Starting Ardour

Ardour supports both Linux, Windows, and macOS. There is very little difference about how it works on all these operating systems. So while this tutorial assumes using Ubuntu Linux, you should expect it to work the same way on other operating systems and Linux flavors.

First-launch wizard

When you first start Ardour, it will ask you a few questions to make a basic customization: user interface and font scale (if you have a HiDPI display), default folder where new sessions would be created, preferred way to monitor signal being recorded etc.

This dialog will never be shown again, unless you wipe all settings. You can change all the preferences you set there at any time later in the Preferences dialog.

Create new session

Once you get past the first-launch wizard, Ardour will suggest you create a new session from one of a few available templates.

A session encompasses all the material you have: tracks with audio and MIDI data, effects associated with tracks and busses etc. Thus, a session is essentially a project file from which you can render a mono or a stereo audio file to deliver to a client, use in a video, or upload to a streaming service.

For simplicity’s sake let’s go with an empty session as shown above.

Ardour will always automatically suggest storing a new session in the default folder that you set at the previous step.

When giving a new session a name, please avoid using any characters other than letters and numbers, like white spaces, accented letters, !@#$%*()+, periods, commas, etc. Use dashes or underscores if you like. For example, instead of “My Great Session!”, prefer “My_Great_Session”, or “MyGreatSession”, or “my-great-session”. Instead of “Açaí”, write “Acai” (without accented letters), etc.

The default time domain setting mostly affects rulers and markers. With “Audio Time”, it will enable the set of rulers with minutes, seconds, and timecode. With “Musical Time”, it will enable musical time rulers — Bars:Beats, Time Signature, Tempo.

Name your new project and click Open .

Once you have created your Ardour session, do not manually rename any folders or files that belong to the session. Otherwise, Ardour will fail to locate the files inside those folders and will ask you to point to them.

Choosing the audio system and its settings

At the next step, you will need to choose and configure the audio system.

For details on selecting the audio backend, please see this chapter.

Once you’ve chosen, configured, and started the audio/MIDI backend, Ardour will try to discover any new plugins, and then you will be greeted with Ardour’s main window:

Continuing

In the next chapter you’ll familiarize yourself with Ardour’s user interface and its main windows: Editor, Mixer, Recorder, and Cue.