How to hear effects live through Ardour?

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winthereik
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How to hear effects live through Ardour?

Post by winthereik »

Hello everyone.
As I have just installed Ubuntu Studio (Jaunty), and I am beginning to understand the JACK-Framework, I have a question:
When I record something into a track in Ardour, is it possible to add an effect in Ardour and then hear the modified recording in realtime? I have tried to connect the track-output to the system-audio out, but apparently this doesnt work. No sound comes through. Can I do this, and how?
thorgal
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Re: How to hear effects live through Ardour?

Post by thorgal »

maybe you can derive some inspiration from this post of mine about monitoring in ardour ?

http://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?p=5827#p5827
winthereik
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Re: How to hear effects live through Ardour?

Post by winthereik »

Thanks alot, I will check that!
Pablo
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Re: How to hear effects live through Ardour?

Post by Pablo »

Hi!
Thank you for your posts, thorgal. I learn lots by reading them!
Just two comments to complete your explanation in the post you link, that I think will help
ardour "absolute beginners":

1) In a new session, monitoring is set to hardware monitoring (it's not clear in your post but I am positive this is so; this is the first thing I always change in a new session)
2) Monitoring options are reached by "Options --> Monitoring" in the main menu.

I choose software monitoring (Ardour does monitoring) because I usually use software effects (don't have the gear).
In some hardware-software configurations, latency could be an issue, but if you have a decent audio card, with our beloved Jack and some tweaks made for you by a specialized multimedia distro (or by yourself),
this is much less problematic, if at all.

Latency here is sub 3ms if I want to, but I choose SR 44100 and 128 frames/period that gives some 5 ms which is unnoticeable for me and rock solid.

I understand you, thorgal, when you say it is more safe to have a more stable jack with more latency and do hardware monitoring but don't you ever use software monitoring? I am sure you can have a jack with very low latency and safe enough to record with zero dropouts. Can't you?

Cheers! Pablo.
thorgal
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Re: How to hear effects live through Ardour?

Post by thorgal »

Ciao Pablo,

thanks for clarifying. I write a bit too fast (I usually do it from work when I get 5mn ;) )
To answer your last question, sure, I have many different jack settings (saved in qjackctl) and switch between them depending on the situation.

But when I record or apply some software effects to a mix (with jamin for example), I switch to a higher latency. I don't need low latency in this case due to my monitoring via hardware (when I record) or because it is simply not needed (mixing, mastering).

But apart from that, I change from 64 frames to 1024 quite often. It all depends on the situation requirements. When I play some live piano (from software) or redirect the guitar signal through e.g. guitarix, I switch to very low latency. I don't get xruns thanks to what you called our "beloved" jack and "system tweaks" (not to forget a pro sound card) :D
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