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Ardour
Ardour is a professional-grade, meat-and-potatoes digital audio workstation: it features all the must-have features that you would expect from a pro DAW, and is actively adding more in a quick but stable manner. It is written by one of the most well-respected audio engineers in the Linux world, and is one of the go-to applications for Linux musicians and audio producers every where.
Strengths [Weaknesses]
Familiar
If you are a flexible and alacritous DAW user, Ardour will be familiar enough to you to pick up in a week or two.
Powerful
Heaps of features, with more appearing each version. Thanks to the communication that the developer has with his user base, the new features are useful and sensible, not just programmer-centric experiments.
Stable
The developer keeps a strictly conservative release cycle, offering only stable and reliable updates to his users.
Weaknesses [Strengths]
Complex
If you are new to professional DAWs, Ardour may at first seem complex.
JACK
Ardour is a JACK-aware application, meaning that it can render complex audio routing that could confuse new users.
Install
Ardour is open source, but the developer requests a donation of at least US$1. Given the price, there's no excuse to decline payment; the money directly supports the further development of one of the finest DAWs on the market. There are several payment options available (subscription, a purchase for the current and next version and all updates, or arbitrary donations), but all do require PayPal. If you cannot use PayPal for any reason, then you can download Ardour without donating.
To get Ardour:
- Create an account on http://ardour.org and log in.
- Navigate to https://community.ardour.org/s/buy and choose your payment method. Subscribing requires a PayPal account, while donating requires a credit card processed through PayPal, neither subscribing or donating gives you the source code which you must compile yourself.
See Also
Qtractor
Muse
Rosegarden