3 title: Working With Regions
6 <h2>Working With Regions</h2>
8 <dfn>Regions</dfn> are the basic elements of editing and composing in
9 Ardour. In most cases, a region represents a single contiguous section
10 of one or more media files. Regions are defined by a fixed set of attributes:
14 <abbr title="Musical Instrument Digital Interface">MIDI</abbr>
15 <dfn>source file(s)</dfn> they represent,</li>
16 <li>an <dfn>offset</dfn> (the "start point") in the audio or MIDI file(s), and</li>
17 <li>a <dfn>length</dfn>.</li>
20 When placed into a playlist, they gain additional attributes:
23 <li>a <dfn>position</dfn> along the timeline, and</li>
24 <li>a <dfn>layer</dfn>.</li>
27 There are other attributes as well, but they do not <em>define</em> the
28 region. Things you should know about regions:
31 <h3>Regions Are Cheap</h3>
33 By themselves, regions consume very little of your computer's resources.
34 Each region requires a small amount of memory, and represents a rather
35 small amount of CPU work if placed into an active track. So, don't worry
36 about creating regions whenever you need to.
39 <h3>Regions Are Not Files</h3>
41 Although a region can represent an entire audio file, they are never
42 equivalent to an audio file. Most regions represent just parts of an audio
43 file(s) on disk, and removing a region from a track has nothing to do with
44 removing the audio file(s) from the disk (the <kbd
45 class="menu">Destroy</kbd> operation, one of Ardour's few destructive
46 operations, can affect this). Changing the length of a region has no effect
47 on the audio file(s) on disk. Splitting and copying regions does not alter
48 the audio file in anyway, nor does it create new audio files (only
50 and the <kbd class="menu">Export</kbd>, <kbd class="menu">Bounce</kbd> and
51 <kbd class="menu">Reverse</kbd> operations create new audio files).</p>