Summary

Ardour is a free and open-source digital audio workstation (DAW) for recording, editing, mixing, and mastering audio and MIDI projects on Linux, macOS, and Windows. It offers a comprehensive set of features for audio engineers, musicians, composers, soundtrack editors, and podcasters.

Features

• Multi-track audio and MIDI recording and editing with unlimited tracks, non-linear editing, and support for many file formats.
• Powerful editing tools including cut, move, stretch, copy, paste, align, trim, crossfade, rename, snapshot, zoom, transpose, quantize, and swing with unlimited undo/redo.
• Advanced mixing capabilities with mute, solo, fader automation, EQ, dynamics, inserts, sends, monitoring, and flexible mixer architecture supporting floating point fidelity.
• Plugin support for AudioUnit, LV2, VST2/VST3, and LADSPA formats, including software instruments and MIDI processors, with full sample accurate automation and MIDI Learn.
• Transport sync and external control surface support with MIDI timecode, LTC, MIDI Machine Control, JACK transport, MIDI clock sync, and OSC control.
• Highly flexible signal routing allowing complex one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many connections for inputs, outputs, sends, inserts, and returns.
• Video timeline support includes video import, frame-by-frame timeline with thumbnails, video monitoring in sync with audio, audio region locking to video frames, and video export with soundtrack muxing.

Target Users

Ardour is suited for audio engineers needing detailed control over recording and mixing, musicians focusing on instrument performance, composers working with MIDI and sound design, soundtrack editors syncing audio to video, and podcasters handling multiple audio clips with efficient editing tools.

Additional Notes

Ardour is developed as an open-source project with contributions from musicians, programmers, and engineers worldwide. It follows a model of transparency and user-focused feature development. While the source is freely available, prebuilt ready-to-run versions are provided for a fee to support ongoing development. It is licensed under the GNU Public License v2.