Ardour is a professional, open-source, cross-platform, digital audio workstation created in 2006 by Paul David and has been continuously updated until the current version. It features all the most useful digital audio tools allowing you to produce the best compositions.

What are the key features of Ardour?

Recording: select your audio interface, connect the microphone or your favorite MIDI controller, add a channel to the session and you're ready to go. Its analog tape-style transport allows combinations of individual track and master record arming at any time. You can easily start and stop recording with Punch In and Out points and also combine them with the loop playback tool. Last but not least, the Stop&Forget tool allows you to cancel a currently recording pass and recover the disk space instantly.
Editing: Ardour provides the fundamental editing tools to help you work quickly and accurately: cut, move, stretch, copy, paste, erase, align, transpose, quantize, drag, drop, crossfade and more. Unlimited undo/redo is available to offer you more flexibility, even across sessions.
Mixing: Ardour lets you use as many channels as you want, as well as tracks, busses, plugins, or sends. Tracks can be mono, stereo, or multichannel. You also have all the useful tools to fully express your talent with mute, solo, pan, EQ, inserts, sends, monitoring, and more. Easily copy and paste across channels with Ardour's very precise automation system.

Compatibility: Ardour supports many export formats including WAV, AIFF, CAF, BWF, FLAC, MP3, with the bit depth and sample rates you want.
Effects and plugins: Ardour also includes a various list of plugins that cover all your needs, including VST, AudioUnits, and LV2 plugins.

Is it safe?

Ardour is a safe software and has no history of security issues or abusive data collecting. As always, we recommend reading the official Privacy policy before installing.

Is it free?

Ardour is partially free, the provided installer on this page is a free demo that mutes after 10 minutes of use. You can still keep using it by closing it and opening it again. There is also a paid version with no limitations which is relatively low cost compared to other similar solutions. Several multiple options are available such as a monthly subscription or a permanent license. If you have some programming skills you can also download Ardour’s source code and compile the program yourself for free.

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