Ardour Changelog

What's new in Ardour 5.12

Feb 28, 2018
  • New Features:
  • Improvements to the template manager dialog.
  • Lua templates for tracks and sessions can now be created/scripted.
  • New session dialog functionality improved, with new templates and track wizards.
  • New track dialog functionality improved, with new templates and track wizards.
  • Expose Lua bindings for VCA create/delete/assign/unassign.
  • New patch selector dialog for MIDI tracks. This can be accessed by right clicking in the track header area.
  • Ardour's generic GUI for instrument plugins now includes a keyboard to allow auditioning the plugin settings.
  • Display playback-only devices when using JACK.
  • Support for a new LV2 extension to notify the host about MIDI bank/program changes (e.g. driven by the plugin's own GUI).
  • Faderport 8: double-click on select button resets gain to 0dB.
  • General Fixes and Improvements:
  • Fix MIDI quantization when not using US English.
  • Fix selection of quantization note-end grid size.
  • Catch exceptions thrown from Lua scripts.
  • Fix handling of MIDI channels in the Transform dialog.
  • Improve the heuristic used to display track/bus I/O connections in a compact form, as well a connection menus.
  • Clicks on I/O menus now always connect, rather than toggle connected status.
  • OSC: gracefully handle the user sending the wrong number of parameters.
  • OSC: changing jog mode no longer stops transport unless started by scrub/shuttle.
  • Secondary clock visibility is now a global preference rather than a per-session setting.
  • The editor's summary view is now constrained to the extent of actual regions, rather than the session extent, by default. This can be reset from a right-click on the summary.
  • New configuration setting for playhead auto-scroll speed. If you want to scroll quickly, it is preferred to zoom out first, then scroll.
  • New configuraton setting to define how much zooming will be easily allowed beyond the extents of actual regions in the session.
  • Generic plugin GUI: fix sizing and layout for automation state controls in plugins with many controls.
  • Increase priority of the thread involved in automation recording. This fixes an issue with sparse automation recording when the CPU is busy.
  • Update the included version of NSS (a secure networking library), to provide some features required by some plugins.
  • Fix the way MIDI filenames are "bumped" during snapshots and playlist copying.
  • Fix crash bug in Ableton Push 2 support, introduced in a recent version.
  • Fix various tooltips to avoid problems with special characters in their text.
  • Catch some exceptions during session loading.
  • Relax some restrictions imposed by the Lua sandbox (for scripts).

New in Ardour 5.9 (May 15, 2017)

  • General Changes and Improvements:
  • Prevent adding Master Bus to a Track/Bus group and make group button insensitive.
  • Re/Add send options in the Processor box context menu and an option to allow feedback loop via Aux sends.
  • Improvements to behaviour of Track/Bus/VCA Color Selection dialog.
  • Consistent Color Selection dialogs with customizable color palette.
  • Update Track/Bus/VCA colors while choosing color in Color Selection dialog.
  • Use Shift key to toggle gain-grouping on a Fader, ctrl to override solo/mute grouping.
  • Update Selection Clock when selected Region properties change.
  • Hide SoundCloud upload in Export Dialog until fixed.
  • Use OpenGL backed rendering/drawing for several Widgets on OS X/macOS including main Track Canvas to improve performance.
  • Add ability to drop Group from VCA via right click on Group tab.
  • Add preference to disable blinking of alert buttons.
  • Various improvements to Audio Setup dialog.
  • Add preference to only enable Click when recording is enabled.
  • Updates to Blueberry Milk colors/theme.
  • Merge most of the string-convert branch (see ardour-dev list for overview).
  • Remove no longer necessary LocaleMode preference.
  • Make -b/--bindings command line option output key bindings to HTML and launch in browser.
  • Add -A/--actions command line option to output actions' names in HTML and open in browser.
  • Deselect WASAPI support by default in Windows installer.
  • Make Track/Bus XML node order in Session file independent of display order [#7327]
  • Add action to select the topmost track and use in Faderport8 surface.
  • Make Group color property accessible to surfaces and scripts.
  • Improve Tap Tempo and allow tapping with keyboard (Space or Enter).
  • Add configurable limit to clock display range.
  • Restore visibility of Monitor Section and whether attached/detached.
  • Tempo:
  • Allow tempo discontinuities at the beginning of ramped tempo section.
  • Changes to Tempo marker operations and modifiers.
  • Add 'Ramp to Next' to Tempo Marker menu, when next tempo is different.
  • Add 'Continue' to Tempo Marker menu to continue end tempo value of previous Tempo Marker.
  • Display red Tempo Mark pointer if tempo jumps more than 1 NTPM.
  • Display note type in marker text if note type is non-quarter.
  • Add entry for end bpm when creating a ramped Tempo in the Tempo Dialog.
  • MIDI:
  • Use a Patch Change dialog to send immediate patch changes via the MIDI Track Controls context/right-click menu.
  • Support note name editing in the MIDI List Editor.
  • Plugins:
  • Add support for VST effSetBypass. [#7266]
  • Cut reverb tail in a-reverb when deactivating plugin.
  • Improve a-delay to follow tempo-ramps and BPM changes.
  • Increase VST scan timeout and set default of Verbose Plugin Scan to false.
  • Changes to plugin categories to improve consistency across plugin API's/standards.
  • Scripting:
  • Add action script to bypass all plugins.
  • Add action script to mute all Tracks.
  • Add script to installers/bundles to save a Session snapshot on export.
  • Add '==' instance equality operator and update scripts to use it.
  • Add bindings for transient analysis and add a script to print transients of selected regions.
  • Add Lua bindings to access MIDI Region note events and example script.
  • Optimize garbage collection (affecting performance of serialization).
  • Improve bindings for RouteGroupList and Plugin classes.
  • Add bindings for FileSource.
  • Add example script to convert MIDI-CC to Plugin Automation.
  • Add LuaDialog and derived Widgets as well as an example script.
  • Add bindings for setting group color.
  • Control Surfaces:
  • Use "Mix" and "Proj" buttons on the Faderport to present the Mixer and Editor rather than a toggle.
  • Various improvements to the OSC surface.
  • Add support for Faderport8 control surface.
  • Update preferences when control surfaces change with session.
  • Retain the state of disabled control surfaces.
  • Add scrub and multi-mode jog commands to OSC surface.
  • Add automation mode feeback to OSC surface.
  • Support gain automation feeback in OSC surface [#7160]
  • Assign some default actions for the function select (F-keys) in the Mackie MCP user profile.
  • Updates to Korg Nano Kontrol2 MIDI map by Philippe Demartin.
  • Add MIDI map for Korg Studio and Arturia KeyLab 49.
  • Add MIDI map for Alesis QX25 from Nathan Stewart [#7345]
  • Fixes:
  • Allow changing track colours with older 4.X Sessions.
  • Fix for touch mute automation.
  • Allow loading of SMF meta data with size greater than 127 bytes.
  • Fix implicit selection when operating Track header control buttons.
  • Fix audition with monitor section.
  • Don't display channel selector for instrument plugins with zero audio outputs.
  • Don't automatically open generic UIs for plugins without controls.
  • Fix crash when adding a plugin immediately after re-order (via script).
  • Fix issue with mouse button event ordering in EngineDialog.
  • Prevent an empty system config and ship the system_config in bundles again.
  • Fix crash when inserting time with split intersected regions.
  • Offset linked regions to compensate for negative start after trim drag [#7105]
  • Restore screen position when undoing creation of a MIDI note.
  • Prevent the General MIDI Control Protocol surface from overriding Session version.
  • Ensure no horizontal movement occurs when dragging regions with the x-constrain modifier enabled [#7260]
  • Fix AFL/PFL from MIDI tracks without audio
  • Work around a crash at exit with some Linux VST UIs.
  • Prevent creation of MIDI regions with length less than a pixel [#7271]
  • Fixes to VST Window re/sizing.
  • Prevent crash when removing time from track with automation. [#7287]
  • Fix issue when undoing of Fade range operation [#7283]
  • Use Tempo Curve color for measure line beats [#4930]
  • Correctly restore clock modes in Location Window and other AudioClocks.
  • Restore Solo/Mute when loading old 4.X Sessions.
  • Avoid possible crash with multi-bus AudioUnit plugins.
  • Prevent issue with automation playback setting Session as modified.
  • Fix issue with Pan stuck at center in OSC surface.
  • Fix toggling Monitor Mute/Dim/Mono actions with OSC.
  • Prevent MIDI tracks from drawing into the Ruler area.
  • Make Peak display in MixerStrip insensitive to mouse clicks/drags.
  • Update Patch Change Naming when plugins change.
  • Fix count-in for non 4/4 time signatures.
  • Hide eye-dropper color picker on OS X/macOS builds due to it not working.
  • Correctly load Track templates with inserts [#5778]
  • Fix crash when dragging playhead or mouse in ruler area [#7304]
  • Fix `set-*-from-edit-range` actions, when accessed from control surfaces
  • Fixes to reset keybindings.
  • Prevent crash during extreme timestretch. [#7305]
  • Fixes for performance issues with region selection. [#7274]
  • Retain order of concurrent MIDI events.
  • Prevent truncation of concurrent events with ALSA raw MIDI buffers.
  • Restore Track/Bus polarity invert state from older Sessions.
  • Use correct action path names in several midi-maps.
  • Prevent crash when loading MIDI port info where ports no longer exist.
  • Fix crash when clicking on the canvas while unloading a Session.
  • Avoid a possible deadlock in the control surface manager.
  • Prevent possible freeze when clicking on canvas without a AudioBackend running.
  • Fixes to performance issues when restoring Region selection state [#7274]
  • Fix nested VCA assigns and mixer-layout.
  • Fixes to copy/paste of MIDI automation from/to Parameter automation.
  • Corrections to latency measurement and Audio Setup dialog behaviour.
  • In smart-mode, don't switch to range-mode after "set range selection" and similar operations. [#7332]
  • Fix vari-speed and non-locked slave modes.
  • Use correct descriptions and typos in --help output.
  • Prevent MIDI learn handling events intended for other operations like temporary un/solo/mute.
  • Make exclusive solo work again via ctrl+alt+click on solo button.
  • Correctly restore track monitoring state from older Sessions. [#7336]
  • Correctly scale ruler for HiDPI. [#7226]
  • Scale text correctly in group tabs for HiDPI. [#7331]
  • Allow Session end marker to move correctly when a Session is created from a template. [#7348]
  • Prevent crash when replacing some LV2 plugins on a MIDI Track. [#7341]
  • Update the profile name in the Mackie control panel to reflect the profile being edited when assigning actions.
  • Make Save As and switch work correctly with a read-only Session. [#7352]
  • Remove duplicate "Tape" menu item in Record Mode drop down in the Add Track/Bus/VCA dialog.
  • Prevent creation of out-of-bounds image sizes during waveform rendering with high samplerates and high zoom levels.
  • Translation Updates:
  • Updated Japanese translation by Hiroki Inagaki.
  • Updated German translation by Edgar Aichinger.

