Ardour?

[ridgeback]

Anyone checked this out yet? Thoughts and opinions?

http://ardour.org/

 

[zekthedeadcow]

I use it in my DeMuDi workstation... I like it... very nice once you get JACK figured out... I switched from XP and SONAR 2.2XL over the winter.

but basically... linux audio works differently than Mac or PC... there are no all-in-one solutions that are decient... but with JACK you can take alll of the specialized software and hook 'em together.

 

[ridgeback]

I'm unfamiliar with the languages technical differences. Just aware there are different ones. Jack is something like rewire? Also, does being open source mean independant programmers have access to alter the software? As a PT user, the visual interface seemed familiar and pleasing. But I'm not the kind of person that should "JACK" with software. I'll screw something up

 

[zekthedeadcow]

I'm unfamiliar with the languages technical differences. Just aware there are different ones. Jack is something like rewire?

Jack is pretty much like rewire. It makes virtual "outputs" that different audio programs can connect to. But in general JACK support is more diverse than rewire... like you can't hook WMP or WinAMP to Rewire... but you can hook linux's xmms up to Jack. because the developers don't have to pay a license to use the technology... they just get bored or asked and decide to add it.

Also, does being open source mean independant programmers have access to alter the software?

yep... though most dont... they help out with developing the origional project... "starting" a second projects is called "forking" ... like theres two versions of Cinelerra (a video editor) ... both teams generally work together and share solutions though...

As a PT user, the visual interface seemed familiar and pleasing. But I'm not the kind of person that should "JACK" with software. I'll screw something up

The nice thing about opensource is that there is no end to the stream of computer science students who want to feel useful. The understanding of coding helps a lot especially in automation and customization... but most things are plug and play as long as you can read directions... a lot of PCI based cards like the Delta1010 already have drivers installed on most linux computers...firewire card drivers are still on fast development... but the really nice thing is that manufactures are not in control of their driver support... if you own an Aardvark card you know exactly what I mean If the manufacturer tanks someone will still be around to update the driver when new archtectures and major OS revisions come out.

 

[avieth]

I use ardour, since it's all I can get on my linux box (but ardour and JACK work for mac aswell and are coming to windows.) But the devs did a great job with it. I can get more done with ardour/JACK than I ever did with sonar.

 

[demensia]

I use ardour. It is a great program. I've been using it exclusively for a few months, and I'm extremely happy. I own Adobe Audition and Cakewalk, but I prefer to use the open source stuff. The LADSPA plugins are good too.. The TAP Reverberator and SC4 compressor especially.

It was a bitch to configure though, to allow user preemption.

 

[trance]

System/Resource Comparison?

I have considered learning the Ardour and open-source ways, but I am in the middle of several projects and this would just cause me an ulcer.

However, for future consideration, how does using the Ardour/JACK system compare to, say a Cubase SX setup? If one were to use the same hardware, would the performance be any better in the Linux environment, as opposed to WinXP?

 

[zekthedeadcow]

yeah I would agree it wouldn't be a good idea to switch ships in the middle of several projects... I waited till I was done with everything to make the switch... but with swappable harddrives it's quite a bit safer

For me, JACK is the hub of the entire workstation simply because it's a patchbay type program... I fire up JACK-freebob and ardour, and hydrogen, and JAMin, and Rosegarden... and AMS... but without JACK none of them would worktogether... but with JACK I have a nice audio recorder... with a midi suite the I think is better than cakewalks (atleast from SONAR 2.2XL) some great mastering tools and software synths... put each one in a virtual desktop and it's easier to manage than SONAR 2 was...

infact because everything is scriptable I can littlerally have a user click one buttion to load all of the programs and start recording... and click a second to stop recording, mix down, and burn a CD... which will be very usefull when I set up a small DAW for my church...

 

[avieth]

Ardour still lacks a midi sequencer And all the linux midi sequencers dont work with JACK as good as arodur will. Apparantly google summer of code gave ardour help with midi, but I still have no idea when the ardour2 release is coming.

I've got a 10ms latency in my system, and rarely get more than 2 xruns, it's great. The only problem is support for the bebop chipset. Does anyone have freebob working well with JACK? I'm planning on getting a firepod, but I don't want to buy it until freebob is working well.

 

[demensia]

Ardour is not meant to be used as a midi sequencer. Thats what rosegarden is for .

I've done some playing with ardour2. You're welcome to compile it, but I certainly wouldn't suggest using it for a real project.

 

[avieth]

Ardour is not meant to be used as a midi sequencer. Thats what rosegarden is for .

I've done some playing with ardour2. You're welcome to compile it, but I certainly wouldn't suggest using it for a real project.

does ardour2 have the sequencer? Rosegarden is a piece of shit in my opinion. It doesn't do what I want it to do in the musical score editor, and it won't let me use softsynths.

 

[zekthedeadcow]

it was a litle bizzare to get rosegarden to connect to JACK the first time as it's buried in a menu but obviously once it connects to jack it's easy to get it to softsynths... and for me rosegarden4 was a vast improvment over SONAR 2.2's midi notation... but I know some people who still use KCS Omega on an atari system...

 

[Esa_Linna]

I have used it for couple of years, and it's getting better all the time. Of course those who need a midi sequencer, should wait or use another software.

Mirror Image Recording Studios use Ardour (& Rosegarden and Jamin) in their real projects.

http://www.multitrack.us/
http://www.multitrack.us/linux.html

 

[sonnylarsen]

I have ardour for OS X on my iBook and I also have it on my linux box. I only have to experiment with though. While I am pretty advanced in gui-heavy OS's like Windows and OS X, when it comes to an OS where I have to use a console alot I get headaches. On OS X it doesn't load all of the time and it doesn't like the clamshell mode hack I use on my iBook. I have to say though that once it is up and running, it mixes BEAUTIFULLY. I exported wavs that I had recorded on a PC using SONAR and brought them into ardour for mix and it totally kicked ass. The only problem is I haven't actually been able to get ardour to run since then. Oh well.

Jack for OS X is very cool too. I had a little issue with Logic Express (I'm poor, leave me alone) and my M-audio Omnistudio USB. I was getting some serious issues and dropouts during playback and after running it down I found that there were some issues with the Omnistudio's Core Audio drivers and Logic. So, I fired up Jack, switched the driver in my preferences to "Jack Router" and boom, no more problems. That was pretty cool.

 

[demensia]

Ardour 2.0.3 is out now, and it's stable enough to do real projects on.
Huge improvements from 0.99. Takes a bit of getting used to... it's certainly a lot less ugly.

VST support has been fixed up too, but it's still a pain in the ass to configure.

I'm just sticking with the ladspa plugins. I don't need my reverb plugin to look nice.

 

[timthetortoise]

Last time I used Ardour, it corrupted every project I worked on. It looks like this was a pretty common problem too. I'm thinking about trying out 2.0.3, but am still a bit wary of it. The only thing that irks me about it is that the support for VST isn't very good and you have to compile it in separately. Maybe this has been improved on since the version I used, but that was the big thing that turned me off to it.

 

[demensia]

Yeah, you have to compile it in seperately because of licensing. Steinberg is being a bitch. I've never had it wreck a project on me though. Although it was noted in the IRC channel that if you open a session from 0.99 in 2.0.3, you can't go back. So, once you make the change, be ready to make the change.

It really is a big improvement.