Ardour provides two ways of viewing a session: the Editor and the Mixer. The Editor shows the session by representing tracks as horizontal timeline displays, with material within the tracks (audio, MIDI, video, automation data, etc.) arranged along the horizontal (time) axis. The Mixer shows the session by representing tracks as mixer strips, with controls for gain, record enable, soloing and so forth. More abstractly, the Editor represents the time based aspects of a session, whereas the Mixer represents the signal flow. However, it is quite possible to control the signal flow aspects from within the Editor as well, without the comprehensive overview that the Mixer provides. For some sessions, especially during the early stages of a session, the Editor may be the only window you need to use.

Lets survey the basic layout of the editor window: The transport controls are in a tearoff window at the top of the editor, and are described in transport_window.

Below the region list is the Chunk List, which provides a visual list of all "chunks". Chunks are collections (possibly discontiguous) of sections.

Each track has a set of controls on its left side. Which controls are present varies depending on the type of track (audio, bus, automation, MIDI, etc.). Every track type has a "hide" button marked with a cross. Click on this to hide the track.

This is where all editing takes place. The track views contain region objects, curve control points, lines and other items that can be added, removed, copied, cut and pasted. See editing_basics for more information on editing.