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Ardour 8.0 has been released today as a major update to this powerful, free, open-source, and cross-platform DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows systems.
Highlights of Ardour 8.0 include full support for the Novation Launchpad Pro controller, the ability to group regions to move or trim together, a new automation drawing style, redesigned MIDI track header piano roll and scroomer, and a dedicated ruler to arrange a composition by easily moving and/or copying sections.
This new Ardour release also adds the traditional velocity lollipop editing interface (vertical bars with a dot on top) for MIDI tracks, three new MIDI arpeggiator plugins, new ACE Stereo Routing plugin, as well as MIDI binding maps for the Devine Versakey, Donner StarryPad, and AKAI MPC Mini MK1 and MK2, and MPK Mini Plus controllers.
A MIDNAM file (an industry standard to provide “names” for various MIDI-related things) has been introduced as well as for Kurzweil SP4 key stage piano in Ardour 8.0, which improves support for the Console 1 mixing system to allow navigation and editing of plugin parameters.
Other than that, this release improves the performance of calculating tempo-map based grids, adds a workaround for blank audio/MIDI setup dialog on Linux for some XWayland setups, adds the ability to optionally include the playhead as a snap target, and automatically connects the metronome when using an audio interface for the first time.
Of course, there are also numerous bug fixes in Ardour 8.0 to improve existing functionality, such as BBT markers, the JACK audio/MIDI backend, undo operation, playback of MIDI notes that start at the current playhead position, quantization swing, MIDI SMF track splitting, and recording from the MIDI track header piano roll.
For more details about the changes and fixes implemented in Ardour 8.0, check out the release notes page. Meanwhile, you can download the source tarball from the official website or install Ardour as a Flatpak app from Flathub.
Image credits: Ardour/Paul Davis
Last updated 7 months ago
