Ardour (software)

Open-source digital audio workstation

Ardour

Screenshot of Ardour 6.7

Original author(s)| Paul Davis
Developer(s)| David Robillard, Robin Gareus, Nick Mainsbridge, Colin Fletcher, Ben Loftis, Tim Mayberry.
Initial release| 23 September 2005; 19 years ago (2005-09-23)
Stable release|

8.12[1]  / 11 March 2025; 4 months ago (11 March 2025)

Repository|

* git.ardour.org/ardour/ardour.git

Written in| C++ (GTK 2)
Operating system| FreeBSD, Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows
Available in| English
Type| Digital audio workstation
License| GPL-2.0-or-later
Website| ardour.org

Ardour is a free and open-source digital audio workstation and hard disk recorder that runs on Linux, macOS, FreeBSD and Microsoft Windows. Its primary author is Paul Davis, who is also responsible for the JACK Audio Connection Kit. Released under the GNU General Public License,[2] it is intended to be suitable for professional use.[3]

## Features

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### Recording

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Ardour's recording abilities are limited by only the hardware it is run on; there are no built-in limits on the number of tracks the user can record to. When recording on top of existing media, it can perform latency compensation, positioning recorded material where it was intended to be when recording it. Monitoring options include self-monitoring, external hardware support (dependent on sound card support), and specialized hardware support (e.g. JACK Audio Connection Kit). Self-monitoring makes it possible to apply plug-in effects while recording. Using the JACK audio, Ardour can record concurrently from both the audio card and compatible software.[4]

### Mixing

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Ardour supports an arbitrary number of tracks and buses through an "anything to anywhere" routing system. All gain, panning and plug-in parameters can be automated. All sample data is mixed and maintained internally in 32-bit floating point format.[5]

### Editing

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Ardour supports dragging, trimming, splitting and time-stretching recorded regions with sample-level resolution, and supports layer regions. It includes a crossfade editor and beat detection, unlimited undo/redo, and a "snapshot" feature for saving the current state of a session to a file.[6]

### Mastering

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Ardour can be used as an audio mastering environment. Its integration with the JACK Audio Connection Kit makes it possible to use mastering tools such as JAMin. Its mixer's output can be sent to third-party audio processing software for processing and/or recording. It can also export TOC and CUE files for creating audio CDs.[7]

## Compatibility

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Ardour attempts to adhere to industry standards, such as SMPTE/MTC, Broadcast Wave Format, MIDI Machine Control and XML.[8]

It has been tested on Linux, x86-64, x86, PowerPC and ARM (for at least version 3) architectures; Solaris, macOS on Intel and PowerPC, Windows on Intel architectures and FreeBSD. It takes advantage of all of these systems' multiprocessor, multicore SMP and real-time features.[9]

Pre-built binaries of Ardour are available for purchase for Linux, macOS and Windows.[10] It is also possible to build Ardour yourself for free from the freely available source code.[11]

### Plug-ins

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Ardour relies on plug-ins for many features, from audio effects processing to dynamic control. It supports the following plugin format and platform combinations:[12] LV2 on Linux, FreeBSD, macOS and Windows; Audio Units on macOS; Steinberg's VST2 on Linux, macOS and Windows; LADSPA on Linux, FreeBSD, macOS and Windows. It is theoretically possible to use plugins created for Windows in the VST2 format on Linux with the help of Wine, but the project team does not recommend it.[13] Since version 6.5, it also supports VST3 plugins on all supported platforms.[14] Unlike most modern 64-bit DAW's, Ardour does not run 32bit VST's natively.[15]

### Import and export

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Ardour can import audio clips into sessions from many common audio file formats, including WAV, FLAC, Vorbis, AIFF, CAF, W64, BWF and MP3; SMF files are supported for MIDI import.[16]

Ardour can export whole sessions or parts of sessions, and import audio clips into sessions,[17] using its built-in audio file database manager, or directly from an ordinary file browser.[18]

## Supporting companies and future

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The SAE Institute provided corporate support for Ardour until February 2009, an initiative for providing a more integrated experience on Mac OS X and the development of a simpler version for students and others new to audio processing.[19]

Solid State Logic employed Paul Davis to work full-time on Ardour during the development of version 2, until the end of 2006.[20]

Harrison Audio has supported the Ardour project since early 2005. Harrison's Mixbus DAW, LiveTrax[citation needed] front-of-house multi-track recorder, and their destructive film dubber, the Xdubber, are based on Ardour. Mixbus extends Ardour to add Harrison's own proprietary DSP and a more console-like workflow. The Xdubber was a customizable platform for enterprise-class digital audio workstation (DAW) users.[21]

Waves Audio privately supported Ardour development in 2009.[22] It also developed the Waves Tracks Live software[23] in collaboration with Ardour developers,[24] with most of the source code changes becoming part of Ardour's codebase.

