ardour 2 (http://ardour.org) is out now. this is exciting news. it’s the only DAW I would consider running as it has everything that I need and more. aside from non-destructive this and that, it has the most intuitive midi controller assignments I can imagine. point, click, move a knob or slider and you’re in business. the best part is that I can do a session on my debian box (with the good sound hardware) and then drop it onto my laptop for editing/mastering elsewhere (the coffee shoppe or living room). that’s a feature that is not to be underestimated.
the best new feature is undo/redo across program sessions. that is to say, I can make a bunch of changes, close ardour, open it again and still undo what I did last time. why don’t more programs do this? like tabbed browsing, that feels like a no-brainer.
aside from the updated look that comes with moving to the latest gtk stuff and a couple of new bells and/or whistles I don’t know that there is much to report to folks who have used ardour in the past. I do like that it launches jack if it isn’t already running. that’s a pretty slick feature for someone like me who forgets things from time to time. apparently it also has better VST support and all that jazz. I don’t do VST…i’m all about the AUs, so that doesn’t do much for me but I know a lot of people live and die by them.
if you aren’t running ardour (and you aren’t limited to windows) you should at least take it for a test drive. it’s free and Free. I can’t believe that anyone who is serious about recording on any scale wouldn’t give it a go. the learning curve isn’t any worse than any other product out there and there’s a lot to be gained with nothing to lose (aside from a little time).
I guess they’re hooked up with the google summer of code and will be supporting MIDI editing, etc as well. that looks promising. if they could jam a sequencer in there, i’d be much obliged! we’ll have to wait and see.
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