Audio/MIDI Setup

This window exposes the different audio options to be used by Ardour for the current work session, for hardware and software and is made of:

Audio System	Depending on the operating system, Ardour can possibly use different audio systems, e.g. on Linux, both ALSA, PulseAudio, and JACK are available. On Mac OS X this will typically be `CoreAudio`. Advanced users on all platforms may also use `NetJack` which provides network audio I/O.
Input Device	The selector should show all available interfaces provided by the audio system above and which are capable of capturing audio.
Output Device	The selector should show all available interfaces provided by the audio system above and which are capable of playing audio.
Sample Rate	The selector will allow to select from any sample rate supported by the device selected above it.
Buffer Size	The size of the buffer used by the audio interface can be adjusted to allow for either lower latency, or lower CPU usage and higher latency.
Periods	Number of frames between each hardware interrupt (analog-digital or digital-analog conversion).
Hardware Monitoring	This section allows choosing whether Ardour or auidio hardware should be handling recording monitoring.
Advanced Settings	This section contains several lower-level settings listed below.
MIDI System	This allows choosing a MIDI driver. On macOS, this will be `CoreMIDI`. On Linux, the choice will be between ALSA sequencer and ALSA raw devices. Choosing "None" will disable the connection to the external MIDI backend and prevent Ardour from being exposed to external MIDI ports while allowing to route MIDI events inside the program.
Setup & Calibration	This button runs a semi-automated guided process to obtain precise hardware latency measurements for available MIDI ports.
Hardware Input/Output Latency	Specify the hardware delay in samples for precise latency compensation.
Calibrate Audio	This button runs a semi-automated guided process to obtain precise hardware latency measurements for available audio ports.