ArdouVy

Hello,
I’ve been working in my spare time during the last weeks on a little app, which is a porting of Ardroid for Kivy.
Kivy is a framework that allows to easily develop python applications for multitouch devices.
I decided to start this project because, even if Ardroid could be enough for basic needs, I wanted more control over Ardour, expecially while sitting on the drums during rehearsal and recording. After knowing that the original developer of Ardroid has left the project, I finally decided to begin it. And it was (and still is) fun! :slight_smile:

Like Ardroid, ArdouVy is an OSC interface, so you’ll need a device in the same [wireless] network as your computer running Ardour.
Ok, too much talking, let’s see it.

As you can see it’s very similar to Ardroid, but I added some important features.

First of all, the faders. When started, Ardouvy will allow you to set the gain of every track and bus you have in your session. The changes are exactly what you can see in Ardour, since I used the same equations from the source code, and also the gain level shown is exactly the same. Unfortunally the value shown at startup is not the same you have in Ardour (I’ll talk about this later) and it still doesn’t reflects to gain changes in the session, but it is the first in the todo list, so you’ll see it in the next release.
Then, as you can see there is a selector next to the faders, which shows what the fader will control. It allows you to control the main fader of the track and the [aux] sends. This is the “sad” part. As of now, the osc support for sends is limited to setting gain based on an id given by the user; the app has no way to know how many send a track has and which of them they are. So, I just make an assumption: every track has a send to every existing bus in the session, and every send is in the actual bus order of the session. I know that this can be tricky, but at this point this is the only thing I can do. Just to make things clear: if you have more than one bus and you want a track to send just to the second/third/… bus, you’ll need to add sends for the previous busses also; just disable them, and that’s done. On the other hand, I added a save state for every fader/send in every track, so if you’ll switch between them, ArdouVy will remember their values, while it’s open.
Remember that the app has no way to know the actual value of the send gains in ardour, never. So, if you have a session with send gains set, be careful using them on ArdouVy. This is similar to the problem of the main fader: there is no way for me to know the value of gains in any track at startup, so I just set them to 0.0. Once I’ll add support for main fader-listening, there’s a small workaround for that: you’ll be able to set the gains on ArdouVy by scrolling up and down one “page” with your mouse wheel in the mixer view, and Ardouvy will receive the values of every “scrolled” track.

The bottom panel is similar to the Ardroid one, at startup it just shows the main transport buttons, the toggle button on the left will show a slider allowing transport location and two buttons to go to the next or previous marker (while playing you can’t go to the previous/previous marker, you’ll need to stop the transport).

On the first start it will probably go on timeout, since you’ll need to set the ip of your Ardour machine, just use the menu button on your device and it will open the settings panel; set the ip, close the panel and restart the app.

I’ll make a new release soon, since I’ll have to correct a couple of bugs and add the fader-listen support. After that I’m still deciding what to add, and I still have an old project in mind (regarding the programmable klick metronome). I’m also proposing updates to the OSC support on the dev lists, that would help other applications compatibiliy also, not only mine, so let’s be optimistic! :slight_smile:

I hope that you’ll test it and like it, just keep in mind 2 things: ArdouVy is still in a very early state (so use it at your own risk!), and I’m no programmer (so, again, use it at your own risk! :stuck_out_tongue: ). Also, since it’s written using Kivy, it’s size is way bigger than Ardroid is, because it needs the customized python library and other things too. The installation file is ~6mb, once installed it will consume about 20mb on your device.

That’s it.
You’ll find the compiled apk file on this page:
http://jidesk.net/ardouvy/

Since it’s an apk and not an app published on app markets, you’ll need to allow installation of third party applications (usualy in the settings/security), download/unzip and manually install it.
I’d love to have some feedback on this little app, but, first of all, let me know if it works on your devices too! :slight_smile:
Last, but not least, a(nother) big thank you to the guys at #ardour, they really helped me a lot (and were very patient with me).

Bye! :slight_smile:

Nice work, ive been waiting for ardroid to be updated but kind of thought development had stopped.

This looks great will have to try it.

Hi, I’ve released a new version of ArdouVy; as with the previous version (which is still available), this is still a test and might not work properly with your device.
I made up a small website with full manual, in the meantime I’m still “polishing” my code, I’ll upload it on github as soon as possible.
You will find everything here:

http://jidesk.net/ardouvy/

If you have any problem or suggestion, just comment here or write me a line! :slight_smile:

Thanks,
Maurizio