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