<p>This lists the tracks and busses that are present in the session. The list order reflects the order in the editor, and you can drag-and-drop track or bus names in the editor list to re-order them in the editor. The columns in the list can all be clicked to alter the track/bus state, and they represent the following:</p>
<dl>
-<dt>V</dt>
+<dt id="visible">V</dt>
<dd>whether the track or bus is visible; they can be hidden, in which case they will still play, but just not be visible in the editor; this can be useful for keeping the display uncluttered.</dd>
-<dt>A</dt>
+<dt id="active">A</dt>
<dd>whether the track or bus is active; unactive tracks will not play, and will not consume any CPU.</dd>
-<dt>I</dt>
+<dt id="input">I</dt>
<dd>for MIDI tracks, whether the MIDI input is enabled; this dictates whether MIDI data from the track's inputs ports will be passed through the track.</dd>
-<dt>R</dt>
+<dt id="record">R</dt>
<dd>whether the track is record-enabled.</dd>
-<dt>M</dt>
+<dt id="mute">M</dt>
<dd>whether the track is muted.</dd>
-<dt>S</dt>
+<dt id="solo">S</dt>
<dd>track solo state.</dd>
-<dt>SI</dt>
+<dt id="solo-isolated">SI</dt>
<dd>track solo-isolated state.</dd>
-<dt>SS</dt>
+<dt id="solo-safe">SS</dt>
<dd>solo safe state. </dd>
</dl>
<p>As with the region list, hovering the mouse pointer over a column heading shows a tool-tip which can be handy to remember what the columns are for.</p>
<p>All plugin editors, whether they are created by Ardour or by the plugin, have a common set of controls at the top of their window. These include 4 controls for managing plugin presets.</p>
-<h2>What is a Plugin preset?</h2>
+
+<h2>What Is a Plugin Preset?</h2>
<p>A preset for a plugin is simply a saved set of values for all of a plugin's parameters. If you load a preset, you are restoring all the parameters within that plugin to the values stored in the preset. This is an easy, fast way to manage your preferred settings for particular plugins.</p>
+
<h2>The Preset Selector</h2>
<p>The preset selector is a regular selector that can be clicked to display a list of all known presets for this plugin. This will include presets that you have created yourself, and for some plugin formats, presets that come with the plugin itself. </p>
-<h2>To load a new preset</h2>
+
+<h2>Load a New Preset</h2>
<p>Click on the preset selector to popup a menu showing the names of all available presets. Click on the name of the preset you wish to load. The preset will be loaded - you may see various controls in the plugin editor change to reflect the new value of some or all parameters.</p>
-<h2>Creating Presets</h2>
+
+<h2>Create a Preset</h2>
<p>To save the current plugin settings as a new preset, click on the "Add" button at the top of the window. A dialog will appear to ask for the name of the preset. Enter the desired name, and then click the "OK" button in the dialog. The preset selector will now show the name you have just entered.</p>
-<h2>Saving a Preset</h2>
+
+<h2>Save a Preset</h2>
<p>If you wish to modify the settings in an existing preset, use the preset selector to load the preset. Then adjust the settings as you wish. When done, click the "Save" button and the new values will be stored, overwriting the previous version of this preset.</p>
-<h2>To delete a preset</h2>
+
+<h2>Delete a preset</h2>
<p>To delete an existing preset, use the preset selector to load the preset. Click the "Delete" button, and the preset will be removed. The preset selector will be blank, showing that no preset is currently loaded (although the settings will stay as they were). </p>
- <h2>An Introduction to Monitoring</h2>
+ <h2>Introduction</h2>
<p>When recording, it is important to hear yourself, and to hear any pre-recorded tracks that you are performing with.</p>
-<p>Audio recorders typically have the ability to "monitor" (i.e. listen to) the tracks that are armed for recording, while playing back the tracks that aren't. In the days of analog tape recording, this was performed with relays and other analog audio switching devices. Digital recorders have the same feature, but may impart some "latency" (delay) between the time you make a noise and the time that you hear it come back from the recorder.</p>
-<p>The latency of <strong>any</strong> conversion from analog to digital and back to analog is about 1.5-2 milliseconds.
Despite common listening conditions creating 3 millisecond delays, some musicians claim that even the basic A/D/A conversion time is objectionable. However it is commonly believed that a latency below 5 milliseconds is suitable for a professional recording setup. Because 2 milliseconds have already been used in the A/D/A process, you must use extremely low "buffer sizes" in your workstation I/O setup to keep the overall latency below 5ms. Not all <a href="/setting-up-your-system/the-right-computer-system-for-digital-audio">computer audio systems</a> are able to work reliably at such low buffer sizes.</p>
+<p>Audio recorders typically have the ability to "monitor" (i.e. listen to) the tracks that are armed for recording, while playing back the tracks that aren't. In the days of analog tape recording, this was performed with relays and other analog audio switching devices. Digital recorders have the same feature, but may impart some <a href="/synchronization/latency-and-latency-compensation/">latency</a> (delay) between the time you make a noise and the time that you hear it come back from the recorder.</p>
+<p>The latency of <strong>any</strong> conversion from analog to digital and back to analog is about 1.5-2 milliseconds.
