7 The <dfn>patchbay</dfn> is the main way to make connections to, from and
11 Notable exceptions are internal aux sends and connections to the monitor bus (if
12 you are using one): these cannot be controlled from a patchbay, and are
13 basically not under manual control at all.
15 <img class="right" src="/ardour/manual/html/screenshots/connection-manager.png" alt="an example patchbay" />
17 The patchbay presents two groups of ports; one set of <dfn>sources</dfn>
18 (which produce data), and one of <dfn>destinations</dfn> (which consume
20 on the relative number of each, the sources will be placed on the left
21 or the top of the dialogue, and the destinations on the right or the
22 bottom. Thus, in general, signal flow is from top or left to right or
26 Both sources and destinations are divided up into groups, with each
27 group being given a tab:
29 <dl class="narrower-table">
32 These are ports which are connected to a physical piece of hardware
33 (a sound card or MIDI interface).</dd>
34 <dt>Ardour Busses</dt>
35 <dd>All ports belonging to busses.</dd>
36 <dt>Ardour Tracks</dt>
37 <dd>All ports belonging to tracks.</dd>
40 These are other ports that do not fit into the previous two
41 categories; for example, the ports on which the metronome click
42 is output, and MIDI ports for things like control surfaces and
47 If you have other JACK clients running, their ports will be found
48 here. If there are no such ports, the tab will not exist (on one or
49 both axes of the grid).</dd>
52 The main part of the patchbay is a <dfn>matrix grid</dfn>. Within this
53 grid, green dots represent connections, and you can click in any of the
54 squares to make or break connections. You can also click and drag to
55 draw a line of connections, which is sometimes useful for making many
59 In the example patchbay shown above we can note various things. We are
60 using the <kbd class="menu">Ardour Tracks</kbd> sources tab, so we see
61 the output ports of the three tracks in our session: Fred, Jim and Foo.
62 Our destinations are from the <kbd class="menu">Ardour Busses</kbd> tab,
63 so we have the inputs of a session bus, Sheila, and the inputs of the
64 master bus. Fred and Jim have stereo outputs, so have L and R connections.
65 Foo is a MIDI track, so it only has one connection, and its squares in
66 the grid are coloured light grey to indicate that no connection can be
67 made between Foo (a MIDI output) and our busses (which are all audio-input).
70 The green dots in the example show that both Foo and Bar are connected
71 to the master bus, left to left and right to right.
74 <h2>Variants on the Patchbay</h2>
76 Slightly different versions of the patchbay are available from different
77 places in Ardour. For a global view of all JACK audio connections, use
78 <kbd class="menu">Window > Audio Patchbay</kbd>, or press
79 <kbd class="mod2">P</kbd>. A corresponding MIDI Connection Manager can
80 be opened using <kbd class="mod23">P</kbd>.</p>
82 There is also a patchbay available when connecting individual tracks;
83 clicking on the input or output buttons of a mixer strip will open a
84 connection manager which has the corresponding track input or output as
85 the only destination or source, with all other ports available for
89 <h2>Other patchbay features</h2>
91 Context-clicking on a port name in the connection manager opens a menu
92 which provides a few handy options:
94 <dl class="wide-table">
95 <dt><kbd class="menu">Add audio port</kbd> and <kbd class="menu">Add MIDI port</kbd></dt>
97 These options add audio or MIDI ports to the thing that you opened
98 the menu over, if this is possible. In this way, for example, tracks
99 and busses can be extended to have more inputs or outputs.
101 <dt><kbd class="menu">Remove</dt>
103 Removes the given port, if possible. <kbd class="mouse mod3">Right</kbd>-clicking
104 a port will do the same.
106 <dt><kbd class="menu">Disconnect all from…</kbd></dt>
107 <dd>Disconnects everything from the given port.</dd>
108 <dt><kbd class="menu">Rescan</kbd></dt>
110 Ardour will try to keep abreast of any changes to the JACK ports on
111 your system, and reflect them in any connection managers which are open.
112 If for some reason this fails, use this to re-scan the list of ports and
115 <dt><kbd class="menu">Show individual ports</kbd></dt>
117 If you have a session which has lots of multi-channel tracks or busses,
118 it may be an unnecessary detail that you have to connect left to left and
119 right to right every time you make a connection. This obviously gets worse
120 with higher channel counts (such as for 5.1 or Ambisonics). To make life
121 easier with such sessions, you can untick Show individual ports. After that,
122 the channels of tracks and busses will be hidden, and any green dots you add
123 in the connection manager will automatically connect each channel of the source
124 to the corresponding channel of the destination (left to left, right to right
125 and so on). In this mode, a half-circle in the connection grid indicates that
126 some (but not all) of the source's ports are connected to the destination.
128 <dt><kbd class="menu">Flip</kbd></dt>
130 This will flip the visible ports on the vertical axis with those on the
131 horizontal. If, for example, the top of the connection manager is showing
132 <kbd class="menu">Ardour Busses</kbd> and the right is showing
133 <kbd class="menu">Hardware</kbd>, flip will swap the view to the
134 opposite. You can also flip by pressing <kbd>f</kbd>. Note that if there are
135 no matching tabs on both axes, flipping will be impossible.