3 title: Monitor Signal Flow
4 menu_title: Signal Flow
7 <p>There are three basic ways to approach monitoring: </p>
9 <h3>External Monitoring</h3>
11 src="/ardour/manual/html/diagrams/external-monitoring.png" />
12 <p>When using <dfn>external monitoring</dfn>, Ardour plays no role in
13 monitoring at all. Perhaps the recording set-up has an external mixer which
14 can be used to set up monitor mixes, or perhaps the sound-card being used
15 has a "listen to the input" feature. This approach yields zero or near-zero
16 latency. On the other hand it requires external hardware, and the monitoring
17 settings are less flexible and not saved with the session.</p>
19 <h3>JACK-Based Hardware Monitoring</h3>
20 <img class="right" src="/ardour/manual/html/diagrams/jack-monitoring.png" />
21 <p>Some sound cards have the ability
22 to mix signals from their inputs to their outputs with very low or even zero
23 latency, a feature called <dfn>hardware monitoring</dfn>.
24 Furthermore, on some cards this function can be controlled by <a
25 href="/signal-routing/role-of-jack/">JACK</a>. This is a nice arrangement,
26 if the sound card supports it, as it combines the convenience of having the
27 monitoring controlled by Ardour with the low latency operation of doing it
31 <h3>Software Monitoring</h3>
32 <img class="right" src="/ardour/manual/html/diagrams/ardour-monitoring.png" />
33 <p>With the <dfn>software monitoring</dfn> approach, all monitoring is
34 performed by Ardour — it makes track inputs available at track
35 outputs, governed by various controls. This approach will almost always have
36 more routing flexibility than JACK-based monitoring. The disadvantage is
37 that there will be some latency between the input and the output, which
38 depends for the most part on the JACK buffer size that is being used.