Preparations: The tempo is something you should already have set before you came to the editing part of your recording. If you’re importing loops you can use BPMdetect to find it and with the metronome adjust the project tempo.

Grid

With the grid you can define the points for your editing and the resolution can be set with beats and bars for fast and accurate editing. You can see it represented by the vertical lines in the project window. With the signature 4/4 we get four editing points within one bar if the grid is set to beats. To get more accuracy, adjusting the grid to beats/4 gives us 4 editing points within a beat and 16 within a bar. The most accurate we can get is by choosing beat/32 witch gives us 32 predefined editing points within one beat.

If that just isn’t good enough for your needs then you can turn the grid off to find an absolute point.

Split

To split a track hover the mouse pointer over the area where you want the separation to occur. Then press the key “s”. When the track is split we get two parts, which in Ardour are called regions. You’ll see they individually get different names.

Trim

At the bottom of a region there is a coloured area. By hovering it you’ll discover a double arrow. Dragging it along the base line will let you adjust the size of the region.

Fades

There are fade boxes in the top corners of a region if you hover it. They enables you to handle fade in/outs.

If you have regions overlapping each other the default Ardour configuration will apply a crossfade between them to smoothen the transmission. However this functionality can be disabled in the options menu, crossfades → active.

Layers

If your regions are overlapping and the crossfade functionality is switched off, only the top layer will be played  throughout the overlapping section. To control the playback the regions can be brought to the top or background layer under the region menu.

Gain

The fast way of adjusting the volume of a region is by accessing the region menu where you find the function boost and cut gain. This will change the gain of the whole region.

If you want a more dynamic change there is the possibility to automate the volume change. If you right-click the region and look under it’s individual name, you can make the volume line visible by choosing “envelope visible”. Draw the desired gain curve with the drawing tool and make the automation active or inactive by turning it on and off with the function “envelope active”.