Routing is the most powerful and unique feature in Aldrin.
Due to this fact, understanding it is extremely important to working efficiently
and creatively with Aldrin. Routing could be defined simply as the flow of
audio as it is led from its source, through various filters, and finally
on to the output of your audio card. Routing is a blueprint.
To conquer this understanding, the following has been separated into general
genres of user:
Studio Musicians
Musicians accustomed to traditional gear and studios could easily relate
Aldrin routing to a room with many synths, routing into many effects, finally
routing out to a single destination (a mixing board leading to an amplifier).
In a sense, routing in Aldrin is exactly like a traditional studio; only it
allows much easier routing then physical, which is usually tied to wire-crowded
patch bays. Any studio musician will quickly realize that Aldrin is by far
the lightest and most portable "studio" ever devised.
Trackers
To many of the tracker-scene, Aldrin is an overly-complex beast. You are most
likely well situated in older DOS based software such as
IT
or FT2
. This is expected to be your history - and basically
a thriving underground culture. What you need to understand is that Aldrin
is simply the next generation of what you are already accustomed to. Aldrin
offers nearly everything you are familiar with, yet including the addition
of a modernized modular architecture allowing it to grow and expand unlike
any tracker to date.
To explain Aldrin to you would be to consider Aldrin an endless
amount of trackers (such as FT2 and IT) side by side in one framework. Yet
rather then considering a track to do nothing more then play samples, Aldrin
allows different sound-sources to produce completely unique sounds, not
based on samples in any way - but completely synthesized mathematical. Of
course, Aldrin includes sample based tracking as well. You should think
of sequencing much like original tracker packages as well, only in a much
more powerful fashion. Rather then having a single column by which to sequence
patterns, Aldrin adds the ability to sequence a virtually unlimited number
of trackers, synths, and effects side by side - all at once. Throw on top
the ability to connect in a modular fashion to hundreds of effects, and
the ability to script any parameter of any of these effects or synthesizers
- and you have something more powerful then any of the original Tracker
creators could have ever imagined - and on top of that, you still have your
sample based trackers
in a familiar format
(Cubase will never offer
that!).
Newbies
Those
of you new to digital music may at first find the concept of Aldrin a bit
strange. Well, it is. To you, there is little to say other then,
"continue to experiment". Aldrin is built based on many
concepts - all of which are listed throughout this user guide. Read
everything and continue to experiment. Also, some experienced Aldrin
users set up useful sites like
http://go.to/buzzfaq
. To get into the scene a bit more,
check out some url's on the buzztracker webring, start at
www.djlaser.com
. If all else
fails, download an IRC client, and jump into #aldrin on Freenode (irc.freenode.net).
Someone will be glad to help you.
Everyone
Just keep in mind that generators may connect to effects, effects may connect
to effects, and everything can connect to the master. Beyond these basic
rules, you are free to be as creative as you wish. If you would like a
Jeskola
O1
to connect to a
Raverb
, and that
Raverb
to branch into both an
EQ-10
and
Jeskola
Flanger
, which both output to the
Master
- feel free. Aldrin
lets you be as creative with your audio routing as you wish.