Ardour Changelog

What's new in Ardour 8.6

Apr 14, 2024

Improvements:
Improvements to AAF import support.
Make it easier to use Ardour --gdb on linux by handling SIG32 automatically.
Do not include hidden plugin in plugin-list.
Use session-file version as part of backup file names in backup/ folder.
General MIDI MIDNAM file now includes drum names.
Display grid lines for triplets/quintuplets/septuplets.
When nudging a single control point, locate to the new position to make the time/position clear.
Add support for pitch bend to Reasonable Synth.
Bug Fixes:
If "show snapped cursor" is disabled, do not blink the snapped cursor during drags.
Fix Snapping quintuplets and septuplets 2x factor grid: fix quintuplets 2x factor (septuplets still don't draw properly).
Update unversal legal path rule for windows (to avoid illegal file names there).
Add missing horizontal separator after last track header.
Work around itstools bug #9648.
Fix undefined symbol when built with VST3 disabled.
Disable broken septuplet option.
Adding new route in front now works as intended (#9651).
Fix jump to next/prev bar.
Discard untitled sessions even when not quitting Ardour.
Refilling buffers after edits now avoids gaps in audio data.
Set correct Timecode widget name.
Half-baked automation-point nudge.
Fix loading session by relative path.
Accumulate IO port-change signals return values.
Prevent crashes when trying to add/remove IOPlug ports.
Fix a -Wincompatible-pointer-types.
Ellipsize inactive track-header name-label (#9674).
Prevent double-click on the pianoroll to toggle track height.
Clarify that there are no archive file format options.
Fix crashing file dialogs - fdopen(3) requires _POSIX_C_SOURCE.
Set default time domain to Audiotime to sidestep various MusicTime issues.
Fix solo controller for Monitor bus.
Fix potential memory corruption in AVX512f DSP.
Fixes & Changes in GTK/YTK:
Add option to enable G/YTK debug.
YTK is not interested in system-wide GTK Modules.
Use G_ENABLE_DEBUG with default debug builds.
Update ydk-pixbuf, backport upstream changes to io-xpm #9642.
Ardour no longer uses gtk modules.
Lua Scripting:
Add Lua API to conveniently set automation data.
Add additional Lua bindings for interpolation.
Return Lua system-exec exit status.
Add Lua bindings to set session range.
Update Lua Action scripts from local file when possible.
Add Lua API to set plugin properties.
Add Lua API to query plugin properties.
Add example script to exercise Plugin Properties.

New in Ardour 8.5 (Apr 11, 2024)

Improvements:
Improvements to AAF import support.
Make it easier to use Ardour --gdb on linux by handling SIG32 automatically.
Do not include hidden plugin in plugin-list.
Use session-file version as part of backup file names in backup/ folder.
General MIDI MIDNAM file now includes drum names.
Display grid lines for triplets/quintuplets/septuplets.
When nudging a single control point, locate to the new position to make the time/position clear.
Add support for pitch bend to Reasonable Synth.
Bug Fixes:
Fix Snapping quintuplets and septuplets 2x factor grid: fix quintuplets 2x factor (septuplets still don't draw properly).
Update unversal legal path rule for windows (to avoid illegal file names there).
Add missing horizontal separator after last track header.
Work around itstools bug #9648.
Fix undefined symbol when built with VST3 disabled.
Disable broken septuplet option.
Adding new route in front now works as intended (#9651).
Fix jump to next/prev bar.
Discard untitled sessions even when not quitting Ardour.
Refilling buffers after edits now avoids gaps in audio data.
Set correct Timecode widget name.
Half-baked automation-point nudge.
Fix loading session by relative path.
Accumulate IO port-change signals return values.
Prevent crashes when trying to add/remove IOPlug ports.
Fix a -Wincompatible-pointer-types.
Ellipsize inactive track-header name-label (#9674).
Prevent double-click on the pianoroll to toggle track height.
Clarify that there are no archive file format options.
Fix crashing file dialogs - fdopen(3) requires _POSIX_C_SOURCE.
Set default time domain to Audiotime to sidestep various MusicTime issues.
Fix solo controller for Monitor bus.
Fix potential memory corruption in AVX512f DSP.
Fixes & Changes in GTK/YTK:
Add option to enable G/YTK debug.
YTK is not interested in system-wide GTK Modules.
Use G_ENABLE_DEBUG with default debug builds.
Update ydk-pixbuf, backport upstream changes to io-xpm #9642.
Ardour no longer uses gtk modules.
macOS Specific:
Editor drawing now optionally has an option to improve efficiency on several versions of macOS where Apple broke the NSView:drawRect interface.
Use native z-axis stacking (layering) for Dialogs.
Remove call to deprecated userSpaceScaleFactor.
Fix crash when trying to enter fullscreen while already in fullscreen.
Lua Scripting:
Add Lua API to conveniently set automation data.
Add additional Lua bindings for interpolation.
Return Lua system-exec exit status.
Add Lua bindings to set session range.
Update Lua Action scripts from local file when possible.
Add Lua API to set plugin properties.
Add Lua API to query plugin properties.
Add example script to exercise Plugin Properties.