New in Ardour 5.6 (Feb 12, 2017)

  • General Changes and Improvements:
  • Speed up unloading large Sessions
  • Speed up recent Session display, with many large Sessions and or snapshots.
  • Transport control area layout changes.
  • Add a mini-timeline to the Toolbar.
  • Follow Edits has been renamed Follow Range and has changed behaviour.
  • Allow customization of Toolbar via Preferences -> Appearance -> Toolbar
  • Add ability to archive Session.
  • Normalize audio when archiving to a fixed point format.
  • Add more precise localization options to Preferences -> General -> Translation.
  • Enable all types of Range locations (loop, start, end) to be glued to BBT.
  • Allow preference for tempo to be expressed in divisions per minute or quarter notes per minute (General -> Tempo).
  • Preference layout, grouping, wording/naming and tooltip changes.
  • Add button to reset keyboard modifiers to recommended defaults in preferences (Editor -> Modifiers).
  • Minor updates to Blueberry Milk, Caineville, Clear Gray and Cubasish Themes.
  • Support added to compile on macOS 10.12 (Sierra).
  • Modify playlist option labels in Duplicate Track/Bus dialog. [#7149]
  • Support import of Tempo maps during MIDI import at selected position.
  • Show context menu on right click on VCA track header.
  • Support all drive letters on windows (with harvid version >= 0.8.2).
  • Rename Bindings Window to Keyboard Shortcuts.
  • Display name of conflicting keyboard shortcut.
  • Allow automation line fill opacity themable.
  • Add global monitoring controls to toolbar, enable visibility via Preferences -> Appearance -> Toolbar.
  • Implement count-in before recording with fixed BPM, enable via Session -> Properties -> Misc.
  • Implement record with pre-roll, accessible via Transport menu.
  • Allow Editor toolbar and background to be themable.
  • Allow changing Metronome level via Mouse Wheel on Metronome button in Toolbar.
  • Display application version Session was last modified/saved with tooltip in recent session list.
  • Scale Gain automation by masters current value if slaved.
  • Add scripts to run Ardour under rr debugging tool.
  • Disable VST scan in safe mode.
  • Mark Session dirty when moving range/tempo markers. [#7217]
  • Add undo/redo for changing marker lock style.
  • Mark Loop button insensitive when no loop range is defined. [#7195]
  • Name VCA's by number and user defined name if set.
  • Add two export format specifications for stems.
  • Include gmsynth.lv2 in application bundles/installers.
  • Add option to use snapshot name instead of Session name when exporting.
  • Save-As now working again as intended (no longer incorrectly asks about saving and does not incorrectly switch to new version unless asked)
  • Actions/Binding Changes:
  • This release changes the name of several Ardour actions that may be used by OSC & MIDI bindings and by customized key bindings. The affected action names are listed below. The old full action names began with "Editor/" - this has been changed to they all begin with "Common/".
  • You can ignore this change unless you use OSC, or MIDI binding maps or customized key bindings.
  • If you do use any of these features, you will need to either/or modify your OSC or MIDI bindings and redefine your key bindings after removing or renaming the customized ones. Failure to do this will mean that existing bindings to these actions will not function as intended.
  • These changes were made in order to make these actions available from within the Mixer tab, rather than just the Editor.
  • Affected Actions:
  • alternate-jump-forward-to-mark
  • alternate-jump-backward-to-mark
  • set-session-start-from-playhead
  • set-session-end-from-playhead
  • toggle-location-at-playhead
  • add-location-from-playhead
  • alternate-add-location-from-playhead
  • remove-location-from-playhead
  • alternate-remove-location-from-playhead
  • nudge-next-forward
  • nudge-next-backward
  • nudge-playhead-forward
  • nudge-playhead-backward
  • playhead-forward-to-grid
  • playhead-backward-to-grid
  • start-range-from-playhead
  • finish-range-from-playhead
  • start-range
  • finish-range
  • start-punch-range
  • finish-punch-range
  • start-loop-range
  • finish-loop-range
  • alt-start-range
  • alt-finish-range
  • Editor Improvements:
  • Duplicate action now works in Range Selection mode.
  • Multi-Duplicate now works for Range Selections.
  • Zoom to selection (z key) now zooms on both axes.
  • Add zoom to selection (horizontal) action.
  • Add preference (editor -> general) to zoom to selection in object mode.
  • Left and right arrow keys move playhead to next/previous grid point instead of region boundary (old behaviour can be accessed with modifiers)
  • Speed up patch change redisplay.
  • Don't locate when clicking on region fade handles in smart mode with follow edits enabled.
  • Add actions to set current meter/tempo.
  • Display boost/cut gain after audio region name.
  • Mixer Improvements:
  • Display vca's at the end of track/bus list.
  • Show isolate solo and lock solo status buttons in master mixer strip but keep de-sensitized to preserve mixer strip layout between track/bus types.
  • Fix update of group color in mixer strip header.
  • Show vca color on number label and top of the mixer strip.
  • Fixes to visual alignment of gui elements in the mixer.
  • Use a popup menu to select meter point instead of cycling through modes.
  • Fix assign record enabled/soloed to control master. [#7204]
  • Assign/unassign selected mixer strips to vca using right click/context menu.
  • MIDI Improvements:
  • Increase midi related test coverage and refactoring.
  • Add midnam support for a-fluid synth.
  • Allow sending immediate patch changes via midi track context menu. [#6830]
  • Speed up midi ghost note redisplay.
  • Save and restore midi automation controls.
  • Add option to use track numbers, track names or instrument names from smf files when importing.
  • Add track and instrument names to smf files.
  • Add option to use tempo map from smf file on import.
  • Access to midi track channel settings now only via context menu.
  • Improved canvas redraw performance with many midi notes.
  • Add the midi channel number to controller names.
  • Implement copy drag for midi notes. [#5570]
  • Prefer general midi synth (gmsynth) as the default instrument.
  • Performance improvements related to display of sysex data.
  • Plugins Improvements:
  • Add support for mac vst hidden/favorites.
  • Show plugin format (lv2/ladspa/vst/etc) in menus to differentiate between the same plugin with several formats installed (e.g au/vst).
  • Allow to directly fan-out when adding multichannel instruments.
  • Scripting Improvements:
  • Add bindings for track/bus groups, miditrack::midicontrol, timecode conversion and audioregion rms/peak.
  • Extend bindings for plugininsert.
  • Add fader to trims script.
  • Add script to add a-high/low pass filter to all tracks.
  • Add create drum tracks script.
  • Add example script to start recording on a midi event.
  • Add script to delete x-run markers.
  • Allow lua bindings up to 10 arguments.
  • Add example script/snippet for importing file/s.
  • Add script to save snapshot after exporting.
  • Control Surfaces:
  • Remove unused feedback option from osc surface controls.
  • Add talent individual monitor controls to osc surface.
  • Make surface numbering the same as port numbering in mackie gui. [#7219]
  • Fixes:
  • Fix update of Track/Bus color in the Summary and Connection Manager.
  • Fix loading of Blueberry Milk and Clear Grey themes. [#7155]
  • Fix issues in Export with trim enabled. [#6412]
  • Fix crash when creating track via region drag when exceeding JACK connection limit. [#6496]
  • Fix crash at stop when recording in non-layered mode.
  • Fix parsing export trim threshold config variable.
  • Fixes for MSVC compiler
  • Fix video-monitor "sync-source" changes
  • Fix a source of hangs when closing Session with ALSA backend.
  • Fix possible crash when naming tracks with reserved I/O names. [#7171]
  • Fix flickering in tempo curve when Markers are reordered.
  • Fixes for sample locked Meter and Tempo sections?
  • Fix crash when dragging sample locked tempo over a music locked Tempo while snapped to grid.
  • Fix potential crash in peak file building.
  • Fix possible crash when removing ports with JACK1.
  • Fix layered record undo to include changes to existing regions.
  • Fixes to ensure Command key generates MOD2 on OS X.
  • Fix region position when dragging multiple regions to respect time base/lock style.
  • Fix thread safety issues with invalidation requests in event loops.
  • Fix inaccessible controls in Pin Connections window. [#7177]
  • Fix crash when resetting with VCA peak-meters.
  • Fix patch changes appearing outside of Region bounds.
  • Fix toggling between Editor and Mixer using Korg nanoKontrol2.
  • Fix Solo button on Faderport.
  • Fix management/ownership of shared playlists. [#7150]
  • Fixes to inactive Tempo sections.
  • Fix possibly incorrect start position of MIDI regions after split.
  • Fix crash when changing Pane widgets. [#7198]
  • Fix MTC slave implicit return on transport stop.
  • Fix some memory leaks in libpbd, libardour and GUI code.
  • Fix undo/redo for Regions -> Edit -> Close Gaps.
  • Fix continuous multi-selection in the Mixer.
  • Fix a-fluidsynth bank select.
  • Fix Generic MIDI controls so changes are propagated to the group (if in one).
  • Fix a number of issues related snap with music locked regions.
  • Fix a few issues with dragging MIDI notes including across tempo changes.
  • Fix state restoration of VCA slaves.
  • Fix saving state of Solo and Mute controls when slaved.
  • Updated translations:
  • Italian translation. [#7180]
  • German translation by Edgar Aichinger.
  • French translation by Olivier Humbert.
  • Japanese translation by Hiroki Inagaki.
  • Russian translation by Alexandre Prokoudine

New in Ardour 5.5 (Dec 1, 2016)

