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Ardour Digital Audio Workstation Now in Beta
croddy writes "The first beta of the Ardour digital audio workstation has been released. A tarball is available at the Ardour project page on Sourceforge. Packagers are currently preparing binary releases for several major Linux distributions. Ardour is a professional-grade, low-latency, multi-track digital hard disk recording and mixing application designed to replace dedicated HDR systems, and software systems such as ProTools and Samplitude. It supports audio processing plugins via LADSPA. Although it is still a beta, the years of work and dedication by the Ardour development team are very much visible in this release."
I have to cringe when I see Ardours interface. I feel the same way about Logic.
The biggest barrier between musicians and digital recording isn't the cost. It's ease of use. When you're trying to capture a creative idea, the last thing you need is a confusing/non-standard interface holding you back. Pretty soon the idea is gone and you're wishing you spent the money on a commercial product with a UI that's been under development for a few years.
It would seem the biggest problem here is lack of driver support for a wide range of pro-audio sound cards and interfaces. Looking at the ALSA supported hardware page (which this workstation utilizes), most of the pro hardware hasn't been verified to work well.
I think the other major downside is the lack of VST plug-in support. Most every major digital audio software workstation like ProTools and Nuendo take advantage of the large array of VST plug-ins available for things like effects processing. I don't think you'll see a lot of pro audio guys contemplate switching over until VST support is added (in Ardour's defense, VST support is tricky because a lot of them are platform-specific due to bad design).
However, I salute them for their work and hope that Ardour matures into a great package.
Imagine when high-quality digital recording facilities are available at low cost to those that want to use them. The RIAA will have lost its hammerlock on both side of the music supply chain. Suddenly the arguments that say the RIAA are screwing the artists start to have a lot more validity: the artists will be able to create works and distribute them easily in return for a fair price.
Even if some other proprietary system is the standard, I hope artists sieze this opportunity. (If only so I can see the RIAA swallow their collective tongue.)
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bachiatari na torisetsu o yome!
Mod down and Flame away, but I'll be brave...
I've been doing audio production work for a couple years using Windows 2000, Nuendo, Amplitube, This incredible $139 gadget, using only this inexpensive audio card. I don't get blue screens of death, my hardware is fully supported, etc. I run a second HD with Red Hat 9 (and incidentally, the awesome Ximian Desktop), and I can't even get my sound card to work. I love Linux, but no serious musician will be using the penguin for audio production for at least a few more years.
You have reproduced in your comment the exact spirit in which the Linux kernel was written about before the OSS community showed the world that they DO have the power to crush proprietary software.
Just switch all the instances of ProTools with UNIX and reread your post.
If you outlaw the law, only criminals will have laws
On the other hand, $500 is a lot if your job doesn't depend on the application. That's probably why only 10% of the users don't really need the software.
Musical hobbyists currently can't really get good recordings of their music to give to their friends. Artists of various other sorts have been able to share their work with others pretty trivially for a while now. People make photos of their trips available online, put up stuff they drew, etc. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to say, "Learning the cello is going pretty well. Here's a recording of my progress." without a substantial investment in equipment?
For that matter, it would probably be helpful to a lot of bands if they could record their practices, edit them into something reasonable, and discuss them. It's not worth the $500, but it would be worth it if it were free.
In short, $500 isn't too much for software for making professional-quality recordings, but it's a bit much for something that's just for fun.
Are you insane? That's like saying GIMP will replace Photoshop. Neither of them are even close to being in the same leage.
It's hyperbole like that that HURTS Open Source.
Try telling a real professional that this thing is near to replacing ProTools and you will be laughed off the planet.
Get a grip. It (like gimp) might make a nice cheap alternative for the garage band or bedroom recording artist, but it's got about a decade more work to go to approach what ProTools does TODAY.
Advertise it for what it is, don't make completely uninformed comments like this will be a free replacement for ProTools. My ghod.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Ah, but you also get paid a whole, whole lot more in any of the jobs you cited here.
"Although it is still a beta, the years of work and dedication by the Ardour development team are very much visible in this release."
Paul Davis wrote 99% of the Ardour code, he even recently claimed this on the Ardour website. I'm sorry, I've worked on many teams, this does not constitute a team.
Ardour is a wonderful piece of philanthropy, but as an example of the open source development model is it a failure. For those of you that don't know; Paul Davis was employee #2 at Amazon.com, he cashed in his millions and then devoted the last 4+ years of his life to the development of Ardour. What a very generous gift. Unfortunately, if this is what is required to create a niche program of Ardour's caliber, then the economic side of the open source development model has some serious issues. We already knew this, but it is an important point to always remember.
You speak as if ProTools is the only vendor that you can get high-end multitrack audio DSP hardware from. I can go to my local Sam Ash, or crack open a Musician's Friend catalog, and find a half dozen companies that will sell me monster PCI cards, with or without bundled software.
The OSS community doesn't need to provide the hardware, it's already out there.