You're WAY ahead of me! I'm just starting to learn Ardour and experiment with multi-track recording.
I've set up a pretty powerful template on Ardour for multi-track recording.
it took a good amount of time to configure, but was well worth the investment.
Willing to share if anyone is interested.
*Key Features*
*Input tracks stay free of recorded clips (Ardour calls these clips regions).
*Regions appear on separate audio tracks after prefader sends (via hidden busses).
*Postfader sends on input tracks go to a monitoring bus.
*The monitoring bus bypasses the master channel and goes direct to the outputs (1-2) of the interface.
*All tracks have postfader sends to a master bus dedicated to the instrument (i.e. each drum track goes to a drum master bus).
*All mastering busses go to the master track.
*Prefader auxiliary tracks have been created for the snare input as well as the mono guitar, bass, vox tracks, etc. These also go to the dedicated master bus for their respective instruments.
*all related sections grouped and colored.
*While recording, the master track remains free of audio while the monitoring track is active.
*On playback the audio reaches the master track.
*while overdubbing all audio may be monitored (playback audio and monitored inputs) by muting the master track.
https://video.nostr.build/9369aa4daf5dfa28ecf788aff4322c85987bd4ef1d3b67ef9294e3c75e3813c5.mp4
Discussion
I spent some time working on it for sure. Eventually, you just want to your session to start in a way that works everytime, no matter what you're doing.
On that note, I've improved this template further since this note, mostly routing the final busses (before master) back to the monitoring bus/cue mix... and adding a midi track.
I've honestly spent more time with jackd2 and pipewire and linux tweaks to make this work than with Ardour. 🤣
One must be very committed to remaining Microsoft free. I'm nearly there... but not quite.