working on is region -3, which is the one where the song was recorded in whole.
-1 -2 have been overwritten, but as ardour never destroys anything, they remain on disk.
Is this correct ?
So, i don’t have the need to store those never needed regions -1 -2, how can I
configure ardour to consequently overwrite “false songs starts” which would,
in the end, mean there is only one region ?
Second thing which I can’t understand is:
When having bounced A-Git Sigrid (direct) and A-Git Sigrid (Micro)
there are four new regions, which is/would be the bounce of
A-Git Sigrid (direct)-3 and A-Git Sigrid (Micro)-3 ?
Pedantic thing, they aren’t overwritten. But otherwise you are correct.
So the easiest way to manage this in the future is to get used to the, I believe it is CTRL+SPACE shortcut to stop transport and delete the last take you would use when recording when you have a take you know you no longer need.
There is also a functionality in Ardour to delete unused sources under the file menu. This will search through your session (And I believe all snapshots) to find any sources that are not used on ANY track, and move them into a wastebasket and remove their references from the session. Then after you close and open your session to ensure that they are in fact not used, you could flush the wastebasket to delete them from disk.
Sorry I don’t have Ardour open at this moment to give you the exact commands.
It seems like you bounced the original regions, which is not what @Piergi was suggesting. What he was suggesting was bouncing the output of the bus, which would generally be creating a new track, routing the output of the bus to the new track, rec-enabling the new track and session, and starting transport. This would cause Ardour to play the original audio from the tracks, through the bus, and then record the output of the bus onto a new track giving you a single region that is the mix of both regions.
You would then disable and hide the original tracks and bus as they are no longer needed, but you may want to reference them later if you ever want to change that mix.
Yes, now I understood what @Piergi was telling me, I tried it and it works
So, the one thing i couldn’t find is “functionality in Ardour to delete unused sources under the file menu”
as I don’t have a file menu (did you mean Project ?) . Could you please clarify this, when you have an open ardour in view ?
“Session” (first item in the menu) → “clean-up” (third-to-last in the dropdown).
There you have a couple of options (i.e. delete unused regions, delete unused sources). “Sources” are the .wav files on the disk, and “regions” are the stripes with the wave-form that you have in your timeline, that reference those files.
No need to do that: there is a setting in the interface—AFAICR it is called Translation. If you uncheck it, the program will stay in English, instead of following the system language.
Edit: I see you are aware of it, due to the other thread you started
But I think I misunderstood him.
