Ardour 7.0 Open-Source DAW Released with Clip Launching & Sequencing, Loop Libraries

Marius Nestorby Marius Nestor0
Ardour 7.0

Ardour 7.0 open-source, free, and cross-platform digital audio workstation (DAW) has been released today as a major version that brings exciting new features and other enhancements.

Ardour 7.0 is here more than a year after Ardour 6.9 and introduces significant new features like clip launching (a.k.a. cues) to allow you to experiment with combinations of various loops and one-shot samples. This feature is similar to the workflow you’ll find in commercial software like Ableton Live.

Cues can be controlled in Ardour 7.0 using Ableton’s Push 2 surface. Support for Novation Launchpads and similar devices is planned for future releases. Along with clip launching, the new Ardour release also introduces loop libraries to access tons of additional audio and MIDI loops.

In addition to clip launching, Ardour 7.0 also introduces clip sequencing, a feature that lets you sequence clips from the timeline. The developers describe this feature as a “linear” workflow for your timeline, which is possible thanks to a new “Cue Marker” rule.

“A new “Cue Marker” rule lets you launch cue scenes by having the playhead pass over them,” reads the announcement page. “Cue Markers can be recorded live onto the timeline, or placed manually from the editor ruler, and they also appear in the mini-timeline in the Cue and Mix page, so you can see your song structure everywhere, even the mix window.”

Other new features in Ardour 7.0 include three new “ripple editing” modes, Ripple Selected, Ripple All, and Interview, a completely new and totally different internal time representation that features audio time and musical time, support for mixer scenes to quickly store and restore all automatable settings in the mixer window, stem exports for MIDI tracks, as well as support for searching sample on the Freesound project.

There are also many improvements to MIDI editing, support for I/O plugins, FFmpeg 5.0 support, support for the iCon Platform M+ controller, support for iCon Platform X+ extenders with iCon Platform M+, support for the iCon QCon ProG2 controller, MIDI maps for AKAI mpk225 and the Alesis Q49 V2 master keyboard, program names for the Kurzweil PC3A series, and Roland A-30 binding map for controlling Ardour’s Play/Stop.

The manual has been updated as well as significantly expanded with new sections, lots of changes, and more screenshots to help you learn how to make music with Ardour 7.0, which you can download right now from the official website.

Image credits: Ardour Project

Last updated 2 years ago

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