3 A <dfn>playlist</dfn> is a list of regions ordered in time. It defines
4 which parts of which source files should be played and when. Playlists
5 are a fairly advanced topic, and can be safely ignored for many types
6 of audio production. However, the use of playlists allows the audio
7 engineer more flexibility for tasks like multiple takes of a single
8 instrument, alternate edits of a given recording, parallel effects such
9 as reverb or compression, and other tasks.
12 Each audio <dfn>track</dfn> in Ardour is really just a mechanism for
13 taking a playlist and generating the audio stream that it represents.
14 As a result, editing a track really means modifying its playlist in
15 some way. Since a playlist is a list of regions, most of the
16 modifications involve manipulating regions: their position, length
17 and so forth. This is covered in the chapter
18 <a href="@@working-with-regions">Working With Regions</a>.<br>
19 Here, we cover some of the things you can do with playlists as objects
23 <h2>Tracks are not Playlists</h2>
25 It is important to understand that a track <em>is not</em> a playlist.
26 A track <em>has</em> a playlist. A track is a mechanism for generating
27 the audio stream represented by the playlist and passing it through a
28 signal processing pathway. At any point in time, a track has a single
29 playlist associated with it. When the track is used to record, that
30 playlist will have one or more new regions added to it. When the track
31 is used for playback, the contents of the playlist will be heard.
32 You can change the playlist associated with a track at (almost) any
33 time, and even share playlists between tracks.
36 If you have some experience of other
37 <abbr title="Digital Audio Workstation">DAW</abbr>s, then you might
38 have come across the term <dfn>"virtual track"</dfn>, normally defined as a track
39 that isn't actually playing or doing anything, but can be
40 mapped/assigned to a real track. This concept is functionally
41 identical to Ardour's playlists. We just like to be little more
42 clear about what is actually happening rather than mixing old and
43 new terminology ("virtual" and "track"), which might be confusing.</p>
45 <h2>Playlists are Cheap</h2>
47 One thing you should be clear about is that playlists are cheap. They
48 don't cost anything in terms of CPU consumption, and they have very
49 minimal efforts on memory use. Don't be afraid of generating new
50 playlists whenever you want to. They are not equivalent to tracks,
51 which require extra CPU time and significant memory space, or audio
52 files, which use disk space, or plugins that require extra CPU time.
53 If a playlist is not in use, it occupies a small amount of memory, and