From Ardour Developer Website Homepage:
"Ardour is a digital audio workstation. You can use it to record, edit and mix multi-track audio. Produce your own CD's. Mix video soundtracks. Experiment with new ideas about music and sound. Generate sound installations for 12 speaker gallery shows. Have Fun.
Ardour capabilities include: multichannel recording, non-linear, non-destructive region based editing with unlimited undo/redo, full automation support, a mixer whose capabilities rival high end hardware consoles, lots of plugins to warp, shift and shape your music, and controllable from hardware control surfaces at the same time as it syncs to timecode. If you've been looking for a tool similar to ProTools, Nuendo, Cubase SX, Digital Performer, Samplitude or Sequoia, you might have found it.
But wait. Ardour is not just a digital audio workstation. Let's compare it with ... an automobile.
Imagine that you bought a car and were told that the manufacturer was the only place you could get it fixed. None of your friends are allowed to use the car, and there's a good chance that it won't work on certain kinds of roads. As for customizing it: neither you nor your car-wise friends could do anything, because the hood is welded shut ...
If this sounds a little odd, that's because it is. But if you already own a digital audio workstation, you know all about products that work this way. Only the company that created it can fix it. Only that company can improve it. The company doesn't trust you as a customer, requiring product activation keys and hardware dongles. The list of inconviences goes on and on.
No Copy Protection
We'd like you to pay for Ardour - we've put a lot of work into it, and we'd like to keep doing that (you can use that PayPal button over there on the right). But whether you pay for Ardour or not, you are welcome to make copies for your friends. Hopefully, they'll want to pay for it too. No dongles, no activation keys, only trust.
Open Development Process
Anyone can participate in the development of Ardour. Because everyone can get the source code, Ardour will continue to be developed and supported with or without the involvement of its original authors. Contrast this to the collapse of a company, or a discontinued product. Moreover, anyone with programming skills can add features to Ardour, or fix problems.
Platform-Neutral Technology
Ardour will can be ported to just about any system that complies with the POSIX operating system standard. It has already been ported to Mac OS X with very few changes.
Rather than being a product of a particular company, it's a center around which a community can focus its interest and effort. A program for which new releases can happen as often as necessary to bring new functionality and improvements. A program to build the future with."
More Ardour Intro Info...
Ardour Screenshots:
More Ardour Screenshots
Download:
Download Ardour
Features:
Ardour Features List
Docs:
Ardour Online Manual and Wiki
Ardour Documentation Project
System Requirements:
Ardour System Requirements for Linux
Ardour System Requirements for Mac OS X
Frequently Asked Questions:
Ardour FAQs
Ardour OSX-Specific FAQs
Source Code:
Download Ardour Source Code
Helpful Ardour Links:
Ardour Plugins
Ardour Help/Support
What's different about Ardour?
Ardour Basic Concepts
Ardour MIDI Configuration
The Ardour Editor
The Ardour Mixer
Ardour Recording Setup
Ardour Basic Recording
Ardour Video Synchronization
Ardour and Native Processing
Mailing Lists and Tracking Info:
Ardour Developers Mailing List
Ardour Users Mailing List
Ardour Issue Tracker
Other Info Regarding Ardour:
How to Build Ardour from Source
Ardour News
Ardour Status
The Ardour Community Page, Contact Info, Credits and Contributors
Donate to Ardour
Ardour on Wikipedia
Ardour on Sourceforge
Ardour Freshmeat Listing
Even More Ardour Stuff:
Installing Ardour on Gentoo OS X
Ardour Debian Unstable Package
Some Music Recorded with Ardour
A Weird Video of Ardour in Action
Ardour Press:
Introducing Ardour on Linux Journal
Ardour Review on LinuxSoft.cz
Ardour as Part of AGNULA
