Ardour is a digital audio workstation. You can use it to record, edit and mix multi-track audio. Produce your own CDs. Mix video soundtracks. Experiment with new ideas about music and sound. Generate sound installations for 12 speaker gallery shows. Have Fun.

Ardour capabilities include:

• Multi-channel recording.
• Non-linear, non-destructive region based editing with unlimited undo/redo.
• Full automation support.
• A mixer whose capabilities rival high end hardware consoles.
• Lots of plugins to warp, shift and shape your music.
• Controllable from hardware control surfaces at the same time as it syncs to timecode.

New in v2.8.3

• New Features: Ardour can now open un-writable sessions without complaining. This includes sessions on read-only media and those for which write access is not granted to the user.
• New Features: Support FLAC & Ogg/Vorbis import and export (via system libsndfile).
• New Features: Provide jdelay-based hardware/port insert latency measurement (note: this is not automatic, but is initiated by the user in the insert GUI).
• New Features: Enable very basic automation for On/Off plugin parameters. Write and Read modes only (no Touch, graphical editing is not allowed). It is a little crude but better than none at all and can only get better.
• New Features: OSC API now supports add locate command.
• Fixes:The OS X builds include a fix for a crashing bug in the Pango font handling library. This would often occur during zoom operations.
• Fixes:Plugin/send/insert displays in mixer strips should now always list the correct items.
• Fixes:Change keybindings to more closely match 3.0.
• Fixes:Make keybindings pay attention only to "relevant" modifiers (i.e. ignore numlock).
• Fixes:When loading a template, make sure the user template directory exists.
• Fixes:Add track-record-enable-toggle action to menu, to make it actually bindable.
• Fixes:Fixup creation of tracks/busses with > 2 channels from track templates.
• Fixes:Simplify waveform choices menu.
• Fixes:Compiles cleanly with gcc4.4 patches.
• Fixes:Limit group button width.
• Fixes:"In" and "out" as part of a port name should not be translatable by default, since it will break session portability. French & Polish users who need to get old sessions that have these names translated and need to keep them working should set the environment variable ARDOUR_RETAIN_PORT_NAME_SUFFIX_TRANSLATION to force old behaviour.
• Fixes: Transpose appears in the popup region context menu as well as the Regions menu.
• Fixes: Auto-* buttons now have a fixed size.
• Fixes: Keep the transient auto-analyse dialog from showing up more than once per launch of Ardour.
• Fixes: Fix some actions that need to be sensitive depending on the existence of selected tracks.
• Fixes: Save and recall rectified waveform view setting(s).
• Fixes: Make tearoff windows still forward key events (and thus bindings still work).
• Fixes:Make big clock window into a utility window, not a menu.
• Fixes: Bad syntax in LV2 RDF files no longer causes crash on startup.
• Fixes: Apply button made clickable when modifying the meter marker at the start of the session.
• Fixes: Fix import channel->track Mapping option so it follows the region/track menu selection.
• Fixes: Add shortcuts to both SYSTEM and USER templates folder.
• Fixes: Correctly display wastebasket content size.
• Fixes: Reinstate export-region which was lost.
• Fixes: Make zoom-to-region more straightforward.
• Fixes: Fix logic in undo, redo and swapping of visual state changes.
• Fixes: Add "all" items to track right click context menu instead of relying on the -all- edit/mix group.
• Fixes: New Session/Startup dialog changes:
  - If no interface has been identified previously, put the audio setup tab as the first tab.
  - If JACK is not running and no interface has ever been chosen, show JUST the audio setup tab. once JACK is successfully.
  - Properly handle situation where use opts not to load a session because of SR mismatch.

• Fixes: Better (less crash-prone) behaviour when JACK fails to start from "within" ardour.
• Fixes: Freesound mootcher patch (it might work now).
• Fixes: LV2 external UIs supported.
• Fixes: LV2 epp logarithmic parameters handled.
• Fixes: LADSPA log parameters default values set appropriately.
• Fixes: Handle localized decimal indicator in BarController widget.
• Fixes: I/O buttons now show connection state a bit more sensibly.
• Fixes: Edit group visibility maintained in session file.
• Fixes: Better behaviour of the splash window with the Ion WM (activated by setting the environment variable ARDOUR_USE_OVERRIDE_REDIRECT_SPLASH).
• Fixes: "About" window set as transient for editor.
• Fixes: Prevent sends/inserts from ever being renamed to the same name as a track/bus.
• Fixes: Make handling of session and history files more robust across ardour versions.
• Fixes: Don't allow crossfade point dragging to create illegal values.
• Fixes: Allow DIST_LIBDIR to override LIBDIR during the build.
• Translations: Updated Russian translation from Alexandre Prokoudine.
• Translations: Updated French translation from Raphaël Doursenaud.
• Translations: Tweaks to German translation.