  • Fixes:
  • Work around MIDI devices sending invalid timestamps on OSX.
  • Open Sessions with files referenced from removable drives on Windows.
  • Various fixes for NetBSD and FreeBSD.
  • Add MIDI Control Change at correct location when importing.
  • Update Region colors on theme change.
  • Fix/Support note name translations (e.g "Ré ♯").
  • Allow loading sessions with missing external files. [#7067, #7114]
  • Use distinct color identifier for meter clip indicator. [#7010]
  • Prevent panners being reset when switching to Aux sends and back. [#6893]
  • Use correct BBT offset when using Insert Time. [#7072]
  • Fix restoration of key bindings assigned to Windows+key. [#7037]
  • Prevent duplicate moves when selecting regions on shared playlists.
  • Fix crash when instrument instantiation fails on track creation.
  • Prevent infinite loop when calculating tick marks on low zoom levels.
  • Fix LTC-generator 24h wraparound
  • Correctly handle failed activation of Control Surface Modules
  • Fix Master Track moving down one position in Editor after Session reload. [#7080]
  • Mark Session state as changed when tracks are reordered. [#7093]
  • Improved fix for playback of linked MIDI Regions [#6541]
  • Fix to keep Meterbridge Window on top.
  • Fix for non-working buttons in Monitor Section after second Session load [#7098]
  • Fix LV2 state versioning with Session templates.
  • Include Aux Busses in default strip types in OSC Surface [#7090]
  • Fixes to Insert/Remove time dialog [#7072]
  • Fix intermittent hang when stopping PortaudioBackend [#7095]
  • Fix playlist XML nodes changing order on Session save [#7053]
  • Fix crash loading u-he Diva VST plugin on Windows
  • Fix Duplicating Tracks with Sidechains [#7117]
  • Fix incorrect Midi Region length when splitting
  • Fix for widget visibility with detached preferences window [#7002]
  • Fixes when creating MIDI notes in Sustained note mode [#7126]
  • Fixes when creating MIDI notes in Percussive note mode [#7130]
  • Fixes to Cut Mode to make the cut line visible and respect snap modifier
  • Fix inaudible Percussive notes being displayed at the end of the Region
  • Fix crash when editing pitch of notes to outside visible area [#7135]
  • Fix crash when deleting a MIDI Region while mouse over CC event
  • Fix concurrency/locking issue with Event Loop request invalidation [#7049]
  • Fix creation of playlists with duplicate names [#6523, #5681, #6497]
  • Fix output display for non-plugin processors in the Processor Box
  • Fix forwarding of output buffers by using correct channel count
  • Fix loading, recording & saving MIDI with PolyKeyPressure events [#6948]
  • Fixes to Duplicate Track [#7141, #7146]
  • Fixes to OSC Control Surface
  • Fix handling of pitch bend events by a-fluidsynth [#7140]
  • Fix for reading CAF audio files over a certain size
  • General Improvements:
  • Many MIDI and Tempo related refactorings, fixes and improvements to performance, source code documentation and tests. (Thanks Nick)
  • Include Session utilities in the application installers/bundles.
  • Allow feedback loops from internal Sends to enable custom "Echo" chains.
  • Improved performance when reading and writing XML files.
  • Improved performance of Region export.
  • Snap to Track Strip boundaries when scrolling with arrow keys in the Editor.
  • Clicking on a Strip in the Mixer Strip List will move the Strip into view.
  • Snap to Mixer Strip boundaries when scrolling with arrow keys in the Mixer
  • Minor updates to Cubasish Theme.
  • Compensate for latency/correct alignment when exporting the Master Bus.
  • Improve automatic Track naming [#7092]
  • Add option to zoom in the time rulers using button press and dragging vertically. [#6768]
  • Speed up changes to AFL/PFL on large Sessions
  • Large improvements in time to process Solo changes [#7119]
  • Speed up Track/Bus creation time
  • Restrict ALSA input/output device selection to valid combinations
  • Speed up Track deletion when Editor Mixer Strip is visible
  • MIDI:
  • Many minor fixes and improvements
  • Support MIDI input follows Track selection. [#6744]
  • New MIDI -> Ports page in Preferences for managing MIDI port functionality and enabling MIDI input follows Track Selection.
  • Added support for Type 0 MIDI files and add option to split channels into tracks on import.
  • Added MIDI mapping for AKAI Midimix.
  • New MIDI Note selection XML format, existing note selections will be lost.
  • Improved editing in Percussive note mode
  • Plugins:
  • VST 2.4 plugin support on OSX
  • Add functionality to Fan out an Instruments outputs to new Tracks/Busses (video demo explanation at https://vimeo.com/191024580)
  • Allow LV2 plugins to provide Midnam XML.
  • Increase maximum release time in a-comp.
  • Sort Instrument list alphabetically.
  • Updated internal versions of qm-dsp library and qm-vamp plugins.
  • Allow LV2 Plugins to signal state changes and mark Session state as changed.
  • Support LV2 PortGroup extension
  • Add support for output-channel/bus grouping in AU plugins
  • OS X:
  • Mouse drags on plugin GUIs (editors) are now handled correctly when they end outside the window.
  • Video monitor "full screen" mode no long spans all screens
  • Scripting:
  • Added or improved Lua bindings for VAMP plugins, TempoMap, Basic MIDI model editing, Inter-Processor communication, Source, AudioSource, Route, Panner, Instrument
  • Add example script for Audio to Midi Transcription.
  • "Sound Smasher" example script added.
  • Add prototype script for converting polyphonic audio region to a MIDI region.
  • Add example script for instrument fan-out
  • Add example script to modulate parameters globally
  • Add support for calling ARDOUR.DSP Lua functions from UI scripts
  • Add example script to process Regions selected in the Editor
  • Add MIDI LFO example script
  • Control Surfaces:
  • Added Support for Steinbergs CC121 Control Surface
  • Activate/Deactivate plugins via OSC
  • Added configuration files for the Avid Artist Control and Artist Mix Control surfaces.
  • Allow Aux Buses visibility to be controlled separately via OSC
  • Add OSC support to query strips internal sends [#7136]
  • Add OSC support to query plugins and their parameters [#7137]
  • Translations:
  • Updated German translation (Edgar Aichinger)
  • Updated French translation (Olivier Humbert)

New in Ardour 5.0 (Aug 12, 2016)

