 | |
 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 | |
| Repository | |
| 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 |
Ardour is afree and open-sourcedigital audio workstation andhard disk recorder that runs onLinux,macOS,FreeBSD andMicrosoft Windows. Its primary author isPaul Davis, who is also responsible for theJACK Audio Connection Kit. Released under theGNU General Public License,[2] it is intended to be suitable for professional use.[3]
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 performlatency compensation, positioning recorded material where it was intended to be when recording it. Monitoring options include self-monitoring, external hardware support (dependent onsound card support), and specialized hardware support (e.g.JACK Audio Connection Kit). Self-monitoring makes it possible to applyplug-in effects while recording. Using the JACK audio, Ardour can record concurrently from both the audio card and compatible software.[4]
Ardour supports an arbitrary number of tracks and buses through an "anything to anywhere" routing system. Allgain,panning and plug-in parameters can be automated. All sample data is mixed and maintained internally in32-bitfloating point format.[5]
Ardour supports dragging, trimming, splitting and time-stretching recorded regions with sample-level resolution, and supports layer regions. It includes acrossfade editor andbeat detection, unlimited undo/redo, and a "snapshot" feature for saving the current state of a session to a file.[6]
Ardour can be used as anaudio mastering environment. Its integration with theJACK 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 exportTOC andCUE files for creatingaudio CDs.[7]
Ardour attempts to adhere to industry standards, such asSMPTE/MTC,Broadcast Wave Format,MIDI Machine Control andXML.[8]
It has been tested onLinux,x86-64,x86,PowerPC andARM (for at least version 3) architectures;Solaris,macOS on Intel and PowerPC,Windows on Intel architectures andFreeBSD. It takes advantage of all of these systems'multiprocessor,multicoreSMP andreal-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]
Ardour relies on plug-ins for many features, fromaudio effects processing todynamic control. It supports the following plugin format and platform combinations:[12]LV2 on Linux, FreeBSD, macOS and Windows;Audio Units on macOS;Steinberg'sVST2 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 ofWine, but the project team does not recommend it.[13]Since version 6.5, it also supportsVST3 plugins on all supported platforms.[14] Unlike most modern 64-bit DAW's, Ardour does not run 32bit VST's natively.[15]
Ardour can import audio clips into sessions from many common audio file formats, includingWAV,FLAC,Vorbis,AIFF,CAF, W64,BWF andMP3; SMF files are supported forMIDI import.[16]
Ardour can export whole sessions or parts of sessions, and import audio clips into sessions,[17] using its built-in audio filedatabase manager, or directly from an ordinary file browser.[18]
TheSAE Institute provided corporate support for Ardour until February 2009, an initiative for providing a more integrated experience onMac 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'sMixbus 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-classdigital audio workstation (DAW) users.[21]
Waves Audio privately supported Ardour development in 2009.[22] It also developed the Waves Track Live software[23] in collaboration with Ardour developers,[24] with most of the source code changes becoming part of Ardour's codebase.
