Nick Copeland wrote: >There is an intention to interface to Jack, but I do not want this >to be the only access method since Paul appears to mandate that >Ardour is then the mixer/plug interface. That is fine, but I do >not want this to be the _only_ interface.
No, no, no on all counts. This is a huge, terribly bad misperception. There are no priviledged JACK clients. Any client can do anything the others can. Ardour just happens to present a pretty nice mixer interface for *its* ports. You are free to not use it, write your own, or do without such a mixer completely. Since the user controls how clients connect to each other, no client can force itself on others. If you want connect straight to the ALSA client, for example, you can do so whether or not Ardour, alsaplayer, ecasound or jackbox are running. The only sense in which Ardour has a special relationship with JACK is that I wrote them both (with help), and that Ardour's needs as a DAW inform and extend some of the functionality offered by JACK. Latency management and access to h/w-level monitoring are examples of this. But any other client can use them as well. --p