  • Tabbed User Interface:
  • The editor window, the mixer window and preferences are now available as "tabs" in a single window, with transport controls shared across them all. Working with Ardour on laptops and other small-screen and/or single monitor systems is now much easier. If you use multiple monitors, and/or prefer to have the editor, mixer or preferences in their own windows, you can tear them off and Ardour will remember those settings for the future.
  • Control Masters (VCAs):
  • Although track/bus groups have offered a certain kind of grouped-control over gain, solo, mute and more, traditional mixing consoles have long had group master channels ("VCAs") which allow you to combine both a single fader to control the group level while also allowing you to easily adjust the relative levels inside the group. For large projects, this can make mixing much easier to control. After a significant re-engineering effort, Ardour 5.0 has support for control masters. In a nod to our "offer more than 1 way to do things" approach, it will allow you to use either or both of the conventions for combining multiple masters...
  • Nest VCAs (VCA 2 controls VCA 1 etc.)
  • Chain VCAs (VCA 1 and VCA2 both control track or bus N)
  • Tempo Ramps:
  • Although Ardour has some uncommonly flexible options for working with tempo, one thing we've never offered before are "ramps" - continuous smooth changes in tempo, often known as accelerando (tempo gradually speeding up) and ritardando (tempo gradually slowing down). In 5.0, tempo ramping finally comes to Ardour.
  • Lua Scripting:
  • 5.0 includes the ability to write scripts in the Lua programming language that have almost complete access to all Ardour internals. You can implement new functionality of many kinds, including writing synths, filters and other signal processing tasks since Lua is realtime safe. This release does not feature as much GUI integration as we would like, but it is still a deep and powerful new feature.
  • The reference manual contains lots of information about using Lua. You can find dozens of examples in the source code's scripts folder, or browse them on GitHub.
  • Sidechaining and Pin Connections:
  • Ardour's ability to allow unusual I/O configurations is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it allows users to do creative things that are hard to do in other DAWs. On the other hand, it causes confusion when doing something as simple as adding a compressor plugin with sidechain support. Those 3 inputs? What are they? How should they be wired up?
  • 5.0 sees an amazing new capability to manually control the internal wiring of plugins, if you choose to do so. You can switch the left and right feeds of a normal 2-channel plugin, or the outputs, or bypass inputs or outputs altogether. Adding "odd" plugins (with inputs and outputs) now becomes possible, with you in control of how the extra (or missing) channels are wired up.
  • Plugin Inline Display:
  • In traditional DAWs, including older versions of Ardour, the only way a plugin can draw anything on the screen is by the DAW opening a new window to display the plugin's own editor/GUI.
  • In Ardour 5.0, plugins can draw displays "inline" in the mixer strips, giving rise to many new possibilities. Note that this feature requires explicit support from the plugin - it does not make it possible to pack normal plugin GUIs into the mixer strip. Also, for the time being, these new graphical displays are for display only - inline controls for all plugin parameters have been available for several releases already.
  • Built-in Plugins:
  • For a long time, people have asked "what plugins does Ardour come with?" and the answer was "none". Now, Ardour 5.0 comes complete with 5 basic but usable plugins, derived from free and open source code, and curated to ensure that they work well with Ardour and for real world purposes. In particular, all of them are dezippered for all parameters. None of them have custom GUIs, but are easily and appropriately controllable via the generic Ardour plugin GUI. They are:
  • a-comp
  • A side-chain enabled compressor with the usual controls.
  • a-reverb
  • A reverb that finds a balance between sounding good, using a lot of CPU and having too many controls.
  • a-eq
  • A nice sounding 4-band parametric EQ with shelves
  • a-delay
  • A basic single-tap delay line, with tempo sync
  • a-high/low pass
  • Independent high and low pass filters with steepness up to 48dB/octave.
  • These plugins run on all platforms, and should answer your basic needs without having to look for 3rd party solutions until you really need to. Sessions that use only these plugins will be portable to any other instance of Ardour 5.x or later, on any platform. We may add other basic plugins to this set in the future, based on user feedback and requests.
  • Harrison's high-quality commercial plugins:
  • In addition to the a-* plugins, official Ardour 5.0 bundles (from ardour.org) come with an unlicensed set of Harrison's high-quality commercial plugins for evaluation. The Harrison plugins are fully functional; but their controls will become locked shortly after the plugin's window is opened. Licenses to permanently unlock the controls may be obtained from Harrison's Mixbus Plugin store. The Harrison plugins run on all platforms, ensuring session portability.
  • a collection of images of Harrison plugins
  • MIDI Busses:
  • Until 5.0, it was at best convoluted to merge MIDI streams to allow for common processing or routing, for instance to a multi-instrument synthesiser. This release makes busses able to handle equally well audio and MIDI, which enables efficient workflow for virtual drumkits where the arrangement uses different MIDI tracks. Moreover, busses with both Audio and MIDI inputs are well suited for vocoders and similar plugins.
  • OSC:
  • Ardour's Open Sound Control (OSC) support for 5.0 has been completely overhauled. While limited compatibility with 4.x OSC commands has been retained, the command paths have changed. We have now extended the available commands to make it possible to write a much more fully-featured control surface using OSC. Notably there is significantly more options for feedback to the OSC controller from Ardour itself. 5.0 also features a set of redundant OSC commands that make it easier to use products like Hexler, TouchOSC and Lemur which all have significant limitations in the format of the messages they can send. Specific new features include...
  • Banking has been added so that a surface with limited strips can still access all Ardour's mixer strips.
  • A surface can tell Ardour how many strips to use for banking.
  • A surface can tell Ardour which of two fader maths to use (position or raw dB)
  • A surface can tell Ardour what feedback it would like (buttons only, or controls, or PH position)
  • A surface can tell Ardour what kind of mixer strips it wants to see (audio, midi, buses, etc.)
  • There is a /select strip that always operates on the selected strip (same as the editor mixer strip)
  • More than one surface can be used at a time with independent settings.
  • Those settings are saved with the session.
  • You'll find full documentation on current OSC support in the manual.
  • Theming:
  • Ardour 5.0 includes 5 new color themes (all contributed by users), including Caineville (similar to Ableton Live), Unastudia (similar to Presonus Studio One), Cubasish (similar to Cubase), Clear Gray and Blueberry Milk. Note that the theming capabilities of Ardour have not changed since 4.0, but these two users took the time to use the color-choosing possibilities to their fullest. This is done without any need to rebuild Ardour, so anyone who wants to try this can (being aware that it is several hours worth of work to generate a completely new color theme).
  • GUI Changes:
  • Create new track by dragging an instrument from the favorites sidebar.
  • Allow copying of any processor settings (plugin, fader, meter, etc.) by dragging processor onto another of same type.
  • Redesign keybindings editor to work with tabbed notebook, one tab per set of bindings.
  • Avoid issues with splash screen hiding other windows at startup.
  • Desaturate inactive rec-enabled button, to provide more contrast with active recording state.
  • Consistent Location GUI layout including a “Go To” button.
  • Don't show engine dialog when loading a session..
  • Remove the splash-screen when changing sessions.
  • Re-enable the "Show Tooltip" preference.
  • Rhythm Ferret improved with new modes and options.
  • Removing multiple tracks is now a one confirmation step.
  • Option for stereo-only meters (prevents a multi-output instrument from showing dozens of meters in the track header).
  • Import->Freesound tab is hidden while we update to the new Freesound search protocol.
  • All user interfaces (Editor, Mixer, Control surfaces, etc.) use the same ordering and visibility. .
  • Empty automation: first point creates a value spanning session start/end position.
  • New style for text entryfields, now including a visible cursor.
  • Make BBT ruler visible in default session.
  • Re-layout import dialog (better fit for narrow screens).
  • Do not show inappropriate dialogs at startup, even if they were visible at the last exit from Ardour.
  • Properly sort port-names into normal human-sensible lexicographic order.
  • Make the trim knob on busses show only if there is audio.
  • Add Open Target Folder button to Export Dialog.
  • Consistent track+group show/hide column layout in the Mixer sidebar.
  • Adjusting a region's gain with the Range and Draw tools would sometimes affect the region in the track above. This has been fixed.
  • Overhauled Region/Range spectrum analyzer: axis-labels, 1/octave weighting, log-scale display.
  • Plugin Analysis graphics: show numeric values on mouse over, and offer A/B plot.
  • Improve shuttle control response when grabbed.
  • Make a right click on metronome really show click preferences.
  • Improve placement of Dropdown popups.
  • Preferences and other Dialogs:
  • The Preferences Dialog is now side-tabbed, with all tabs expanded to make clear the full range of possible settings, and the overall height has been reduced. Sync options have been moved into a sub-node of "Transport". The color theme editor has been moved into its own tab.
  • The Group edit dialog is now non-modal, so its appearance doesn't prevent interaction with the rest of the program.
  • The Shuttle controller GUI drawing has been updated and made themeable.
  • Control Surfaces:
  • Added MIDI map for:
  • M-Audio Oxygen 61 v3 (preset 1).
  • M-Audio Oxygen 61.
  • AKAI MPD32.
  • Updated MIDI map for M-Audio Axiom Air 25.
  • Loop toggle and Roll (play) toggle commands now work as they do in the GUI, for all surfaces.
  • Export:
  • Loudness normalization during export according to EBU/ITU standards. This supplements normalization based on peak sample values.
  • Configurable export-silence trim threshold.
  • Add option to auto-save post-export-analysis image.
  • Align stem-export (When exporting raw track outputs with and without processing).
  • Fix stem-export of no-input busses/tracks.
  • Support for timespan realtime export.
  • There is an excellent video from Harrison Consoles that shows many different aspects of exporting in Mixbus. Almost everything in the video is relevant to Ardour.
  • Plugins:
  • Adding a multi-channel instrument displays a dialog to configure number of outputs.
  • Allow direct instrument replacement on a MIDI track in a single step.
  • There are a number of powerful software synths in the AudioUnit format for OS X which have multiple output busses, mostly to try to provide some guidance to the user about "groups" of outputs. Although we still question the way this design is used by some plugin developers, 5.0 supports them just like all other AU plugins.
  • Fix listing of plugin presets.
  • Fix incorrect design of VST "in-place" processing.
  • Support AU instrument in-place processing.
  • Fix clearing of AudioUnit cache.
  • Major improvements in handling AudioUnit plugin window resizing, whether initiated by the user, or by the plugin.
  • Handle single-bus, non-variable i/o AudioUnit plugins w/multiple configurations.
  • Provide VST and AudioUnit plugins with latency-adjusted BBT (musical time) information.
  • Set latency of sidechain port.
  • Generic GUI redesign - knobs, grid layout etc.
  • Support for LV2 bypass extension.
  • Listen for AudioUnit plugin-driven latency changes.
  • Add initial MIDI sidechain if plugin has one.
  • Support LV2 log trace messages.
  • Support thread-safe LV2 state restoration.
  • OS X:
  • Fix dialog layering on OS X.
  • Work to reduce the impact of slow down errant plugin GUIs for AU. This is a particular problem for users with Retina displays, because of the unfathomably slow code provided by Apple for drawing images.
  • Miscellaneous Improvements:
  • Bus trim control affects sends to the bus as well as regular inputs.
  • Expand options in quantize dialog to include other beat fractions.
  • Reset autoscroll speed to minimum when scrolling stops.
  • Prevent deletion of last port using the Patch bay dialog(s).
  • Add a try-autostart-engine option.
  • Allow duplication of tracks with sends or load templates with sends/inserts.
  • Adding new tracks (or opening a session with tracks) is now faster.
  • Audio/midi files are now imported to "session start" by default (Too many users report they import their first tracks and can't find them).
  • Record Safe: you can now ensure that some tracks are never record-enabled, no matter what grouping or selection status they may have.
  • Primary-Shift click on gain automation button now sets gain automation state to all tracks and busses (may change in the future).
  • Stop-and-forget-capture should not toggle transport state, only stop it.
  • Once the user has explicitly set the session range end, playlist/range changes do not move it.
  • Various transient-detection fixes (Previously, split region at transients followed by, trim+move+undo would not work).
  • Add option to auto-save post-export-analysis image.
  • Added additional metadata placeholders for post-export command.
  • Switching automation-mode to “touch” writes the current value into the automation from session start to session end. This avoids the case where enabling “touch” on an empty automation track could write the wrong value into automation.
  • Improve midnam (patch and parameter names) for Waldorf Blofeld.
  • ALSA: allow environment variable ARDOUR_ALSA_DEVICE to identify a single, arbitrary ALSA PCM name as the only available/allowed device.
  • Session sample rate changes:
  • Never ever change sample-rate saved with the session after creation.
  • Add notification if Engine Rate changes and mismatches session's SR.
  • Update flow when loading a new session with different SR.
  • Save As/Snapshot improvements:
  • Allow snapshots and Save-As even if session is read-only.
  • Change ambiguous "Save as" window title for "Snapshot & Switch".
  • Start save-as in configured session-di.
  • Bug Fixes:
  • Prevent crash if a VST plugin does not implement effEditGetRect.
  • Issues automating control ports on some midi synths.
  • No more livelock caused by infinite/not-a-number control parameters.
  • Force waveform images to be least 1px wide.
  • "Collect Groups" works again.
  • No waveform flickering during recording.
  • Correct region splits when using Strip Silence.
  • Errors when using timestretch tool.
  • EAN (metadata) check digit calculation is now correct.
  • No more lockup/freeze when deleting a region under specific conditions.
  • Upsampling during import of some multi-channel files will no longer crash.
  • MTC alignment now uses latency compensation.
  • Using "Esc" key now works to cancel more stuff.
  • Gain automation copy/paste works correctly.
  • Various fixes for UTF-8 text entered by users or originating from imported audio or MIDI files.
  • CUE/TOC file creation with non ISO-8859-1 chars in source text now works (by substituting underscores).
  • Remove race condition when dropping ports (especially with Jack 2). Ports would remain and could subsequently cause crashes.
  • Changes in logic used by Session > Cleanup to avoid endless recursion in sessions with deeply nested/recursive compound regions.
  • Single click in TimeFX mode brings up region properties editor, as it should.
  • No more crashes when loading a session with non-default clock modes.
  • Remove "clicks" when switching fader and trim automation from "manual" to “play” while transport is rolling.
  • Translations:
  • Updated translations for Chinese, (Brazilian) Portugese, French, German, Russian, UK English

New in Ardour 4.7 (Feb 20, 2016)

  • A new dialog that shows a detailed and wide-ranging analysis of the audio file(s) generated by export. It shows waveform, spectral and level distribution views as well as peak and true peak level information and allows for previewing of the exported files. The development of this dialog was sponsored by Harrison Consoles, and represents another great example of their collaborative engagement with the Ardour development process.
  • The greatly improved version of Mackie Control support that we're really excited about. Ardour's support for these devices is now very close to where we want it to be in terms of using the visibly obvious features of most Mackie Control surfaces. We still plan to go deeper into plugin control and more in future releases.
  • Additions:
  • New Post-Export Analysis window
  • the new post-export analysis window
  • Add display of signal level during latency measurement
  • Add support/options for the Presonus FaderPort footswitch
  • OSC: allow logging/debugging of incoming messages
  • OSC: add new messages addresses to allow enhanced control with TouchOSC
  • Add a "zoom-to-10-seconds" action/menu item
  • Add an "record-enable all tracks" action/menu item
  • Add option to always use mouse position for zoom focus, making zoom scroll behaviour consistent across rulers and main track area
  • New MIDI binding map for Akai MPK Mini, and Novation LaunchKey 25
  • Add a button to the Audio/MIDI Setup dialog to choose between the callback and blocking version of the Windows audio/MIDI I/O backend. There still appear to be devices and conditions where one of these choices gives better results than the other, but unfortunately no way to tell without just trying them both.
  • Improvements:
  • Turn out all lights on a Presonus FaderPort when exiting the program
  • Duplicate range can now work with multiple time ranges
  • When using stationary playhead mode, keep the playhead centered
  • Group edit dialog is no longer modal, so you can continue working while it remains visible.
  • Take snap settings into account when stretching regions
  • "Insert Time" now ignores mouse as the edit point, just like "Remove Time"
  • Implement MIDI device enumeration and latency calibration for the Windows audio backend (PortAudio)
  • Allow removing the timespan name from export filenames
  • Subtly improve general scrolling behaviour in editor window
  • Improve import of ProTools 5 sessions
  • Add preliminary support for import of ProTools 10 and 11 sessions
  • Better support for VST plugins with an interest in transport state
  • Make it clear that a missing plugin may have been blacklist
  • Improve the accuracy of the tap-tempo estimator
  • Fixes:
  • Various fixes for incorrect visibility of MIDI ghost notes in the GUI when editing.
  • Toggle transport state (normally bound to the space bar) now works even when using JACK Transport
  • Fix incorrect movement of regions glued to BBT time after a tempo change
  • Improve handling of MIDI note selection in the GUI, dramatically speeding up some operations in larger sessions
  • Generic MIDI: midi controller buttons now trigger only on the push message, not the release
  • Generic MIDI: if a CC message is bound to a toggle control, toggle the control only when the incoming value is greater than 0x40 (64)
  • Force LV2 plugins to save some state when creating track or session templates
  • Fix ipMIDI support on Windows (affects use of SSL Nucleus control surface)
  • Fix behaviour of fader numeric displays when leaving an active automation state
  • Allow use of UTF8 characters in filenames during export
  • Fix an unlikely, subtle bug on OS X when the list of available audio devices is changed by the operating system (e.g. device hotplugging)
  • Fix a crash when an export is cancelled before it finishes
  • Fix display of MIDNAM-provided note names while dragging MIDI notes
  • Fix crash when right (context) clicking in the name box of the selected track
  • Fix inactive MIDI track headers on session reload
  • Fix failure to show text selection in track name entry boxes
  • OS X: Cmd- now works in some situations where it was failing before
  • Avoid generating zero-byte files when exporting using normalize + trim silence at end
  • Updated Translations:
  • Czech

New in Ardour 4.6 (Jan 11, 2016)

  • GCC5 Compatibility on Linux:
  • In version 5 (since g++5.1) the GNU C Compiler changed the C++11 interface in an incompatible way. Ardour itself is not affected, but the combination of some plugins and Ardour is. If you are using a GNU/Linux distribution that compiles plugins with the new gcc5 C++11 ABI, choose gcc5. If you do not know, use gcc4 (fall/winter 2015). This is only relevant for a dozen 3rd party plugins which directly or indirectly use C++11 features. Known affected plugins: abgate, ams-lv2, amsynth, beatslash, deteriorate, eq10q, guitarix, ingen, midimsg, newtonator, triceratops, vocproc.
  • The download system does not yet offer any way to get access to the builds we create for systems that use gcc5. They are available to subscribers on the nightly site (with the usual gratis free/demo versions as well. The download system will be redesigned in the near future to help address this issue. If you are on a newer Linux system, you may want to consider being a subscriber rather than paying a single amount, just to ensure that you can get access to the build you may need.
  • Plugins (Platform-Independent):
  • Add a check button in the session loading dialog to disable all plugins.
  • Improve layout/appearance/functionality of Plugin Manager dialog.
  • Fixes for compatibility with LV2 1.0.0.
  • Clicking on a plugin LED holding Ctrl-shift toggles all plugins/processors in this strip (except the fader).
  • Fix monitoring of plugin parameter changes with LV2 and AudioUnit plugins, to avoid feedback loops between the plugin and the GUI.
  • Fix an issue with loading sessions containing certain LV2 plugins.
  • Show VST plugin search paths (read-only) in Preferences dialog.
  • Fix LV2 plugin state for copied plugins.
  • Properly copy plugin state when duplicating tracks/busses.
  • Save/restore plugin states as part of track templates.
  • GUI:
  • Report on progress while stripping silence from tracks.
  • Fix fine-adjust modifier overriding snap modifiers.
  • Clicking on an already selected note when many are selected makes it the only selected note (same behaviour as regions and control points).
  • Allow use of tooltips to be enabled/disabled from Preferences.
  • Mixer list pane can now be shrunk to zero width.
  • Dialogs and unparented windows now default to the current pointer position.
  • Add relative snap when moving markers.
  • Increase the minimum size of the recent session scrollview.
  • Don't make hidden automation controls visible, ever.
  • Allow numerical entry for setting gain values in Preferences dialog.
  • Show an informational dialog when opening IRC via Help -> Chat, to try to clarify to new users that they should post a question and then wait, not leave after a few minutes.
  • When adding a single plugin, immediately show the plugin GUI (except when using drag-n-drop to add the plugin).
  • Improve the layout of various widgets in the Preferences dialog.
  • Add "Delete all Unused Playlists" and "Keep All Playlists" options to cleanup dialog.
  • Fix "Crop to Range" operation to include all (selected) regions covered by the range, not just those that cover the start.
  • Fix "Fill Track" to avoid single-sample regions.
  • Keep track of meter visibility.
  • Hide region frame outline when region is less than 2 pixels wide.
  • Continue normal scrolling if the pointer is over the dropdown menus in the track header of a MIDI track.
  • Fix misplacement and improve grouping of various audio and MIDI ports in patchbay(s).
  • use the correct environment variable to block loading of GTK+2 resource files (changed back in 2002 but never updated in our source code).
  • Makes rows in the theme manager selectable, making it easier to link an object to a color.
  • Fix incorrect keyboard focus after deleting a marker.
  • Allow hiding and showing the mixer list.
  • Disable threaded waveview rendering. This is, sadly, a regression from previous releases, and will slightly slow down the apparent speed of waveform drawing. However, it was causing unacceptable crashes while recording, and until we can be absolutely certain that the issue has been correctly identified and fixed, we are disabling it.
  • Add a button to master bus strip to show/hide monitor section.
  • Reduce width of monitor section by 25%.
  • Allow addition of plugins to monitor section.
  • Fix monitor section state restore (per-channel dim, mute etc.).
  • Prefill snapshot dialog name field with current snapshot name .
  • Use correct position when finishing tempo and meter marker drags.
  • Fix for inoperative keyboard modifiers after auto-scrolling.
  • Add more items/links to the Help menu.
  • Add confirmation dialog for overwriting existing files to most (all?) file dialogs.
  • Include platform-specific common disk volumes to file selection dialogs.
  • New Plugin Sidebar (Mixer Window):
  • drag/drop favorite Plugins directly to a track/bus.
  • allow creating plugin-presets by dragging a plugin to the sidebar.
  • allow to add a plugin or preset to all selected routes (double-click).
  • allow dragging plugins directly from the plugin-manager to a track/bus.
  • save/restore custom order of favorite plugin list.
  • manage favorites and delete presets from the sidebar’s context menu.
  • MIDI:
  • Snap modifiers now work on MIDI Notes when the grid is disabled.
  • Gray out unavailable MIDI note context menu items rather than hiding them.
  • update MIDI channel buttons when their mode is changed.
  • Enable horizontal scrolling in MIDI regions even when a note is selected.
  • Include the "Transform..." option in the MIDI region context menu.
  • Introduce "Transpose..." option in the context menu for selected notes.
  • Significantly speed up some MIDI note editing operations, and their impact on session loading times.
  • Make MIDI Panic message work even when seamlessly looping.
  • Do not clear MIDI buffers when processing cycles are split, and make seamless MIDI looping work correctly.
  • Removing shorting of inserted notes by 1 tick.
  • Fix overlapping MIDI note resolution.
  • Better alignment of note end times with the grid.
  • Fix issues with large amounts of MIDI data caused by limits on the size of Standard MIDI File format variable-length-quantities.
  • Control Surfaces:
  • Deep support for the Presonus Faderport device. This is fully documented in the Ardour Manual.
  • Mackie Control devices saw a lot of subtle changes which will be documented in the manual in the near future. It is now possible to control input trim, sends and more from a Mackie surface.
  • OSC:
  • Allow use of broken apps such as TouchOSC and Lemur with Ardour's OSC support
  • (These apps/devices don't really follow the spirit of the OSC specification because they require all messages to include at least one argument. The new /ardour/pushbutton/.. OSC "namespace" can be used to provide OSC addresses for messages that always have one floating point argument; messages to such addresses are ignored unless the argument is 1.0)
  • Add notification of changes in transport speed or record enable status
  • Add easy-to-use MIDI port selectors to the Generic MIDI settings dialog
  • Add a MIDI binding map for the Yamaha KX25
  • Add a MIDI binding map for the Novation Impulse 49
  • Add full support for NPRN MIDI controllers, allowing their use in MIDI binding maps
  • Add an explicit "Show settings" button to the Control Surfaces preferences dialog to help users who do not read.
  • Ensure that when control surfaces are enabled/disabled/re-enabled, they continue to be notified about the state of the session
  • Automation:
  • Make control point selection more consistent
  • Fix display of automation data for toggled controls
  • Automation recording now has undo-per-pass, not undo-per-touch
  • Add undo for region gain point selection
  • Fix incorrect snap when adding region gain points
  • Correctly select the control point to be deleted with shift+right click
  • Ctrl/Cmd-drag adds or toggles rubber band selection of automation control points
  • Show verbose cursor control point values in internal edit mode
  • Prevent inadvertent overwriting of automation data
  • Fix mute automation playback
  • Fix incorrectly positioned automation control points
  • Handle pasting data from non-toggled to toggled automation tracks
  • Fix crash when moving tempo markers with automation present in MIDI tracks
  • General Changes/Improvements:
  • Disable follow-edits and auto-return when synchronized to an external positional clock source.
  • Fix crash when creating subgroup busses.
  • Fix some cases where a session was incorrectly marked as changed/not-changed.
  • Speed up session loading by avoiding unnecessary duplication scanning of MIDNAM files.
  • Reduce session close time caused by some poor programming design.
  • Revert back to use mjpeg as the default video codec. Anecdotal evidence suggests that mpeg4 causes issues on some platforms.
  • Fix an issue where timers for metering prevent session loading from completing (also speeds up session loading).
  • Duplicate regions now uses correct position (previously was off by one sample).
  • Improved handling of reserved track/bus/send names ("Master", "Click" etc).
  • Allow metronome to operate while varispeeding.
  • Add "Duplicate Track/Bus" functionality.
  • Make it possible to rename the session root folder without any side effects.
  • Provide a user-preference for pre-roll.
  • When loading a session, default to the most-recently-used snapshot.
  • Prevent deletion of playlists not used while a track is frozen.
  • Restore last used driver and device for a given audio/MIDI I/O backend.
  • Prevent concurrent peak (waveform image) file initialization.
  • Prevent crash when closing a session while some audio data analysis is still underway.
  • Restore functionality for measuring insert latency.
  • Load/save measured insert latency with session.
  • Add a mechanism to allow audio latency updates without restarting the backend.
  • Avoid uninintentional, unnecessary rebuilds of peak (waveform image) files.
  • Fix bug with solo/mute state when reopening a session with a soloed bus.
  • Explicitly disallow looping while synced to an external positional source.
  • Update available positional sync sources when audioengine is restarted.
  • Prevent addition of markers within 1/100th second if transport is stopped.
  • Windows:
  • Increase open file limit count on Windows.
  • New version of Windows backend that uses the PortAudio callback API. This appears to improve functionality with some audio interfaces.
  • Use a range of values for ASIO buffer sizes if the ASIO driver provides one.
  • Improve ipMIDI support on Windows.
  • Fix latency compensation for the Windows audio/MIDI I/O backend.
  • Attempted fix for issues on Windows when running on machines that use hyper-threading.
  • OS X:
  • Update the API used on OS X to discover AudioUnit plugins, to be compatible with (a) newer versions of OS X (b) newer plugin releases (notably Waves Audio latest versions).
  • Add a horrible hack to keep the program GUI responsive even when AudioUnit plugins with broken (rapidly redrawing) GUI's/editors are visible.
  • Fix display of deprecated Carbon-based GUIs for some AudioUnit plugins.
  • Fix for a crash on OS X caused by changing audio device state while recording.
  • Add build support for OS X El Capitan.
  • Fix crash when opening invalid audio/MIDI files on OS X.
  • Correctly allow opening ardour via a double-click on a .ardour file inside Finder on OS X.
  • Fix display of AudioUnit factory presets, so that they are shown even when there are no user presets.
  • Re-add AudioUnit cache/blacklist management.
  • Linux:
  • ALSA backend settings now include number of playback buffers (periods), possibly using different values for playback and capture.
  • LinuxVST plugins: forward window resizing events to the plugin GUI.
  • Infrastructure:
  • Add ardour4 desktop and mime type files (for use by packagers on platforms that use them)
  • Add an AppData file for GNOME packagers
  • Update to libsndfile 1.0.26
  • Fixes to allow build system to be used on NetBSD
  • Include a thread-safe version of libfftw, to fix crashes caused by some plugins

