'save as'

I just started today with learning Ardour, but I was missing a ‘save as’ function.

I know there is a snapshot function, a possibility to save a session with another name (for example a song with guitar and without a guitar solo) would be handy I think…

In this context (I haven’t tried to find out myself, yet)…

If I open a snapshot and then save, will it be saved back to the snapshot or the “main” session? IMO it would be nice to have the choice, rather than having to copying and/or renaming a session manually in one or another case.

We haven’t implemented it because of the hard choices required when presenting the (very real) choices that a user would have to make. Most of them are about copying the audio files, which could be huge. One day, someone will have a great idea on how to do this, and we’ll proceed. Note that it won’t differ from what snapshot does in any real way - a snapshot is, to all effects and purposes, a different session from the “original” (which could have been another snapshot). Don’t imagine that “snapshot” is some quick-and-easy operation - it involves in creating a complete copy of the session file.

related to this is a feature i really like in logic - ‘rename project’. when i start something i have no idea what it is going to be, so i usually call it something silly like ‘c and am thing’ while i am playing at first, then get an idea of a name later on. to rename a project in ardour involves renaming directories as well as editing xml files. it would be handy to have a build in feature to do this, and it would also provide a temporary workaround to the ‘save as’ issue: make a copy of the directory manually and load and choose ‘rename’ to make it a new project with a different name.

porl

just be careful not to “clean up unused sources” in one snapshot and don’t read the warning that they may be used in other snapshots :wink:

Paul, it makes me think about one thing : when you record audio within one snapshot, does the audio show up as available in the audio (or is it region?) window frame in other snapshots automagically ? or do you have to “import” audio recorded in one snapshot if you happen to work in another snapshot and wish to use the recorded material ?

when you work on a snapshot, you are working on the snapshot. its basically a 94.378% independent version of the session. saves will save to the snapshot. the “main” session is, really, just another snapshot with the same name as the session itself.

I just hit the no ‘save as’ brick wall
I started a session called ‘foo’
created a quick remix of the ‘foo’ session
and went to save 'foo2’as a sketch to come back to later
lo and behold I discovered that
a)I had gotten that far without saving - a good thing actually as I didn’t want to clobber my original
and
b) perplexed as to why such an jaw-droppingly well designed program would lack such a 0th order function such as a ‘save as’

after the initial surprise I grasped the design conundrum:
save out foo2 and copy all the content (preserving the file structure thus the ability to move the session around)
thus chewing up HD space

vs.

using pointers to files in another session file structure creating a nightmare if anything is moved

but I do hope someone comes up with an elegant solution soon
:slight_smile:

paul, would it be possible to list those choices that must be made either by or on behalf of the user when choosing ‘save as’? i can only think of ‘copy all audio files to new session’ but that could either be done always or a simple toggle given. is there something more fundamental about the session structure i am missing?

perhaps if the choices were listed here we could begin to think about implementation.

porl

You can use the Session/Snapshot as sort of a “Save As”.
When you reopen the session, instead of just doubleclicking the name, click on the right arrow next to it to unfold the snapshots and select the one you want.

I want a full-version “Save As” - my editing style is simply to creative and destructive to mess around heavily on a Session that i definitely don’t want to lose.

Yeah, i can copy that stuff manually - buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut - gimme that Button!

Gonna make a “Save as”-Song :wink:

Hit “Save as” to save your ass,
gimme a whole new session to mash that jazz,
no return, i lost track and trace,
so gimme “Save as” or my work turns waste…

Something like that :wink:

And - yes - if i finally make some money from my Ardour-Compiled-Album - i will finally pay some money to Paul for all this wonderful work.

Peace,

;j

I have to agree with some others here. Ardour’s management of this kind of thing is poor.

Sessions often grow out of other sessions, start as one thing then turn into another. You need to be able to save sessions as separate entities.

As with Porl, I just created (and often create) a new session where I have NO idea what the song will be called.
I called it “Test”.
Now, after 2 days of work I’ve settled on a name, and want to RENAME the session, but cant seem to find
a way to do that with a button.
This has nothing to do with using twice the disk space for “two copies”… I just want to rename.

After some frustration, in Ardour, I started renaming files in at to OS level…
First the directory itself, then the .ardour and .history files, then something in interchange dir,
but even after all that, when I start Ardour it now says it can’t find some sound files while
looking for “Test/somesound” … UGH!

Give us a RENAME, please!
(or am I missing something?) :slight_smile:

+1
need rename and/or duplicate-session pretty much every time I start ardour.

+1 on the save as option.

Also how difficult would it be to implement a system to find missing files. One where you could tell Ardour what folder/s the files are in and then it links to the correct file names. or if you so choose manually click on each file?

Thanks for all the hard work. Feeling really happy that I finally got round to subscribing. :slight_smile:

  • Luke

ps what would be the rough donation needed to make either/both of these things happen?

Thanks

  • Luke

@eclectic eye: both things have already been done (to some extent) in ardour 3.

finding missing files is believed fully complete.

“save as” has been partially done, to the extent of “rename session”. there continue to be big questions to present the user with that neither carl, myself nor any other developer are interested in cooking up the usual hairy dialog for.

Thanks Paul,

alas when I went to use the beta of Ardour 3 OSX it kept crashing as soon as I booted it up, and I don’t feel I have the time to do the bug reporting at the moment. (I’m thinking it’s an issue with my Jack settings and possibly the interfacing with my digi 002). I’m hoping there are some other OSX users who are helping with the bug reports.

I really should switch to linux, but again I’m not sure I have the time to set it up.

Thanks again

  • Luke

@eclectic eye: it turned out that ardour3 on OS X requires a brand new version of JackOSX (just released today). This is very, very likely the cause of your crash (though its not completely certain). beta2 will be out this week (before christmas), worth giving it a shot then.

Thanks Paul, just downloaded Jack OSX 0.89 only to have it completely mess with my display! I have strange light and dark striped over eveything. I have emailed Jack OSX support. Will try ardour beta 2 in the meantime.

  • Luke

well that seems to have fixed itself. Now to see how Ardour 3 goes… so far so good. :slight_smile: