<p>
- An Ardour session is stored in a single folder on your computer's filesystem. This makes <dfn>backup</dfn> very easy—any tool capable of backing up a folder can be used to backup a session. You pick the location of a session when it is created—by default it will be in your default session location, which can be altered via <kbd class="menu">Edit > Preferences > Misc > Session Management</kbd>.
+ An Ardour session is stored in a single folder on the computer's filesystem.
+ This makes <dfn>backup</dfn> very easy: any tool capable of backing up a
+ folder can be used to backup a session. The location of a session is picked when
+ it is created —by default it will be in the default session location,
+ which can be altered via <kbd class="menu">Edit > Preferences > General >
+ Session</kbd>.
+</p>
+<p>
+ The single folder approach also makes sharing a project easy. Simply copy the
+ session folder (onto a storage device, or across a network) and another Ardour
+ user (on any platform) will be able to use it.
+</p>
+<p>
+ There is one complication in both cases: a session may reference media files that are stored
+ outside of the session folder, if the user has opted not to select
+ <kbd class="optoff">Session > Import > Copy to Session</kbd> during import.
+ Backing up a session with embedded files will not create a copy of the session
+ containing those files. To bring those external files to the session folder,
+ the <a href="@@cleaning-up-sessions"><kbd class="menu">Session > Clean-up >
+ Bring all media into session folder</kbd> menu</a> can be used.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Using the dedicated Zip/Archive Current Session tool</h2>
+
+<figure>
+ <img src="/images/archive-session.png" alt="The Zip/Archive Current Session window">
+ <figcaption>
+ The Zip/Archive Current Session window
+ </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>
+ The <kbd class="menu">Zip/Archive Current Session</kbd> tool is located in the
+ <kbd class="menu"> File > Archive…</kbd> menu.
+</p>
+<p>
+ It allows to create a single file containing everything useful in the session,
+ to share it or back it up, conveniently compressed to a session-archive which
+ is a zip-file (tar.xz to be specific) containing all the audio, MIDI,
+ plugin-settings,... and the currently active session. Ardour can also extract
+ those bundles (<kbd class="menu">Session > Open…</kbd>).
+</p>
+<p>
+ As opposed to zipping the entire session-folder manually,
+</p>
+<ol>
+ <li>the session-archive only contains the current session-snapshot and only
+ files which are used</li>
+ <li>externally referenced files are included in the archive.</li>
+</ol>
+
</p>
-<p class="warning">
- There is one complication: a session may reference media files that are stored outside of the session folder, if the user has opted not to select <kbd class="optoff">Session > Import > Copy to Session</kbd> during import. Backing up a session with embedded files will not create a copy of the session containing those files.
+<p>
+ The window shows the following options:
</p>
+<table class="dl">
+ <tr><th><dfn>Archive Name</dfn></th><td>The name of the archive file, defaulting to
+ the name of the session followed by the date and time</td></tr>
+ <tr><th>a dropdown extension selector</th><td>allowing to choose between different kind or
+ compressed archive file types</td></tr>
+ <tr><th><dfn>Target directory/folder</dfn></th><td>defining where in the filesystem
+ the archive file will be generated</td></tr>
+ <tr><th><dfn>Audio Compression</dfn></th><td>a dropdown menu allowing to compress
+ the audio files themselves by using an audio-tailored compression format, more
+ on that below</td></tr>
+ <tr><th><dfn>Exclude unused audio sources</dfn></th><td>a checkbox to drop every
+ audio that is in the session, but not actually used in the editor</td></tr>
+</table>
<p>
- The single folder approach also makes sharing a project easy. Simply copy the session folder (onto a storage device, or across a network) and another Ardour user (on any platform) will be able to use it. The limitation regarding embedded files applies to session sharing as well.
+ The <kbd class="menu">Audio Compression</kbd> selection accepts any of:
+</p>
+<ul>
+ <li>None</li>
+ <li>FLAC 16bit</li>
+ <li>FLAC 24bit</li>
+</ul>
+<p>
+ Encoding the audio sources to <abbr title="Free Lossless Audio Codec">FLAC</abbr> allows for a good size reduction of the session.
+ It should be noted though that FLAC is a fixed-point format, meaning that if the
+ audio in the session is in a floating-point format, this conversion will lose
+ some information on the samples values that are rounded, though usually, this
+ lost information cannot be perceived. Choosing "<em>None</em>" for Audio
+ Compression does not compress the audio to FLAC, hence preserving the floating-point
+ data at the cost of a bigger file size. Notice also that converting to FLAC
+ automatically normalizes the audio.
+</p>
+<p>
+ Using the <kbd class="option">Exclude unused audio sources</kbd> option allows
+ to only keep the files actually used in the session, which can be useful to leave
+ any unused take or reference material out of the backup, reducing the archive's
+ global file size.
</p>
projects / ardour-manual / blobdiff