I got a bit stuck yesterday setting up software monitoring. The problem is this, I record a take and then decide to punch in to correct part of it. Whilst the track is armed I can hear the pre-recorded material and not the live microphone until record is engaged. If I switch the auto input button on I can hear the live mic but not the pre-recorded material.
Is there a way to be able to hear both the live microphone and the pre-recorded material, obviously the recorded material would be muted as soon as record is engaged.
The idea here is to have the musician play/sing along with the previous take until you do the punch in.
One way to do this is to create a monitoring track where you place the same playlist as is on the track you’re recording on.
Another way is to manually punch using the track arming button instead of the master record button. You will never hear the contents of the track when the track is armed - regardless of your monitoring preferences.
I will also open a feature request on the tracker. It seems to me that this is a case of you can do ‘b then a’ but not ‘a then b’ with the later case being more intuitive and expected behavior.
They are supposed to work that way. The “arm” button changes how the track behaves while the main “record” button sets the global recording state.
The fact that they function differently is expected, and comes in handy. Using the combination of both you can work very intuitively and fast even in complicated overdub situations.
In terms of monitoring, it would be nice to be able to monitor recorded material on an armed track until the master record button is pressed. It would be sweeter if one could actually monitor a mix of both recorded and live material until the master record button is pressed (at which point only live material is monitored).
There are many situations where this is useful, matching vocal timbre prior to a punch in, matching hi-hat dynamics before a punch in etc…
I appreciate the flexibility of the present scheme of things, unfortunately (to me at least) there is a bit of a gap.
Set up a mix group for cases where you need to punch multiple tracks but still monitor the contents before recording. When the mix group is active, you can arm all of these tracks at the same time.
Start playback with the master record pressed, then when it’s time to punch, arm one track and all of them will get armed. This is exactly what you want, no?
I totally forgot about auto-punch. If you specify the punch range beforehand and use the punch controls, you will hear the signal on the armed tracks when outside the punch area.
I would like to arm all needed tracks so I can see what’s armed and what is not.
I want to press play and then hit the record button when I want to punch in. I may not want to stop to set a punch range because that would break a particular moment, I want to be back recording with punch in in a couple of seconds after the first take if need be.
Pressing the recording ‘arm’ button to initiate recording is not the most natural thing to do (i know it can be done), that is why there is a big button with a red dot.
I guess we can go at this forever. I do not expect this to be done soon and I will need to settle for your suggestions for which I thank you. However I am giving you a user’s view point (I worked as a recording engineer in the past and am presently recording on my third album project as a songwriter with the band I am involved with).
To me the present setup can be disruptive in a creative sense and I think Ardour can be improved. I do not think it is technically impossible to achieve but maybe I am wrong here.
I also know that workflow will be looked at now and a number of minor improvements will go a long way in making Ardour enhance creative flow. It is already an impressive tool and only wish for it to be more so.
Use separate tracks for punchs.
Whenever I’ve had to do something like this, I’ve always found it way easier and faster to simply duplicate a track (or tracks - I have done this with a drum kit) and record the “punch” on a separate track. That way, you can really fine tune your punch point. You can cut and paste between the tracks and/or set up crossfades across the transitions, etc. You can also compensate for gain differences if needed.
Yup - it requires extra tracks, and the extra step of creating them, but it works great. You have complete control of what you want to hear and when. You also have control of relative levels between already-recorded and new live tracks, which can affect the performance quite in a bit, in my experience - particularly if the performer is having any trouble syncing up rhythmically.
One way to do this is to create a monitoring track where you place the same playlist as is on the track you’re recording on.
Another way is to manually punch using the track arming button instead of the master record button. You will never hear the contents of the track when the track is armed - regardless of your monitoring preferences.
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Very cool app. Can you tell me where to download the Help files? Apparently they didn’t make it during the install process, so it won’t load them. Thanks!
Very cool app. Can you tell me where to download the Help files? Apparently they didn’t make it during the install process, so it won’t load them. Thanks! Biber Hapı