Ardour Using the editor to modify gain. Contents
Updated Wednesday 26 February 2003

One thing that most people want to do after recording and prior to mixing down a set of tracks is to adjust the gain for certain sections of specific tracks.  For instance, your guitarist got a little heavy handed when he was playing fills (how did that happen?) and you have to tone him down a bit.  You can do this when you mix down by adjusting the sliders in the mixer window but you may have other things that you need to do at that time.  So, what options do you have?  You can use the region editor and the gain button to set variable gain levels in a track.  The gain button is in the upper right of the editor window:
 


 

Select the gain button so that it is highlighted.  To initiate the region editor right click in the track that you are interested in and select Region->Popup region editor:
 
 


 

The region editor will pop up in the default mode:
 


 

Press the show button (which then toggles to hide) and you will see a line appear on the selected track in the editor.  This line represents the 0dB level:
 


 

Notice that the track has been enlarged using the H button (in the track buttons to the left of the editor strip) to select the largest size.  This makes it a lot easier to see what you are doing.  To adjust the gain you can left click in the track either above or below the gain line.  When you do this it will create an adjustment point that can be dragged in any direction:
 


 

You can create as many adjustment points as you need.  If you press play now you won't hear any difference in the sound level because you have not activated the gain level adjustments in the region editor.  Select OFF in the region editor and it will toggle to ACTIVE.:
 


 

Now you will hear the level adjustments for this track when you press play.  This part of the interface is still a bit buggy so be careful.
 

Jan Depner 12/14/2002