Ardour Region FX - Re: Maolan 0.0.3

Robin Gareus <[email protected]> Thu, 19 Mar 2026 16:34:10 +0100
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.audio.users
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
On 2026-03-19 1:10 PM, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 19, 2026 at 09:32:24PM +1100, Roger wrote:
> 
>>> I've never heard of this before, I'll have to think about it, but it
>>> definitely sounds like a good idea.
> 
> I've wanted this once, when mxing the sound for a 90 min video
> documentary. It consisted of hundreds of short regions, and most
> of them needed some specific processing. Managed it by separating
> them over multiple tracks, each one requiring more or less the
> same effect(s), and combining this with automation.
> 

In Ardour it's also very useful when layering regions. Each can have 
different effects, while sharing the same channelstrip plugins on the mixer.

Despite all the fancy things one could do... the most praise came from 
mastering engineers, who want to apply different FX on each song on the 
timeline, and be able to re-arrange songs retaining FX automation (not 
that one could have done this already).


>> In Ardour 9 it's called Region FX:
>>
>> https://manual.ardour.org/mixing/automation/applying-effects-to-regions-separately/
> 
> "The given effect is rendered into memory and does not add any additional DSP load during playback."
> 
> This raises a few questions:
> 
> * Is the effect computed and stored only for the used part of the region
>   file ?

The effect is applied [every time] when reading the region from disk 
into the ringbuffer. Either before or after applying the region gain 
envelope.

Input data of the source-file before the *current* region's start and 
after the region's end is assumed to be silent.

Modifying any region property (start, source-offset, gain, plugin 
parameter, etc) refills the disk-buffer, and the effect is applied again.

When the effect is applied after the region's gain curve (default), the 
region is implicitly extended to include the plugin's tail time (e.g. 
reverb, delay FX, if the plugin specifies a tail-time). Plugin latency 
is also taken into account.

I hope that answers your question.

--
robin
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