Custom Strip Lists

It is sometimes desirable to work only with a set of strips out of the whole list of available strips. This could be in any case where there is more than one engineer and one of them is responsible for only a group of strips such as all percussion, all sound effects, choir only, orchestra only, etc.

New Ardour 6.0

After a strip is added to the custom strip list, it will retain the same SSID for the life of the session so long as banking is not used. If a strip is removed it will leave a gap in the SSID list. Custom strip lists do not survive a session reload and need to be recreated at session start.

A custom strip list will only affect the surface that sets it. Any other surface will continue to operate on all strips or may have it's own set of custom strips.

The commands below control the use of a custom strip set.

/strip/listen ssid ... where ssid is an integer or list of integers representing tracks to add to the custom track list
/strip/ignore ssid ... where ssid is an integer or list of integers representing tracks to remove from the custom track list
/strip/custom/mode mode where mode is an integer representing the desired mode of custom strips.
/strip/custom/clear disables custom strips and clears the previously set custom strip list

Setting up a custom strip set

The control surface may set up a custom strip list all at once or one strip at a time. A control surface that uses banking would probably be best served by setting up one strip at a time, while one that does no banking (bank_size = 0) and uses /strip/list would probably be best served by having them all selected at once.

  • One at a time example:

    /strip/listen 2

    adds strip 2 to custom strip list

  • Many at a time example:

    /strip/listen 2 4 6 8

    Adds strips 2, 4, 6 and 8 to the custom strip list

/strip/listen will only work with custom enable turned off. Using /strip/listen while in custom mode will have no effect.

Using the custom strip set

Once the custom strip set has been set up as shown above, it must be enabled. This is done from the control surface with the /strip/custom/mode mode OSC command. Mode may be 0: Off, 1: Use custom strip set in selected order or 2: Use custom strip set in mixer order. /strip/list will now show the custom strip list and and its SSIDs. No more strips may be added to the custom strip list while in custom mode. To add more strips to the end of the list, first send the /strip/custom/mode 0 then more strips can be added to the end of the list. After adding the next strips send the /strip/custom/mode mode to re-enable custom mode. It is possible to switch back and forth between normal and custom mode as desired.

Custom Strip ordering

The ordering of strips in the custom strip set is affected by both the custom mode and the bank_size setting for the surface.

A bank_size of 0 is also described as having banking turned off. In such a case all strips are shown.

  • Mode 0

    Custom mode Off. All strips will be used as set by strip_types.

  • Mode 1

    If mode is set to 1 the custom strip ordering is always "first come, first served". That is, /strip/listen 2 4 followed by /strip/listen 1 3 will result in strip 2 showing as SSID 1 , strip 4 as SSID 2, strip 1 as SSID 3 and strip 3 as SSID 4 when in custom mode 1. Once these SSID are set in this way, they will remain linked to this SSID with banking turned off and will at least remain in the same order with banking on.

  • Mode 2

    If mode is set to 2 the custom strip ordering will be set to mixer order and any deleted strips will not leave a blank strip in the set.

  • With banking on

    If bank_size is set to greater than 0, Then banking is turned on. In this case strip_types will be honored and only strips from the custom strip set that match strip_types will be shown in a bank. However, the order that the strips appear will still be affected by the mode.

Removing a strip from the custom strip list

/strip/ignore ssid will remove that strip from the custom strip list if custom strip use is enabled. In mode 1 there will be a blank strip at that SSID and all other SSIDs will remain the same for no banking. With banking in use, strip_types are honored and so removed strips which have no type, will not be shown.

/strip/custom/clear will remove all strips and SSIDs allowing custom strip lists to be restarted from SSID 1. Custom mode will be set to 0.