Saving a session

There are a number of ways to save Sessions in Ardour, so that each session can be used later on. The simplest way is to save the entire session just like you would save other documents: hitting Ctrl+S.

A new session is first saved at the moment you create it. While you are working on it, you should save it frequently. Get into the habit of hitting Ctrl+S (or Command+S on a Mac) every few minutes.

Tip

Avoid using any characters other than letters and numbers when naming your session. Avoid white spaces, accented letters, !@#$%*()+, periods, commas, etc. Use dashes or underscores if you like. For example, instead of “My Great Session!”, prefer “My_Great_Session”, or “MyGreatSession”, or “my-great-session”. Instead of “Açaí”, write “Acai” (without accented letters), etc. Once you have created your Ardour session, do not manually rename any folders or files that belong to the session.

Ardour File and Folder Format

The contents of a typical session’s folder on your hard drive might look something like this:

Ardour Folder

A bit of information about some of the components inside that folder:

  • The name of this session is my_session.
  • The main session file is called my_session.ardour. The session file is periodically backed up by Ardour with a .bak extension.
  • The .history file keeps a record of changes you have made during your session, and is also periodically backed up.
  • The interchange folder contains the actual audio data of all the regions used in your session.
  • The export folder is where exported files are saved by default.

If double-clicking on the session file does not launch Ardour, use the standard method of first opening the application itself, then choosing a session from the Session Setup dialog.

Ardour Opening

Moving a Session to Another Computer or Disk

If you need to move your Ardour session to another computer, or if you would like to make a backup of it on an external drive, you must copy the entire folder containing all of the files mentioned above. It is not enough to copy just the *.ardour file.

Warning

When copying an Ardour folder to another computer or drive, do not manually change its name or the name of any of the internal files. Please also note that, as Ardour sessions are case-sensitive, copying a session to a USB stick (VFAT file-system) will likely corrupt the session. ZIP up the session folder to move it between machines.

The easiest way to transfer the entire project is indeed to just ZIP the session’s folder. If you don’t have snapshots in your session, you can also use the Session > Archive... command. This will create a single ZIP file containing the project file and all audio data transcoded to lossless FLAC files. Please note that an archive will not contain snapshot, only the current state of the session will be preserved.

Continuing

Saving an entire session allows you to open it again at a later time. However, if you would like to preserve a certain state that your session is in, to be able to return to that state later on after you have made changes, then please continue to the next section called Saving a Snapshot.

Next: SAVING A SNAPSHOT