-<p>Ardour is a professional tool for working with audio and MIDI.</p>
+<p>
+<dfn>Ardour</dfn> is a professional digital workstation for working with
+audio and MIDI.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Ardour is meant for...</h2>
+
+<h3>Audio Engineers</h3>
+<p>
+Ardour's core user group: people who want to record, edit, mix and master
+audio and MIDI projects. When you need complete control over your tools,
+when the limitations of other designs get in the way, when you plan to spend
+hours or days working on a session, Ardour is there to make things work the
+way you want them to.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Musicians</h3>
+<p>
+Being the best tool to record talented performers on actual instruments has
+always been a top priority for Ardour. Rather than being focused on
+electronic and pop music idioms, Ardour steps out of the way to encourage
+the creative process to remain where it always has been: a musician playing
+a carefully designed and well built instrument.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Soundtrack Editors</h3>
+<p>
+Sample accurate sync and shared transport control with video playback tools
+allows Ardour to provide a fast and natural environment for creating and
+editing soundtracks for film and video projects.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Composers</h3>
+<p>
+Arrange audio and MIDI using the same tools and same workflow. Use external
+hardware synthesizers or software instruments as sound sources. From sound
+design to electro-acoustic composition to dense multitrack MIDI editing,
+Ardour can help.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Ardour features...</h2>
+
+<h3>Audio and MIDI Multi-Track Recording and Editing</h3>
+<p>
+Any number of tracks and busses. Non-linear editing. Non-destructive (and
+destructive!) recording. Any bit depth, any sample rate. Dozens of file
+formats.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Plugins with Full Sample Accurate Automation</h3>
+<p>
+AudioUnit, LV2, LinuxVST and LADSPA formats. FX plugins. Software
+instruments. MIDI processors. Automate any parameters. Physically manipulate
+them via control surfaces. Distribute processing across as many (or as few)
+cores as you want.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Transport Sync and External Control Surfaces</h3>
+<p>
+Best-in-industry sync to MIDI timecode and LTC. Send and receive MIDI
+Machine Control. Sync with JACK transport and MIDI clock. Dedicated Mackie
+Control protocol support, pre-defined mappings for many MIDI controllers
+plus dynamic MIDI learn. Use OSC to drive almost any operation in Ardour.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Powerful Anywhere-to-Anywhere Signal Routing</h3>
+<p>
+Complex signal flows are simple and elegant. Inputs and outputs connect to
+your hardware and/or other applications. Use sends, inserts and returns
+freely. Connections can be one-to-many, many-to-one or many-to-many. Tap
+signal flows at any point. If you can't connect in the way you want with
+Ardour, it probably can't be done.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Video Timeline</h3>
+<p>
+Import a single video and optionally extract the soundtrack from it. Display
+a frame-by-frame (thumbnail) timeline of the video. Use a Video-monitor
+window, or full-screen display, of the imported video in sync with any of
+the available ardour timecode sources. Lock audio-regions to the video: Move
+audio-regions with the video at video-frame granularity. Export the video,
+cut start/end, add blank frames and/or mux it with the soundtrack of the
+current-session.
+</p>
{% children %}
layout: default
title: About Ardour
---
-
-
-
-
-<p>Ardour allows you to record and edit both audio and MIDI data, add many different kinds of effects and mix.</p>
+
+<p>
+<dfn>Ardour</dfn> allows you to record and edit both audio and MIDI data, add
+many different kinds of effects and mix.
+</p>
<p>Things you might use Ardour for include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Digitally record acoustic/electric instruments or vocals</li>
+<li>Compose and arrange audio and MIDI tracks</li>
+<li>Edit live recordings</li>
+<li>Mix and edit movie soundtracks and dialogue</li>
+<li>Create sound designs for an arbitrary number of output channels</li>
</ul>
-
-
-
{% children %}
title: About Ardour documentation
---
+<h2>Conventions Used In This Manual</h2>
+<p>
+This section covers some of the typographical and language conventions
+used in this manual.
+</p>
-
-
-<h3>Conventions Used In This Manual</h3>
-<p>This section covers some of the typographical and language conventions used in this manual.</p>
<h3>Keyboards and Modifiers</h3>
-<p>Keyboard bindings are shown like this: <kbd>s</kbd> or <kbd class="mod1">x</kbd>. <kbd>Ctrl-x</kbd> means "press the <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>, keep it pressed and then also press the <kbd>x</kbd> key. You may also see key combinations such as <kbd>Ctrl-Shift-e</kbd>, which mean that you should press the <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> key, then while keeping it pressed also press the <kbd>Shift</kbd> key and then while keeping them both pressed, finally press the <kbd>e</kbd> key.</p>
-<p>Note that different platforms have different conventions for which modifier key (Control or Command) to use as the primary or most common modifier. When viewing this manual from a machine identifying itself as running OS X, will see <kbd>Cmd-</kbd> where appropriate. On other machines you will see <kbd>Ctrl-</kbd></p>
+<p>
+Keyboard bindings are shown like this: <kbd>s</kbd> or <kbd class="mod1">x</kbd>.
+<kbd>Ctrl x</kbd> means "press the <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> key, keep it pressed and then also
+press the <kbd>x</kbd> key. You may also see key combinations such as
+<kbd class="mod12">e</kbd>, which mean that you should press the <kbd
+class="mod1"> </kbd> key, then while keeping it pressed also press the
+<kbd class="mod2"> </kbd> key and then while
+keeping them both pressed, finally press the <kbd>e</kbd> key.</p>
+<p>
+Note that different platforms have different conventions for which modifier key
+(Control or Command) to use as the primary or most common modifier. When viewing
+this manual from a machine identifying itself as running OS X, you will see
+<kbd>Cmd</kbd> where appropriate (for instance in the first example above).
+On other machines you will see <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> instead.
+</p>
+
<h3>Menu Items</h3>
-<p>Menu items are indicated like this: <code>Top > Next > Deeper</code> Each >-separated item indicates an item on a nested (sub) menu.</p>
+<p>
+Menu items are indicated like this:<br />
+<kbd class="menu">Top > Next > Deeper</kbd>. Each ">"-separated item
+indicates one level of a nested (sub-)menu.
+</p>
+
<h3>Preference/Dialog Options</h3>
-<p>Choices in various dialogs, notably the Preferences and Properties dialog, are indicated like this: <code>Edit > Preferences > Audio > Some Option</code> Each successive >-separated item indicates either a (sub) menu or tabbed dialog navigation. The final item is the one to choose/select/deselect, etc.</p>
+<p>
+Choices in various dialogs, notably the Preferences and Properties dialog, are
+indicated like this:<br />
+<kbd class="option">Edit > Preferences > Audio > Some Option</kbd>.
+Each successive item indicates either a (sub-) menu or a tabbed dialog
+navigation. The final item is the one to choose or select.
+</p>
+<p>
+If you are requested to deselect an option, you will see something like
+this:<br />
+<kbd class="optoff">Edit > Preferences > Audio > Some other
+Option</kbd>.
+</p>
+
+
<h3>Notes</h3>
-<blockquote><p>Important notes about things that might not otherwise be obvious are shown in this format</p></blockquote>
-<h3>"Context-click"</h3>
-<p>Many times the term <code>context-click</code> is used to indicate that you should (typically) right-click on a particular element of the graphical user interface. Although right-click is the common, default way to do this, there are other ways to accomplish the same thing - this term refers to any of them, and the result is always that a menu specific to the item you clicked on will be displayed.</p>
+<p class="note">
+Important notes about things that might not otherwise be obvious are shown in this
+format.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Warnings</h3>
+<p class="warning">
+Hairy issues that might cause things to go wrong, lose data, or impair sound
+quality is displayed in this way.
+</p>
+
+
<h3>Mouse Buttons</h3>
-<p>We refer to <a href="/setting-up-your-system/the-mouse">mouse buttons</a> as <kbd>Left</kbd>, <kbd>Middle</kbd> and <kbd>Right</kbd>. Ardour can use additional buttons, but they have no default behaviour in the program. </p>
+<p>
+We refer to <a href="/setting-up-your-system/the-mouse">mouse buttons</a> as
+<kbd class="mouse">Left</kbd>, <kbd class="mouse">Middle</kbd> and
+<kbd class="mouse">Right</kbd>. Ardour can use additional buttons, but they have
+no default behaviour in the program.
+</p>
+
+<h4>Mouse click modifiers</h4>
+<p>
+Many editing functions are performed by clicking the mouse while holding a
+modifier key, for example <kbd class="mouse mod1">Left</kbd>.