New in Ardour 4.2 (Aug 14, 2015)

  • Fix region brush drag
  • Speed up removal of multiple tracks/busses
  • Speed up solo operations applied to many tracks/busses
  • Fix several bugs with reversible commands
  • Try to avoid coincident tempo/meter markers when removing time
  • Improve window layering relationship between editor & mixerbridge
  • Add keybindings for region layering (2ndary-9 (lower), 2ndary-0 (raise)
  • Adjust some window keybindings. (2ndary-C is now the big clock, 2ndary-B is the meterbridge, 2ndary-V is the video window
  • Fix swing quantization
  • Fix pre-fader send mute-point so that input trim still works when mute is engaged
  • Add configuration variable for maximum shuttle speed
  • Improve size and position of panner value displays
  • Save auto loop range and more markers in session templates
  • Mark session dirty after various region property changes
  • No longer save session after adding tracks/busses
  • Fix cleanup of any temporary files after export
  • Fix looping when using loop-is-mode and seamless looping
  • Add 176.4kHz to export sample rate list
  • Fix unintentional limits on track name length
  • Disk buffering is now defined by presets, with 3 possible settings as well as custom
  • When using loop-is-mode, enabling recording cancels loop
  • Attempt to reconnect LTC ports after a backend change or reset
  • Catch attempt to save a session with its current name as the new name
  • Fix flickering of certain popup windows
  • Indicate port-connections of non-track type on the mixer strip output button.
  • (Previously a MIDI track with synth showed "—" for the output even if the audio output ports were connected, because only MIDI connections were displayed on the button).
  • Avoid crashing when cleanup unused sources
  • Fix various issues when deleting midi region during step-edit
  • Stationary playhead implies follow playhead, so make it so.
  • improve performance and reduce visual jitter when using stationary playhead
  • Add new configuration parameter for the default meter type to use with new tracks/busses
  • Add context menu to hide/show Midi-tracks — fixes #6430
  • Use “1” as the small-step size when incrementing/decrementing integer controls/parameters
  • Use power of 2 log-scale for logarithmic controls/parameters.
  • Remove insanely fast meter fall-off (this gave an inaccurate view of meter levels)
  • Fix solo isolate implementation to handle more complex routing pathways
  • Remove “Refresh” button in Plugin manager; use Preferences > Plugins
  • Fix auditioning on systems with larger disk read chunk sizes.
  • Do not crash if taglib cannot open a file
  • Fix state restoration in Audio/MIDI setup
  • Fix auditioning of audio at very different sample rates
  • Fix loss of variable amounts of final audio when importing from files with different sample rate than Ardour is using.
  • Plugins
  • For AU and VST plugins, differentiate between "scanning" for plugins (which checks that known plugins are still installed), and "discovery" (which potentially finds new plugins on the computer).
  • Offer to discover (all) plugins at first start
  • Fix LV2 freewheeling support
  • Correctly inform LV2 plugins of entire possible block size range (fixes some LV2 plugins which rely on this being correct)
  • Fix audio buffering for VST plugins (fixes lack of output or phased output from a variety of VST plugins)
  • With AU plugins, ensure that the plugin settings are used during plugin signal processing analysis
  • For AU plugins, when given a choice of picking any channel output count, choose stereo (not the master bus output count)
  • VST cache is now per user and per architecture (no longer system-wide) — this allows parallel installs of 32 & 64bit ardour
  • By some unexplained magic, various AU plugins now load without crashing (notably several from Native Instruments such as Kontakt)
  • Add optional verbose option for VST plugin scanning
  • Automation Editing
  • Add undo/redo for touch mode and write mode
  • Selection and undo/redo behaviour when choosing control points
  • Display selected control points in region gain lines
  • Display selected points in internal edit mode
  • Allow dragging of region gain lines in internal edit mode
  • Make automation line / gain line cursors consistent.
  • Clicking an automation track line without a move adds a point on the line.
  • Fix line drag crash
  • Windows
  • Add AVX-assembler functions on Windows 64bit for metering and other high-performance-requiring tasks
  • Add SSE-assembler functions on Windows 64bit for metering and other high-performance-requiring tasks
  • New PortAudio backend for Windows
  • Fix various issues with non-latin names on Windows
  • Fix file metadata tagging on Windows
  • OS X
  • Fix automatic creation of an aggregate device on OS X 10.5
  • Fix MIDI data parsing in the CoreAudio backend
  • Add Cmd-h keybinding on OS X to hide application
  • Improve enabling/disabling OS X main menu during "Locked" state
  • On OS X, ignore .DS_Store files created by operating system when doing "Save As"
  • Fix export issue on OS X Mavericks
  • PowerPC support returns (ie. Ardour for older Apple machines)
  • Partial workaround for lack of thread-safety in OS X implementation of loadlocale(). This is a serious crashing bug in Apple's code that affects other applications on OS X, but it is unpredictable, both in terms of its effect and when it might occur. This workaround deals with the most common case that we've seen so far.
  • Video
  • Possible fix for stack overflow when parsing video info
  • Fix ability to connect to Harvid on systems lacking "localhost" (even though this is specified as part of IPv4 and IPv6). Examples: Chromebooks and some OS X systems.
  • Fix video-metadata for Windows.
  • Add in MXF file as a supported video format
  • Allow to select video-files regardless of file ext.
  • MIDI/Mackie Control Surfaces
  • Move learned midi binding reload after midi map load (fixes #6405)
  • Add a midimap for using a WiiMote via midikb.
  • Fixed generic MIDI program change event size to two bytes (fixes #6426)
  • Fixed pitchbend use in toggle mode so that it switches on/off at half way (fixes #6424)
  • Allow any one midi event to control only one thing.
  • Make program change message turn toggle controls on/off, and set other controls to 1.
  • Add support for 4 common types of encoders. Encoders are devices which use MIDI messages to send incremental rather than absolute position.
  • Make Mackie Control MasterPosition match MIDI port number.

New in Ardour 4.1 (Jun 25, 2015)

  • New Functionality:
  • Input Gain Control
  • Playback- or Capture-only device support for ALSA & Coreaudio
  • Save As
  • Windows assembler metering support.
  • Click-free changes to processor order and meter position
  • User Interface Changes:
  • Waveform rendering
  • Stationary playhead option
  • Layering: later is higher
  • hi-DPI support, part one
  • hi-DPI support, part two
  • Relative snap
  • X-run counter in status bar
  • Plugin parameter reset button
  • Allow deletion of MIDI Program Changes using the Delete key
  • Peak meters now have sample-accurate fall-off, no visual jitter
  • Automation-lane log-scale parameter support
  • New 0dBFS peak meter
  • Tap tempo
  • Remove time
  • Fixes:
  • No more x-runs & noise on session-open/close
  • Fix stuck midi notes during save/auto-save
  • Fix stuck midi notes if loop-range is present
  • Various MCP improvements & tweaks
  • Properly display JACK buffersize
  • Fix importing old A2/A3 automation
  • Fix Non Session Manager support
  • VST plugins are now searched for using a case insensitive comparison of their filename extension
  • Relax gain/fader LPF to 25Hz (was 10Hz)
  • Fix monitor-section polarity invert
  • Fix crash when switching backends.

