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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."
If it really replaces the commercial tools it says it does, it would be worth dual-booting to Linux just for this one app alone.
What does it take to get an app like this to run on OSX? A recompile, or something more sinsiter, like Fink or a complete port?
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
How does Ardour compare to Audacity, another free digital audio editing program? I want to know my options before switching from proprietary Cool Edit.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's getting to the point where I absolutely cannot wait for this to finally arrive.
My musician husband has been lusting after the ability to record music for years, and the big trouble has been that the right software has been proprietary, often requiring expensive hardware to make it work, and EXPENSIVE on its own.
To wit: Vegas from Sonic Foundry costs $700. Samplitude is about that much. ProTools? If you have to ask, you can't afford it. Sonar by Cakewalk only costs $500. (ONLY)
Unfortunately it's not production quality yet. But from the looks of the site, it looks like they are getting close to it now.
Give it a year or so and I will be able to finally wipe Windows off of the family audio computer and do it the right way...with Free as in FREEDOM software.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Now the killer question, is this cool tool a good replacement for Windows based products such as CoolEdit or Cakewalk's Sonar? I've been a long time user of the later since the DOS days, but have become increasingly annoyed by latency issues as a result of the operating system.
I'm not only encouraged to make the switch by tools such as Ardour, but the increasing support for MIDI & Sound cards AND if need be, tweak my Linux Kernel for real-time music, MIDI & sound performance.
Now I just need to find an equivalent to Dave Phillips' "Sound & Midi Software for Linux" page for Video editing & DVD production.
--- have you healed your church website?
ardour will interface with any multi-channel pro-grade interface you throw at it (assuming it is ALSA supported).
it was written with this interface (among others) in mind:
RME Hammerfall DSP
which is cheaper than a digidesign 888. compare the specs :-)
Ardour does MMC (MIDI Machine Control), though, so some mixers can control the virtual sliders on the screen with their real sliders, etc. I don't have one of those, but I do have a peavey PC1600, which maybe I can get to work with ardour... maybe. :)
-Rich
After about three years of testing Ardour it's great to see the beta release. I own a small commercial recording studio and am really looking forward to running Ardour and other linux applications fulltime. There's still work to be done but it's getting very close.
Ardour is a jackd client. Jackd enables hardware and software port routing. So, application_a:output_N can be routed to application_b:input_N and on and on to the extent of your computing capabilities.
In addition to routing, jackd also has transport syncronization functionality. The transport api is in beta but it's being actively developed. Earlier this morning I tested DM-24(digital mixer) MMC play instructions to Ardour(jack transport master) to Alsaplayer(jack transport slave) and Ardour-mtc:out to DM-24 for sync between Ardour and the mixing consol.
In the middle of that chain I've got JAMin which is a jack client audio mastering application
So, I hit play(dm-24) Ardour engages transport, Alsaplayer engages transport and sends its output to JAMin which in turn sends its output to Ardour where the mastered product is recorded. This is incredible stuff.
My hat is off to the linux audio developer and user community.
Next on the agenda, call my protools pals and invite them over for beer. :)
Seriously, I hope this works as well as described. Although their is an uphill battle agains mind share (ProTools is truly the DeFacto standard in real studies) there is ALSO the fact that Musicians are also a contraty bunch indeed. They are more likely to use "something different", a.k.a. Linux, than almost any other group, just out of a desire to truly "think outside of the box" and "*f the man!. Suggestion to the Authors: for this to work the designers of Ardour should focus, focus, focus on the user interface, leaving GewGaws behind. I've recorded with computers for over 10 years, have a full studio, blah blah. What do I mainly use?... Cakewalk Guitar Tracks, a $50 program. Why? because the interface is beautiful and EASY to use. Looks just like a multitrack recorder, an analogue device designed for ease of use. After 27 beers, nobody wants to page through 17 menus to start a recording, they just want to capture the sound. Anyway, good luck to them, I look forward to it.
I think, therefore I thought.
The Ardour people have a long page discussing exactly this issue.
Basically it boils down to the fact that (like a lot of things) while the use of external hardware sounds intuitively more sensible, it doesn't work out like that in practice.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'd disagree- MP3's are 'good enough' for most people's needs. Unless you have a really good speaker/amp combo next to your computer, you're not going to sweat the differnce. Then there is portability a la nomad, iPod, whatever.
If you have the cash, then yes, there is no substitute for quality hardware. It does strike me as a shade snobby to look down on those who use their "...Behringer mixer plugged into my Audigy card and uing Cool Edit to do all my mastering!"
The more choice an aspiring muso has, the better.
If people can get into recording music without a huge amount of outlay, then surely that can only be a good thing?
It has always amazed me that it was ever possible to record music that anybody could stand back in the days of 44.1kHz, 16 bit recorders. Or (gasp!) even analog.
Seriously, the "my recorder has more kHz than your recorder" argument is like comparing computers strictly by clock speed. Great music is great music whether recorded using my hand held microcassette or the latest/greatest SSL 192kHz behemoth. And crappy music is still crappy, even at 192k. Its just more highly refined crap.