## See also

[edit]

* Free and open-source software portal

* JACK Audio Connection Kit, a real-time low-latency audio server.
* Comparison of digital audio editors
* Comparison of free software for audio
* Linux audio software
* List of free and open source digital audio workstation software
* List of music software

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Ardour 8.12 released". 11 March 2025. Retrieved 11 March 2025.
2. ^ "Ardour is licensed under the GNU Public License v2". Archived from the original on 2020-02-16. Retrieved 2019-03-06.
3. ^ Dave Phillips. "Introducing Ardour". Archived from the original on 2024-07-06. Retrieved 2024-07-06.
4. ^ "Starting Ardour :: Ardour Tutorial".
5. ^ "Ardour review". Archived from the original on 2020-02-16.
6. ^ "The Ardour Manual - Snapshots". Archived from the original on 2024-06-03. Retrieved 2025-01-06.
7. ^ "The Ardour Manual - Export Format Profiles". Archived from the original on 2024-11-14. Retrieved 2025-01-06.
8. ^ "The Ardour Manual - Preferences". Archived from the original on 2025-01-16. Retrieved 2025-01-06.
9. ^ "The Ardour Manual - Lua Scripting".
10. ^ "Ardour Downloads". 3 November 2023.
11. ^ "Ardour Downloads". 3 November 2023.
12. ^ "plugin_types.h". GitHub.
13. ^ "Using Windows VST Plugins on Linux". Archived from the original on 2021-01-11. Retrieved 2020-10-11.
14. ^ "Ardour 6.5 release notes". 23 November 2020. Archived from the original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
15. ^ "32 bit VST plugins are not recognised on a 64 bit Windows build of Ardour 6.2". 25 July 2020. Archived from the original on 24 July 2022. Retrieved 24 July 2022.
16. ^ "Ardour Manual - Importing - Supported File Formats". 3 November 2023.
17. ^ "The Ardour Manual - Import Dialog". Archived from the original on 2024-11-14. Retrieved 2025-01-06.
18. ^ "Importing audio and MIDI :: Ardour Tutorial". Archived from the original on 2025-02-07. Retrieved 2025-01-06.
19. ^ "SAE Institute sponsors Ardour open source DAW project". Archived from the original on 2025-01-26. Retrieved 2025-01-06.
20. ^ "Solid State Logic announces support for the Ardour project". 6 October 2006. Archived from the original on 23 May 2022. Retrieved 6 January 2025.
21. ^ "Mixbus support forum". 18 September 2015.
22. ^ "Development update - what's going on with Ardour". 20 April 2024. Archived from the original on 15 January 2025. Retrieved 6 January 2025.
23. ^ "Introducing Waves Tracks Live".
24. ^ "Waves Tracks Live Review". 15 March 2015.

## Articles

[edit]

* Hinkle-Turner, Elizabeth (September 2009). "Ardour et al., or Free and Easy Laptop Pro Audio: An Essay Perspective from a desperate working mother composer". eContact! 11.3 — Open Source for Audio Application. Canadian Electroacoustic Community.
* Nettingsmeier, Jörn (September 2009). "Ardour and Ambisonics: A FLOSS approach to the next generation of sound spatialisation". eContact! 11.3 - Jörn Nettingsmeier - Ardour and Ambisonics. Canadian Electroacoustic Community.
* Gareus, Robin (December 2017). The Ardour DAW - Latency Compensation and Anywhere-to-Anywhere Signal Routing Systems. PhD Thesis (These de doctorat). Université Paris 8.

## External links

[edit]

* Official website

* v
* t
* e

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See also|

* Comparison of digital audio editors
* Comparison of free software for audio
* List of music software
* List of Linux audio software
* Comparison of MIDI editors and sequencers

* Comparison
* Category

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