I work at a studio where the primary recorder is a couple of hot-rodded Mackie HDRs. One of the most useful features of the software that Mackie developed was their method for handling different “takes” on a mono track.
While in the sequence (or editor) window, each track had a button you could click to view all of the takes for a single track, and you could choose which of the tracks you wanted to be active in the main mix with a toggle. This is an incredibly efficent and organized way to operate not only while tracking (because you dont have to create a bunch of seprate tracks for each take… like in protools) but also editing (because you see each one of the takes while you are comping a final take, and there is no extra work to hide the other takes when you’re done).
Of all of the software that I have worked with (DP, Protools, Cubase, and Pyramix) I haven’t seen a more intellegent way of handling takes. I think one of the main reasons our studio still uses the HDRs (even though they arent exactly pro gear). I think this would be a great user efficency addition to Ardour, but it’s always possible I overlooked something. What do you think?