Some musicians claim that even the basic <abbr title="Analog to Digital to Analog">A/D/A</abbr> conversion time is objectionable. However even acoustic instruments such as the piano can have approximately 3<abbr title="milliseconds">ms</abbr> of latency, due to the time it takes sound to travel from the instrument to the musician's ears. Latency below 5ms should be suitable for a professional recording setup. Because 2ms are already used in the A/D/A process, you must use extremely low "buffer sizes" in your workstation <abbr title="Input/Output">I/O</abbr> setup to keep the overall latency below 5ms. Not all <a href="/setting-up-your-system/the-right-computer-system-for-digital-audio">computer audio systems</a> are able to work reliably at such low buffer sizes.</p>
<p>For this reason it is sometimes best to use an external device to monitor yourself while recording to digital medium. Many professional studios use a mixing console for this feature. Many computer I/O devices have an "monitoring" function built-in (although this is typically only for 1 or 2 channels). In either case, the monitoring hardware may be digital or analog. And in the digital case you will still have the A-D-A conversion latency of 1-2ms.</p>
-<h2>Different ways of monitoring</h2>
-<p>There are three basic ways in which monitoring may be approached: </p>
+
+<h2>Different Ways of Monitoring</h2>
+<p>There are three basic ways to approach monitoring: </p>
+
<h3>External Monitoring</h3>
<p>With this approach, Ardour plays no role in monitoring at all. Perhaps the recording set-up has an external mixer which can be used to set up monitor mixes, or perhaps the sound-card being used has some ‘listen to the input’-style feature. This approach often has the advantage of zero or near-zero latency. On the other hand it requires external hardware, and the monitoring settings are not saved with the session.</p>
<p><img src="/ardour/manual/html/diagrams/external-monitoring.png"></p>
-<h3>JACK-based hardware Monitoring</h3>
-<p>Some sound cards have the ability to mix signals from their inputs to their outputs with zero- or low-latency. Furthermore, on some cards these features can be controlled by JACK. This is a nice arrangement, if the sound card supports it, as it combines the convenience of having the monitoring controlled by Ardour with the low latency operation of doing it externally. </p>
+
+<h3>JACK-Based Hardware Monitoring</h3>
+<p>Some sound cards have the ability to mix signals from their inputs to their outputs with zero- or low-latency. Furthermore, on some cards these features can be controlled by <a href="/signal-routing/role-of-jack/">JACK</a>. This is a nice arrangement, if the sound card supports it, as it combines the convenience of having the monitoring controlled by Ardour with the low latency operation of doing it externally. </p>
<p><img src="/ardour/manual/html/diagrams/jack-monitoring.png"></p>
+
<h3>Software Monitoring</h3>
-<p>With this approach all monitoring is performed by Ardour; it makes track inputs available at track outputs, under the influence of various controls. This approach will almost always have more routing flexibility than JACK-based monitoring. The disadvantage is that there will be a latency between the input and the output which will depend mainly on the JACK buffer size that is being used. </p>
+<p>With this approach all monitoring is performed by Ardour; it makes track inputs available at track outputs, under the influence of various controls. This approach will almost always have more routing flexibility than JACK-based monitoring. The disadvantage is that there will be a latency between the input and the output. The size of the latency depends largely on the JACK buffer size that is being used. </p>
<p><img src="/ardour/manual/html/diagrams/ardour-monitoring.png"></p>
-<h2>Setting up Monitoring</h2>
+
+<h2>Set up Monitoring</h2>
<p>There are three main settings which affect how monitoring is performed. The first is <code>Edit > Preferences > Audio > Record monitoring handled by</code>. There are two or three options here, depending on the capabilities of your hardware: </p>
-<p> The other two settings are more complex; one is ‘Tape machine mode’, in the same dialogue, and the other is ‘Monitoring automatically follows transport state (‘auto-input’)’ setting in Session Properties.</p>
-<p>Monitoring is also somewhat dependent on the state of the track's record-enable button, the session record enable button, and whether or not the transport is rolling. </p>
-<h2>Monitoring in software or hardware monitoring modes</h2>
+<p> The other two settings are more complex. One is ‘Tape machine mode’, in the same dialog, and the other is ‘Monitoring automatically follows transport state (‘auto-input’)’ setting in Session Properties.</p>
+<p>Monitoring is also somewhat dependent on the state of the track's record-enable button, the session record-enable button, and whether or not the transport is rolling. </p>
+
+<h2>Software or Hardware Monitoring Modes</h2>
<p>If Ardour is set to ‘external monitoring’, the explanation of Ardour's monitoring behaviour is simple: it does not do any. In the other two modes, things are more complex. </p>
-<h2>Monitoring in non-tape-machine mode</h2>
+
+<h2>Monitoring in Non-Tape-Machine Mode</h2>
<p>This section describes what happens when Ardour is not set to tape-machine mode.</p>
-<p>Consider first the case when a track is record-enabled. In this situation, it will always monitor the live input unless the session is not record-enabled, auto-input is enabled, and the transport is rolling.</p>
+<p>Consider first the case where a track is record-enabled. In this situation, Ardour always monitors the live input unless the session is not record-enabled, auto-input is enabled, and the transport is rolling.</p>
<p>When a track is not record-enabled, the track will play back its contents from disc unless the transport is stopped and auto-input is enabled. In this case, the track monitors its live input. </p>
-<h2>Monitoring in tape-machine mode</h2>
-<p>In tape-machine mode, things are slightly simpler; when a track is record-enabled, its behaviour is the same as in non-tape-machine mode: it will always monitor the live input unless the session is not record-enabled, auto-input is enabled, and the transport is rolling.</p>
+
+<h2>Monitoring in Tape-Machine Mode</h2>
+<p>In tape-machine mode, things are slightly simpler; when a track is record-enabled, its behaviour is the same as in non-tape-machine mode: it always monitors the live input unless the session is not record-enabled, auto-input is enabled, and the transport is rolling.</p>
<p>When a track is not record-enabled, however, the track will always just play back its contents from disk; the live input will never be monitored. </p>
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