Saving and Importing Mixer Strips

Reusing Mixer Strips

It’s possible to reuse mixer strips in other sessions. This involves importing:

trim gain;

all plugin parameters;

pin connections;

fader position and value.

Other settings of the affected internal tracks/busses are retained.

The three available options for loading processing from mixer strips are:

  • Local strip templates: these templates are saved into the current session’s folder.

  • Global strip templates: these templates are saved into the user’s local folder with Ardour settings.

  • Ardour sessions: processing is extracted from arbitrary Ardour sessions on the disk and applied to existing tracks/busses or imported as new tracks/busses.

Saving Mixer Strips

To save mixer strips for further reuse, select track and busses whose processing you want to save, then choose [Session > Save Mixer Strips…]{.kbd .menu}. In the newly opened dialog:

  1. Select whether you want to export mixer strips from the entire session or just the selected tracks/busses.

  2. Select whether you want to export a local or a global strip template.

  3. Provide the name for the template.

  4. Click [OK]{.kbd .key}.

Saving Mixer Strips{width=“400px”}

Importing Mixer Strips

To load mixer strips, select [Session > Import Mixer Strips…]{.kbd .menu}, then pick an arbitrary session from disk, one of the recently opened sessions, or other global or local strip template.

Importing MixerStrips{width=“400px”}

Once you select the source of mixer strips, Ardour will display the number of tracks in either the session or the strip template. Click [Forward]{.kbd .key} to continue.

At the next step, Ardour allows you to map internal strips (already available in the session) and external strips (from the selected Ardour session or strip template).

Mapping Mixer Strips{width=“400px”}

The [Local track/bus]{.dfn} columns is a list of tracks and busses in the currently opened session. Ardour defaults to displaying pairs of internal tracks/busses and externals states with matching names. Other tracks can be selected from the drop-down list below. Selecting “– New Track –” will create a new track with a mixer strip selected on the right.

The [External State]{.dfn} column is a list of mixer strips available in either selected Ardour session or local/global template.

For a new pair of internal track/bus and external state, click the [+]{.kbd .key} button to add the mapping to the list.

The [Actions]{.dfn} drop-down list contains three shortcuts:

  • [Clear Mapping]{.dfn} removes all mappings between internal tracks/busses and external states.

  • [Import all as new tracks]{.dfn} removes all mappings and creates new ones where all external tracks and busses are imported as new tracks.

  • [Import visible as new tracks]{.dfn} removes all mappings and creates new ones where only visible external tracks and busses are imported as new tracks.

  • [Reset]{.dfn} restores default mappings (tracks and busses with matching names).

The [Show all local tracks]{.dfn} toggle enabled displaying all available tracks and busses in the currently opened session rather than the the first three ones by default.

Click [OK]{.kbd .key} to complete importing mixer strips to the current session.

Managing Mixer Strip Templates {#managing-strip-templates}

Global mixer strip templates are available for managing in the Template Manager.