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<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE section PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.4//EN" "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.4/docbookx.dtd" [
]>
<section id="sn-working-with-playlists">
<title>Working with Playlists</title>
<para>
As described earlier <link linkend="gt-playlist">playlists</link> are
one of the central objects in a digital audio workstation. A playlist is
a list of <link linkend="gt-region">regions</link> ordered in time. It
defines which parts of which source files should be played and when.
</para>
<para>
Each track in Ardour is really just a mechanism for taking a playlist
and generating the audio stream that it represents. As a result, editing
a track really means modifying its playlist in some way. Since a
playlist is a list of regions, most of the modifications involve
manipulating regions: their position, length and so forth. This is
covered in <xref linkend="sn-working-with-regions"/>. Here, we cover
some of the things you can do with playlists as objects in their own
right.
</para>
<section id="tracks-are-not-playlists">
<title> Tracks are not Playlists </title>
<para>
It is important to understand that a track is <emphasis>not</emphasis>
a playlist. A track is a mechanism for generating the audio stream
represented by the playlist and passing it through a signal processing
pathway. At any point in time, a track has a single playlist
associated with it. When the track is used to record, that playlist
will have one or more new regions added to it. When the track is used
for playback, the contents of the playlist will be heard. Old tape
operators will feel comfortable thinking of the playlist as the tape,
and the track as the tape machine.
</para>
<para>
However, you can change the playlist associated with a track at
(almost) any time, and even share playlists between tracks. There is
more on this <link linkend="playlist-operations">below</link>.
</para>
</section>
<section id="playlists-are-cheap">
<title> Playlists are cheap </title>
<para>
One thing you should be clear about is that playlists are cheap. They
don't cost anything in terms of CPU consumption, and they have very
minimal efforts on memory use. Don't be afraid of generating new
playlists whenever you want to. They are not equivalent to tracks,
which require extra CPU time and significant memory space, or audio
files, which use disk space, or to plugins that require extra CPU
time. If a playlist is not in use, it occupies a small amount of
memory, and nothing more.
</para>
</section>
<section id="playlists-as-takes">
<title> Playlists as "Takes" or "Virtual Tracks" </title>
<para>
If you have a background in audio engineering, then it might be
easiest for you to think of playlists as "takes". This isn't a
particularly useful analogy by itself, and it can be misleading. But
if you are working with music where most tracks feature single-pass
recordings of a single instrument, then the idea of using one playlist
per "take" can make life very convenient. Each time you need to record
another take, create a new playlist list first. You will then end up
with a simple way of switching back and forth between each version, or
even listening to several at the same time.
</para>
<para>
If you have some experience of other DAWs, then you might have come
across the term "virtual track", normally defined as a track that
isn't actually playing or doing anything, but can be mapped/assigned
to a "real track". This concept is functionally identical to Ardour's
playlists. We just like to be little more clear about what is actually
happening rather than mixing old and new terminology ("virtual" and
"track") into confusing terminology.
</para>
</section>
<section id="playlist-operations">
<title> Playlist Operations </title>
<para>
At this point, all operations on playlists start by clicking on the
playlist button (labelled <guibutton>p</guibutton>) in the control
area of a track in the editor. Clicking the button will popup a menu
with the following choices:
</para>
<variablelist>
<title></title>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Current</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>
shows the name of the current playlist used by this track
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Rename</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>
pops up a dialog that allows the current playlist to be renamed
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>New</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>
creates a new <emphasis>empty</emphasis> playlist, and switches
this track to use it
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>New Copy</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>
creates a new playlist that is a copy of the current playlist,
and switches this track to use it
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Clear Current</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>
removes all regions from the current playlist
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Select</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>
pops up a playlist browser to manually choose which playlist
this track should use
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<section id="renaming-playlists">
<title>Renaming Playlists</title>
<para>
Playlists are created with the name of the track of which they are
associated, plus a version number. So, the first playlist for a
track called "Cowbell" will be called "Cowbell.1". This name will be
used to define the names of any regions added to the playlist by
recording. You can change the name at any time, to anything you
want. Ardour does not require that your playlist names are all
unique, but it will make your life easier if they are. Suggested
examples of user-assigned names for a playlist might include "Lead
Guitar, 2nd take", "vocals (quiet)", and "downbeat cuica". Notice
how these might be different from the associated track names, which
for these examples might be "Lead Guitar", "Vocals" and "Cuica". The
playlist name provides more information because it is about a
specific version of the material that may (or may not) end up in the
final version of the track.
</para>
<para>
If you are going to rename your playlists, do so before recording
new material to them.
</para>
</section>
<section id="selecting-playlists">
<title>Selecting Playlists</title>
<para>
If you click on the "Select" choice of the playlist button menu, a
dialog will appear that displays all playlists in a tree-structure
(many will be hidden). Playlists will be grouped by the track for
which they were created, with all those created for the current
track displayed. Other tracks are hidden in a collapsed tree that
can be expanded as you wish to find other playlists.
</para>
</section>
<section id="sharing-playlists">
<title>Sharing Playlists</title>
<para>
It is entirely possible to share playlists between tracks. The only
slightly unusual thing you may notice when sharing is that edits to
the playlist made in one track will magically appear in the other.
If you think about this for a moment, its an obvious consequence of
sharing.
</para>
<para>
You might not want this kind of behaviour, even though you still
want two tracks to use the same (or substantially the same)
playlist. To accomplish this, select the chosen playlist in the
second track, and then use <guilabel>New Copy</guilabel> to generate
an independent copy of it for that track. You can then edit this
playlist without affecting the original.
</para>
</section>
<section id="using-playlists-for-takes">
<title>Using playlists for takes</title>
<para>
You have several choices here. You can obviously record new takes
directly over an existing one, because of the non-destructive nature
of digital audio editing. You can also use the <guilabel>Clear
Current</guilabel> operation each time you want to start a new take.
This is a non-destructive operation that removes all existing
regions from the current playlist. Although you won't lose any
information doing this, its probably not appropriate unless the last
take was so awful that you want to discard it (although without the
finality of <emphasis>Remove Last Capture</emphasis> ). Finally, and
probably most useful, you can use the <guilabel>New</guilabel>
operation in the playlist button menu to create a new empty
playlist, ready for the next take. Later, you can
<guilabel>Select</guilabel> your way back to previous or later takes
as desired, either in this or some other track.
</para>
</section>
</section>
</section>
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