Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) for people who want to record, edit, mix and master audio and MIDI projects. When you need complete control over your tools, when the limitations of other designs get in the way, when you plan to spend hours or days working on a session, Ardour is there to make things work the way you want them to.
I’ve been trying to use Ardour for the first time as part of my ongoing process of replacing all the proprietary software in my workflow to open source software. My hope is that Ardour can replace Audition and/or ProTools for me, but as of right now I’ve struggled a lot with how to even use the program. I probably just need to immerse myself in some tutorials haha
I’ve tried a lot of different DAWs already, Cubase/Nuendo, ProTools, Logic, Reaper, FL Studio, Bitwig, Ableton, Studio One, just to name a few. I’ve worked professionally only with Cubase, Pro Tools and Logic. I hated every minute I used Logic. Cubase being the best for composing and Pro Tools for recording and mixing. Studio One is very mature right now and that’s what I’m testing, since they now have a Linux beta. I tried Ardour before and unfortunately it doesn’t come even close to being as good as a “real” professional DAW. Even Logic was more pleasant to use than Ardour. I really wanted to like it, but it was not a very pleasant experience.
Lol spending hours and days is correct but for me it was spent on trying to get the signal from your interface to actually reach the program and then figure out why there’s so much latency.
There is a YouTube channel called “TekSyndicate”. The dude wants to switch to Linux so bad, but he always complains about the lack of professional software to create his music on on Linux. Would this app be enough for him? I don’t know anything about creating music, but thought I’d ask if some of you do know music stuff.
As a professional music composer myself and working on Linux with Ardour, I’d say it is overall pretty good since many years. If you don’t like midi in Ardour you can use another soft to runs midi notes. On Linux the good thing is that if you don’t like something you can change, specially with audio softwares.
To me the two major issues with professional music on Linux are :
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Proprietary plugins for virtual instruments are a nightmare (hard to make them to work, expensive on machine’s resources and unreliable),
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Most company still think free software = unprofessional/amateur, which can make it harder to get jobs.
Do you have any recommendations for anyone looking to switch from windows DAW to a Linux DAW? Are there any tips regarding getting the plugins to play nicely?
I would love to switch to Linux on my desktop, but the only thing holding me back is that I use FL Studio with the Arturia V collection and I feel as though it would be nightmarish to try to get such a thing working in Linux.
All I hear about is those damn plugins.
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I have a much easier time using REAPER rather than Ardour.
Bitwig is by far the best option on linux rn. Ardour is too barebones and focused on recording rather than midi
He mentions something about the software he uses on windows and how he has purchased a ton of “plugins” which, again, I have no idea what they are.
For plugins there is “yabridge”
Which I assume is a pain to make work on Linux?
Ardour is definitely professional grade, but I must say that it’s far from simple to setup. First, you may not have the latest version available in you SW repository and you would have to compile it yourself! Then, despite all the progress brought by pipewire, audio config in Linux is complicated and unreliable, especially for this time of work, requiring different audio devices, MIDI control interfaces and VSTs.
I am not an audio professional, I’m an amateur, and found myself demotivated by the amount of work required until I am ready to create music, and finally gave up :(
I’m sorry to hear that. That’s actually unfortunate. I wish I knew how to create a piece of software for folks who need it. :/
I don’t use Ardour because the prebuilt binary costs, but I think it’s the best form of open source project.
Arch linux official repos seem to have prebuilt binaries ready to install: https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/ardour/
Debian/ubuntu got binaries in their repository.
I haven’t played around with Ardour for a while. Might test this new release
Not seen this before, looks like Audacious on steroids. A bit like Photoshop vs MS Paint.
