Ardour & Hydrogen

Support & discussion regarding DAWs and MIDI sequencers.

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dchurch24
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Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2008 7:44 pm

Ardour & Hydrogen

Post by dchurch24 »

Hi all,

I'm sure there is a simple answer to this, but it's something I just can't work out.

At the moment I can "record" a drum track from Hyrdogen into Ardour easily - I will have made the patterns and arranged them into a Hydrogen 'song' and then I hit record in Ardour and play in Hydrogen (or I set the Time Master as Jack and they start together).

But what I'd like to do is press record in Ardour with, say, my bass track being recorded, and watch the drum 'song' in the song editor in Hydrogen as it plays, so I can see where the drum rolls etc... will be coming.

At the moment, my attempts have simply recorded a drum beat that is continious, wheras, I'd like to record songs with quiet drum bits in, like a middle-eight or similar and it would be easier if I could see which pattern was coming up in Hydrogen.

Is this possible, or do I have to record the Hydrogen track directly into Ardour?

I'm not sure if I've done a very good job of explaining myself, I hope you understand what I mean.
thorgal
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Re: Ardour & Hydrogen

Post by thorgal »

you can activate the transport from anywhere when the apps are in jack slave mode. So prepare ardour for recording (toggle track and session record buttons on), and activate the transport from hydrogen or even qjackctl if you want.
dchurch24
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Re: Ardour & Hydrogen

Post by dchurch24 »

So they sync up together and I can rewind/fastforward and Hydrogen and whatever I've recorded will both be in sync together?
thorgal
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Re: Ardour & Hydrogen

Post by thorgal »

sorry for the delay ... in principle yes, if the apps are using the jack transport API correctly. I do it from rosegarden where I program my drumming, sync'ed up with ardour. But actually, working with a dual screen setup is helping a lot as well ;)

imagine ardour's editor window on the right and you see what I mean :)
Image
dchurch24
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Posts: 189
Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2008 7:44 pm

Re: Ardour & Hydrogen

Post by dchurch24 »

Hi, thanks for the reply.

I do have a dual screen setup thankfully - although I still run out of room ;-) I'm going to get another SLI card so I can have all four screens up.

Do you programme the drums exclusevly in Rosegarden, or do you use Hydrogen and then put that into Rosegarden and THEN sync that with Ardour?
thorgal
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Re: Ardour & Hydrogen

Post by thorgal »

I don't use hydrogen at all, I output the MIDI notes from rosegarden to the VSTi MIDI input (handled by dssi-vst) and output the audio of the VSTi to ardour.

I may use hydrogen again in the future for special rythm sections where I plan to use home made sounds packed together into a hydrogen kit.
stratotak
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Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2009 5:42 am

Re: Ardour & Hydrogen

Post by stratotak »

I see in pic your using addictive drums..I have tried demo.I can launch it either with

Code: Select all

vsthost AddictiveDrums.dll
or

Code: Select all

fst AddictiveDrums.dll
but when I try to use it within Rosegarden..when I open editor it to select a kit it crashes rosegarden.Are you able to use it within rosegarden or do you have to launch it as a dssi-host??
thorgal
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Re: Ardour & Hydrogen

Post by thorgal »

I tried the rosegarden dssi handling but the output I got was not right, so I use AD via vsthost (dssi-vst's standalone VST host). To my mind, it's better this way. I don't use rosegarden's plugin abilities at all and I don't use its audio handling at all, I just need it to sequence my MIDI patterns. AD in vsthost (standalone dssi-vst) is very stable, much more than rosegarden itself :)

But when ardour3 is mature enough, it will handle AD and I will be able to have some insane automations of the amazing mixing capabilties of this VSTi :D
dchurch24
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Posts: 189
Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2008 7:44 pm

Re: Ardour & Hydrogen

Post by dchurch24 »

I'm not using MIDI yet (although that's on the agenda).

However, I LOVE Hydrogen - I think it's by far and away the best drum pattern editor I've ever used.

It urinates on Cubase etc... IMO. Nice, simple interface, nice and easy to use, easy to load drum kits into etc...
dchurch24
Established Member
Posts: 189
Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2008 7:44 pm

Re: Ardour & Hydrogen

Post by dchurch24 »

Nice looking setup by the way!

I'll post some up of my setup when I get settled again (just moved last weekend, and it's my Girlfriends 21st birthday party tomorrow!).
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