New in Ardour 4.0 (Apr 18, 2015)

  • Better cross platform support. Ardour now runs on GNU/Linux, OS X and for the first time, Windows.
  • JACK is no longer required, making it easier than ever for new users to get Ardour up and running (though JACK is still usable with Ardour).
  • The user interface has seen a thorough overhaul, leading to a more modern and polished experience.
  • the operating system's upper limit on the number of open files is now correctly used, avoiding issues with saving large sessions
  • vastly reduced memory consumption. For an empty session Ardour now uses 80% less memory.
  • The graphics technology used for the editing area of Ardour, and increasingly for many other parts of the user interface, has been completely reimplemented from scratch, using powerful, modern and cross-platform systems such as Cairo.
  • the entire theming process has been redesigned to make it easier to alter the color palette used by the program. Any existing customized themes for Ardour 3 are no longer usable, so you will see the new defaults when running Ardour 4
  • Most icons have been replaced with vector graphics and font-scaling has been overhauled
  • Error window popup has been replaced with indicator button
  • Ardour 4 has completely abstracted all audio and MIDI I/O, and is no longer reliant on JACK for this function
  • Ardour now comes with multiple "backends" that provide audio and MIDI I/O. These backends allow Ardour to use:
  • JACK (available on all platforms if JACK is installed)
  • ALSA (for use on Linux only)
  • ASIO (for use on Windows only)
  • CoreAudio (for use on OS X only)
  • For developers and testers, there is also a "Dummy" backend which can be used to generate test signals and does not require an actual audio interface.
  • Backends can be changed within a running instance of Ardour (e.g. from JACK to ALSA back to JACK)
  • MIDI latency measurement
  • Many, many improvements to MIDI editing and data handling
  • Handle plugins with MIDI output
  • Allow mixed data flow (MIDI+Audio) through an entire track or bus
  • MIDI bounce is now functional
  • New modeless editing model, with specific mouse tools/modes for drawing note and controller data as well as editing existing material.
  • Transform dialog allows time-based transformation of note properies (like time, length, and velocity), such as velocity crescendos or chromatic scale runs
  • New note velocity when adding with the mouse is based on surrounding notes
  • Better handling of issues when importing various SMF (Standard MIDI Format) files
  • Sub-bar level grid lines reflect grid unit choice
  • 14 bit MIDI controller values correctly handled
  • New option to control which region(s) are selected after a split operation
  • Axis limited dragging (Using the shift key during a region limits motion to initial direction (up/down or left/right) only
  • Automation line editing notably improved
  • Maximum zoom limited to 3 days @ 48kHz a 1600 pixel wide screen
  • Ripple mode: this new editing mode can dramatically speed up your edits. In Ripple mode, audio regions after a move or delete operation will move to accommodate the edit.
  • Cut (split) mouse tool (supplements the faster but more obscure use of the "s" (split) keybinding for users too stuck in the ways of legacy DAWs).
  • Zoom mode removed (Select ranges/objects, then zoom)
  • Drop zone: regions, selections and file drag-and-dropped to this area below all other tracks will create new tracks
  • Track + region selection now mutually exclusive
  • Remove all group active button (To operate on all tracks, use select-all-tracks (ctrl-t))
  • Region name highlights removed (available as user-controlled option)
  • Mute automation
  • Vertical scrolling moves in units of whole tracks
  • New "sequence regions" operation removes blank space between regions
  • VST plugins (native Windows VST plugins on Windows, Linux VST plugins on Linux) are no longer automatically scanned at first application startup (this avoids plugins causing crashes when using Ardour for the first time on systems with misbehaving plugins already installed)
  • An external scanning tool is used to identify and test VST plugins at user request from within Ardour
  • Plugins which fail testing are placed on a blacklist so that they will not be loaded by Ardour unless manually overridden by the user
  • Unlike Ardour 3.x, Ardour 4.x is being officially released for OS X. Expect to see continued improvements to our OS X support in upcoming releases.
  • Splash and dialog windows don't interrupt work flow
  • MIDNAM files now included
  • Screen positioning of AudioUnit GUIs is more rational and consistent
  • Many more AudioUnit instrument ("soft synth") plugins can now be loaded successfully
  • Prefer stereo variants of AudioUnit instrument plugins if one is available
  • Fix AudioUnit Carbon GUI focus issues
  • AudioUnit plugins are no longer automatically scanned at first application startup (this avoids plugins causing crashes when using Ardour for the first time on systems with misbehaving plugins already installed)
  • Plugins which fail testing are placed on a blacklist so that they will not be loaded by Ardour unless manually overridden by the user
  • Loop can now be a mode instead of an operation; if Loop Mode is engaged, then pressing Play (or space) will initiate the loop
  • Tap tempo
  • Q and W jump between markers
  • Update clocks and video frames at the session video frame rate
  • Big clock window now scales smoothly and correctly on all platforms
  • QCon controller support
  • Original Mackie Control device support
  • Enable correct transmission of UTF-8 text to Mackie Control devices
  • Soundcloud Export
  • Fix recording of files where the sample count exceeds the 32 bit limit
  • Key bindings moved into Preferences
  • Theme editor moved into Preferences
  • Key binding rationalization
  • Build system now works correctly with python3
  • Improved support for LV2 controls and presets
  • Remove several libraries previously maintained as part of the Ardour source tree
  • Akai MPK61
  • E-Mu XL-1

New in Ardour 3.5.403 (Oct 4, 2014)

  • New MIDNAM file for the Korg Volca series
  • Use 1-based numbering for MIDI controllers, rather than 0-based
  • "Show All Automation" for MIDI tracks shows all named controllers
  • Support channel NoteNameLists in MIDNAM files
  • amend the list of known video file extensions
  • New versions of jadeo and harvid for video work, providing better compatibility with video drivers on various Linux systems.
  • Fix rounding error on rulers and BBT grid

New in Ardour 3.5.357 (Feb 27, 2014)

  • Ardour 3.5.357 is a CRITICAL bug fix release. ALL USERS ARE RECOMMENDED TO UPGRADE. It includes an absolutely vital fix for a bug that could lead to audio files going missing from the session file (though not from disk). Stem export finally works reliably, and touch sensing with Mackie Control devices allows correct recording of automation from the faders of devices like the SSL Nucleus.
  • Another important change that some users will notice: when using the mouse to click to add automation control points, Ardour now just adds a new point where the user clicked, rather than attempting to preserve the line shape. Control/Command-click will use the old behaviour. This change followed some mailing list discussion in which it became clear that although the behaviour now accessed via Ctrl/Cmd-click is occasionally useful, it is mostly wrong.

New in Ardour 3.5.308 (Jan 31, 2014)

  • Continuing on with our cycle of monthly releases, 3.5.308 contains a pile of bug fixes and several very useful new features. Almost entirely the single-handed work of Robin Gareus, you will find significant changes with panning, auditioning and the very striking addition of explicitly-displayed signal router in the mixer strips.

New in Ardour 3.5.143 (Dec 28, 2013)

  • Continuing on with our cycle of monthly releases, 3.5.143 is a bug fix release that comes out while other major development work continues on in the background. It fixes a handful of major bugs, notably with MIDI Clock, Generic MIDI control and Mackie Control support. You'll also find monitoring source control in the meter bridge, a new K12/RMS meter type, and more than a dozen other bug fixes.

New in Ardour 3.5.74 (Nov 12, 2013)

  • Functional Changes:
  • Unify editor + mixer ordering. After more than a decade of complexity, Ardour now has only a single ordering of tracks & busses. Modifying it in the editor window or the mixer window will also modify it in the other window. This reduces some tricky programming, and removes another choice offered to users that really just made their lives more complex, with no great benefit.
  • Double-clicking now allows editing/renaming an expanded set of things, including regions and markers of various kinds.
  • Fixes and Improvements:
  • Fix handling of the check button in the memory lock warning dialog
  • partially fix Non Session Manager (NSM) support so that random use of NSM_URL doesn't cause crashes
  • fix MIDI quantization where a region was trimmed at the start or had an non-integer position
  • fix MIDI note lengths after quantization when using swing
  • place new routes after highest-numbered selected route, if any
  • make fixed IO port names untranslatable (e.g. "MTC in")
  • fix playback & capture channel counts when using the JACK dummy backend
  • fix MIDI Machine Control (MMC) after changes included in 3.5 release
  • allow the use of the environment variable ARDOUR_LOVES_STUPID_TINY_SCREENS to override Ardour's refusal to show certain things on netbook/tablet-sized screens
  • Fix invalid silence trimmer end-of-input behavior during export. This caused corruption in the audio file when: normalizing AND adding silence to end AND having more than one channel.
  • make translations just work on OS X if system preferences has been used to select a supported language preference.
  • minor fixes based on various compiler optimization messages
  • keep processing LV2 Ringbuffer once it is allocated, but discard messages in LV2PluginUI::write_to_ui() if the ringbuffer exists but the plugin GUI is not active. This fixes "[ERROR]: Error writing from plugin to UI" messages if the plugin GUI was once active but has been closed since.
  • Build Related Fixes:
  • remove all "fuzzy translations", thus fixing several problems experienced by users working in non-English locales
  • allow linking against unbundled versions of libltc, rubberband, taglib and vamp-sdk)
  • allow complete overriding of all optimization flags (if -O is preset in the arguments given to --arch, we no longer prepend the default optimization flags)
  • fix test builds (./waf configure --test)

New in Ardour 3.2 (Jun 14, 2013)

  • Video Support:
  • The integration of a video timeline and video monitoring into Ardour allows for convenient audio mixing and editing to video (i.e. soundtracks, music videos, TV post production etc.)
  • The new functionality allows users to:
  • Import a single video and optionally extract the soundtrack from it.
  • Provide a Video-monitor window, or full-screen display, of the imported video in sync with any of the available ardour timecode sources.
  • Display a frame-by-frame (thumbnail) timeline of the video.
  • Time-offset the video.
  • Lock audio-regions to the video: Move audio-regions with the video at video-frame granularity.
  • Export the video, cut start/end, add blank frames and/or mux it with the soundtrack of the current-session.
  • Furthermore, the setup is modular and can be configured in different ways, including:
  • One machine: all video decoding, video monitoring and Ardour audio
  • Two machines: separate video-monitor and Ardour
  • Three machines: separate video-server (for timeline decoding and file-archive), dedicated video-monitor and Ardour
  • Video support in Ardour does not:
  • allow for more than one video to be loaded at a time.
  • provide video editing capabilities
  • Other New Features and UI Changes:
  • chain together LV2 plugins that accept and output MIDI data
  • OSC access to send gain parameters (via /ardour/route/send/gainabs rid sid gain and /ardour/route/send/gaindb rid sid gaindB)
  • window management (layering and related issues) overhauled to work better on both platforms and with more window managers
  • horizontal scrolling of the timeline is now done with shift-wheel and track height adjustment is done using alt-wheel (matches OS X conventions)
  • German and French translations improved
  • Allow a pre-existing selection to override region grouping if the clicked-on region is part of that selection
  • Plugin editing tweaked:
  • Always show plugin's own UI (if available) on double-click
  • Alt+double-click -> show 'generic controls' (GUI built by Ardour)
  • Context-menu offers both choices.
  • Use Tooltip for to make it discoverable.
  • Bug Fixes:
  • some licenses fixes in source code files
  • properly handle closing of various file descriptors, to fix issues with LinuxDSP plugins and xjadeo
  • fix AudioUnit GUI window sizing
  • improve relationship between ArdourDialog and Splash on OS X
  • hack up AU GUI support to handle AUSampler resizing better.
  • fix operation of right-click on selected MIDI note to bring up the note editor. this is still not really right long term, but it is better than displaying the channel selector
  • fix crashes and session file corruption caused by not zeroing text buffers passed to VST plugins (from Mixbus)
  • fix crash on export if no master bus is present in the session
  • On OS X, use "hw.physicalcpu" to get a more accurate CPU count (the previously used "hw.ncpu" count includes hyperthreading cpus)
  • Text in warning window for memory limit not displayed in full.
  • fix jack session filename (colons are invalid)
  • when using a MIDI keyboard for step entry of MIDI data, use the note length set in the step entry dialog
  • Remove special handling of session range in export. Fixes things when the session range is renamed.
  • Fix loading of old sessions' previously-used export timespans
  • Various LV2 plugin handling fixes
  • skip LV2 ports on GUI according to port-properties: notOnGUI and reportsLatency
  • honor LV2 rsz:minimumSize for Atom Event buffers
  • properly clean up LV2 world
  • lilv_port_get() for LV bufsize query requires new lilv
  • lilv-backwards compatible min buffer-size implementation
  • fix memory leaks and compiler warnings in LXVST code
  • fix an unusual problem in some LinuxVST plugins by disabling symbol export
  • when a track has audio and MIDI output, display an audio fader rather than a MIDI fader (this is a display change only - the fader has effect on all MIDI and audio data passing though it regardless of the type of fader shown)
  • prepare font-styling meter labels
  • decrease size and weight of midi-velocity - make '127' fit,...
  • use correct quoting in OS X startup script (allows passing of arguments on the command line)
  • add test for writability of /usr/local/lib in OS X startup script (notifies user about an issue created by Audacity)
  • save and restore Generic MIDI threshold/smoothing value
  • fix crash when using internal edit mouse modes to drag a non-MIDI region