+
+</p>
+<h4>"Context-click"</h4>
+<p>Many times the term <kbd class="mouse">context-click</kbd> is used to indicate
+that you should (typically) right-click on a particular element of the graphical
+user interface. Although right-click is the common, default way to do this, there
+are other ways to accomplish the same thing - this term refers to any of them,
+and the result is always that a menu specific to the item you clicked on will be
+displayed.
+</p>
+
<h3>"The Pointer"</h3>
-<p>When the manual refers to the "pointer", it means the on-screen representation of the mouse position or the location of a touch action if you are using a touch interface.</p>
-
+<p>
+When the manual refers to the "pointer", it means the on-screen representation
+of the mouse position or the location of a touch action if you are using a touch
+interface.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Other user input</h3>
+<p>
+Ardour supports hardware controllers, such as banks of <kbd
+class="fader">faders</kbd>, <kbd class="knob">knobs</kbd>, or <kbd
+class="button">buttons</kbd>.
+</p>
+
padding: 5px;
}
-#content kbd {
+kbd {
-moz-background-clip:border;
-moz-background-inline-policy:continuous;
-moz-background-origin:padding;
background:#EEEEEE none repeat scroll 0 0;
border-color:#CCCCCC #AAAAAA #888888 #BBBBBB;
border-style:solid;
- border-width:1px 1px 2px 2px;
+ border-width:2px 2px 4px 4px;
color:#000000;
- padding:2px 1px;
+ padding:1px 2px;
white-space:nowrap;
}
+kbd.mouse {
+ -moz-border-radius:10px;
+ border-radius:10px;
+ border-width:3px;
+}
+
+kbd.menu,kbd.option,kbd.optoff {
+ border:none;
+ background-color:transparent;
+ font-weight:bold;
+ font-size:80%;
+ font-stretch:extra-condensed;
+ white-space:normal;
+}
+
+kbd.option:after,kbd.optoff:after {
+ content:'x';
+ font-family:mono;
+ font-weight:lighter;
+ text-align:center;
+ border:solid 1px black;
+ -moz-border-radius:10px;
+ border-radius:10px;
+ margin-left:1ex;
+}
+kbd.optoff:after {
+ content:' ';
+}
+
+
+kbd.fader, kbd.knob, kbd.button {
+ border-color:#ccccff #aaaadd #8888bb #bbbbee;
+ background-color:#ddddff;
+ color:#000044;
+}
+
+kbd.fader {
+ border-width:2px 2px 4px 4px
+}
+
+kbd.knob {
+ -moz-border-radius:12px;
+ border-radius:12px;
+ border-width: 1px 1px 9px 9px;
+}
+
+kbd.button {
+ -moz-border-radius:8px;
+ border-radius:8px;
+}
+
#content td {
padding: 0 1em 0 1em;
}
}
#content .left {
- margin-left:0 1em 1em 0;
+ margin:0 1em 1em 0;
float:left;
}
background-color: #ffeeee;
}
+
+
.mod1:before {
- content: "Ctrl-";
+ content: "Ctrl ";
}
.mod2:before {
- content: "Alt-";
+ content: "Alt ";
}
.mod3:before {
- content: "Shift-";
+ content: "Shift ";
}
.mod4:before {
- content: "Win-";
+ content: "Win ";
}
.mod12:before {
- content: "Ctrl-Alt-";
+ content: "Ctrl Alt ";
}
.mod13:before {
- content: "Ctrl-Shift-";
+ content: "Ctrl Shift";
}
.mod14:before {
- content: "Ctrl-Win-";
+ content: "Ctrl Win ";
}
.mac .mod1:before {
- content: "Cmd-";
+ content: "Cmd ";
}
.mac .mod2:before {
- content: "Ctrl-";
+ content: "Ctrl ";
}
.mac .mod3:before {
- content: "Shift-";
+ content: "Shift ";
}
.mac .mod4:before {
- content: "Opt-";
+ content: "Opt ";
}
.mac .mod12:before {
- content: "Cmd-Ctrl-";
+ content: "Cmd Ctrl ";
}
.mac .mod13:before {
- content: "Cmd-Shift-";
+ content: "Cmd Shift ";
}
.mac .mod14:before {
- content: "Cmd-Opt-";
+ content: "Cmd Opt ";
}
projects / ardour-manual-diverged / commitdiff