New in Ardour 3.0 (Mar 11, 2013)

  • Major New Features:
  • MIDI recording, playback and editing, including plugin instrument support for LV2, VST and AudioUnits
  • Parallelization of DSP operations to use any number of processors
  • Matrix-style patching/routing
  • Overhauled export system (multiple formats at once, stem exports, multichannel exports)
  • New & Improved Audio Signal Handling:
  • Monitor section
  • Solo operation redesigned, includes Solo Isolate and correct AFL/PFL modes
  • Per-channel visible phase invert buttons
  • Internal aux sends and explicit aux busses
  • Improved send control
  • Stereo panning via width+position
  • Track/Bus groups extended
  • Audio Editing:
  • Option for Automation moves with Regions
  • Rhythm Ferret improvements
  • Vertical stacking of overlapping regions in tracks
  • Non-destructive, non-overlapping recording mode
  • New region editing features
  • Strip Silence
  • Media search path
  • New & Improved GUI details:
  • Session overview pane
  • Unified processor list (plugins, sends, returns etc)
  • Extended Region list
  • Extended Track/Bus list
  • Improved and expanded editor cursor set
  • Dynamically resizable big clock window
  • New and improved preferences dialog(s)
  • New editing implementation for clocks
  • External Control:
  • MIDI binding maps
  • Dramatically improved Mackie Control support
  • Linear Timecode support
  • Improved MTC chase
  • MIDI Clock chase
  • Miscellaneous:
  • 64 bit timeline
  • Dynamically resizable disk buffers
  • JACK Session support
  • Undo system internals use less memory and improve speed

New in Ardour 2.8.11 (Jul 9, 2010)

  • It contains only 1 change from 2.8.10, but its an important one: Do not prevent transport operations after an export (and potentially at other times)

New in Ardour 2.8.8 (Jun 2, 2010)

  • Although this is primarily a bug-fix release, some of the "bugs" fixed are so pervasive and significant that they could almost count as new features. In particular, automation editing has finally arrived at a place that people with experience on other DAWs may consider actually usable. Issues with alignment of new and existing recorded material are addressed too, and there are lots of other bug fixes for issues small and large (including 3 or 4 crashing bugs). Thanks to motivation provided by the Mixbus project, there are also yet more improvements to AudioUnit plugin handling on OS X. Anybody using Ardour 2.8.7 or earlier should upgrade to enjoy increased stability and better functionality.

New in Ardour 2.8.7 (Feb 5, 2010)

  • Fixes:
  • Smarter decision making when deciding which in/out configuration to choose when handling an AU plugin that has several.
  • When exporting/bouncing/consolidating, tell AU plugins the new processing blocksize so they will actually run during the process. Yes, that means what you think it means.
  • Remove use of std::locale() which is utterly and completely broken on OS X, and causes a program to crash if used with any actual national locale.
  • Don't reconfigure I/O of AU plugins when they already have the correct I/O configuration
  • Translation:
  • Updated Czech translation from Pavel Fric
  • Contributors:
  • Ben Loftis, Paul Davis, Pavel Fric

New in Ardour 2.8.5 (Jan 24, 2010)

  • Fixes!

New in Ardour 2.8.1 (Jul 13, 2009)

  • fixes

New in Ardour 2.8 (Mar 29, 2009)

  • Track/Bus Templates
  • Distributable VST support
  • VST preset handling
  • VST chunk handling
  • AudioUnit state & preset handling
  • New playhead-to-{next,previous}-region-boundary variant commands that ignores track selection (on Linux, Windows-LeftArrow or Windows-RightArrow; on OS X, Ctrl-LeftArrow or Ctrl-RightArrow)
  • New, thoroughly edited Spanish translation
  • New "accurate" crossfade icons

New in Ardour 2.7 (Nov 25, 2008)

  • Features:
  • Overall dramatic improvements in OS X GUI performance
  • New action to rotate editor/mixer window stacking
  • New action to cycle through mouse modes
  • Plugin windows can now have keyboard focus locked to them
  • Add missing extensions to exported files based on selected file type
  • Loop/Range ruler now visible by default
  • Default crossfade is now -3dB cut
  • Crossfade presets changed to include -6dB cut and two S-curves (icons sadly not changed yet)
  • New support for Wiimote control (experimental, disabled by default and not currently possible on OS X)
  • Selected tracks are always visible when scrolling through with select-next-track or select-previous-track
  • Skip non-active and hidden tracks with select-previous-track and select-next-track
  • Several new tooltips all over the place and better tooltip colors
  • On OS X, Button2 can be emulated with
  • Ctrl-Option-Button1
  • Busses are never auto-connected to physical inputs
  • Unmodified clicking in canvas rulers now sets playhead position, similar to existing behaviour in the "real" rulers. Use Ctrl- (Linux) or Command (OS X)-click/drag for new markers/ranges.
  • Crossfade-editor specific keybindings: space => play xfade, left-arrow => play fade out, ctrl-left-arrow => dry fade out, right-arrow => play fade in, ctrl-right-arrow => dry fade in
  • Drag-n-Drop from OS X Finder now more reliable but no longer supports MP3 or AAC (will be reverted in
  • the future)
  • Start position and Sync position clocks added popup region editor
  • Better stay-on-top behaviour for certain windows
  • LV2 port notification fix for GUI updating
  • New German translation
  • New post-export nag screen
  • Per-track OSC control of solo/mute/rec-enable and gain
  • Fixes:
  • Removed suggestion that users can save while disconnected from JACK
  • Corrected reversed handling of "show-editor-mixer" state on startup
  • Fixed crasher caused by changing gain with transport stopped & panner bypassed
  • Correct reverse logic for making h/w monitoring available given h/w capabilities
  • Fix confusing relabelling of plugin bypass button
  • Prevent double registration of ALSA sequencer ports
  • Correctly initialize JACK timeout parameter when starting JACK
  • Ignore triple-clicks on mute/solo/rec-enable button
  • Momentary solo/mute now works
  • Fix serious error when calculating interpolated
  • Curve values (will cause tiny, almost certainly undetectable changes in automation and fade curves, but may also remove clicks)
  • Fix quoting in TOC files wrap PBD::Thread... signals in a mutex to avoid crashing during startup as multiple threads "emit" the signal
  • Make comboboxes a little bigger on X11
  • B|B|T clocks measuring duration now use zero-based values
  • New regions created by AudioFilters (Reverse/TimeFX/Transpose) inherit all relevant settings of their ancestor
  • Fix for incorrect reading of fade out curve under a few circumstances
  • Catch exceptions while loading AudioUnits
  • Correct some glitches with playhead motion when looping/reversing
  • Fix failure when opening a session by double-clicking the session file icon (OS X)
  • Fix loss of "current dialog" tracking when exiting a dialog via a button (could cause crash on next Ctrl-w)
  • Detect no-installed-JACK on OS X to avoid silent crashes for new users

New in Ardour 2.6.1 (Oct 25, 2008)

  • New Features:
  • make libsndfile work with newer versions of FLAC (enables building a version that can open FLAC files)
  • tracks in active edit groups now perform playlist operations (create, copy, select) in unison for playlists created for the group
  • embedded LV2 GTK GUI support
  • allow translated version use on OSX
  • add session file type icon for OSX
  • shift-click now works to extend marker selections (click one, then shift-click another to select all markers between them)
  • marker drag moves all selected markers
  • add initial-program-change support (Ardour can send a MIDI Program Change command on startup to set up external equipment; it can do this at any later time too)
  • add move-selected-tracks-{up,down} commands
  • add global option to enable/disable region fades
  • enable activate/deactivate fades in all selected regions
  • global option to hide/show region fades
  • Fixes and Improvements:
  • massive improvements for OS X GUI speed and responsiveness
  • eliminate the double-draw during zoom on linux
  • fix track+strip ordering issues when sync editor+mixer order is enabled
  • fix for bad synchronization with other JACK transport-aware clients
  • fix reload & use of MIDI port configuration, so that per-session setup is actually used
  • fix URLs for freesound access
  • new swedish translation
  • fix handling of MIDI pitchbend message
  • handle missing pixmap files more gracefully
  • Fix import dialog clocks to display times that are correct in the current session
  • fix up generation of BWF field contents to avoid truncation and use correct date
  • stop AU plugins that fail to load (e.g. missing dongles) from crashing ardour
  • handle JACK stopping without crashing
  • fix audio glitches caused by plugin automation events
  • fix crash when clicking on certain region list items
  • security fix for libsndfile FLAC handling
  • fix position of canvas "time cursor" during dragging
  • make fonts smaller on location dialog buttons
  • improve performance when dragging multiple regions on the same track
  • reduce some redrawing of clocks
  • Speed up track resizing
  • fix disappearing automation controls when automation track has been made minimum size.
  • change design for how certain region list items operate if there are multiple regions selected
  • allow glue-to-bars-and-beats to be toggled for all selected regions
  • Set add route dialog non-resizeable so that Window Managers size it more sensibly (looked ridiculous in ion3).
  • repeated time stretches/pitch shifts on the same region now use the correct original data
  • new grid line cache to speed up scrolling and grid display in general
  • fit-tracks now ignores (and hides) "in-the-middle" unselected tracks
  • fix possible crash and/or mis-setting of end-marker during session load
  • Developer Improvements:
  • compile with gcc 4.3
  • support building on Leopard