New in Ardour 8.4 (Feb 21, 2024)

Improvements and Bug Fixes:
Mixer interaction fixes (interaction consistent use of button press and release).
Lots of miscellaneous color and drawing tweaks.
AAF import now (mostly) functional. This is still somewhat experimental, but we would welcome feedback..
Add metadata to session property editor so that search "works" there.
Dummy Backend: allow testing with some prime buffersizes.
Region groups: do not group multiple takes on a single track.
Add a tooltip to describe ops on the pianoroll header, incl note select.
Don't show plugin preset UI for plugins without controls.
New "adwaita" color theme (based on the GNOME Adwaita desktop theme).
Don't show automation of hidden plugins.
Set default MIDI CC values to be more in line with MIDI specs.
MIDI notes that were already on/down when recording starts are now captured. This change needs a more refined version, particularly to retain the velocity of these "early" notes, but this is a step in the right direction.
Control Surfaces and Devices:
Allow control surfaces to keep editing plugin parameters when an unrelated plugin is removed.
Adjusted Akai MIDIMix mapping to make solo function as described in original user manual provided by manufacturer.
Add Lexicon MPX100 midnam file.
Add Yamaha SY85 midnam file.
Add Donner DMK25 spacline MIDI interface map file.
Add a minimalistic Arturia MiniLab 3 map.
FaderPort 8: only use visible channelstrip plugins.
Bug Fixes:
Fix sensitivity of macOS global menu at application start.
Fix snap to triplet (still no builtin triplet drawing, sadly).
MIDI Legatize operation should now function correctly..
Escape cue cd-text like toc.
Fix crash when using Ripple with a RegionMoveDrag.
Allow to use ardour --gdb on newer Linux distros (fixes an issue with the way these systems build gdb).
Update bundled gdb for windows debug builds.
Fix gtk-critical message when monitor section is not present.
Fix gdk livelock on Windows when compiled with recent mingw/gcc.
Explicitly catch some errors when handling illegal file name characters.
Do not attempt to save automation data for non-automatable parameters.
Fix "Ignored automation data for non-automatable parameter".
Fix crash (or stuck solo) when removing tracks.
Fix crash when session-load fails while creating Routes.
Fix erasing events in MIDIBuffer (removing the last event marked the whole buffer empty).
Fix crash when replicating an LV2 plugin with a different I/O configuration.
Fix ffmpeg-5+ encoding drop-frame framerates.
Fix ACE Compressor inplace processing (when using stereo compressor on mono track)

New in Ardour 8.1 (Oct 19, 2023)

New in Ardour 8.0 (Oct 11, 2023)

Improvements and Bug Fixes:
Disable translation by default on Windows & macOS. Too many new users have issues with translations, including crashes. Translation is still available on these platforms, you just need to enable it in Ardour's preference dialog.
Auto connect metronome when using an audio interface for the first time.
Fix many off-by-one-pixel drawing errors.
Fix MIDI capture/playback alignment issues on macOS.
ALSA: disambiguate multiple soundcards with the same name.
Provide rubber-band drag select of region gain points.
Lua: allow tracking editor selection.
Fix semi-random crash when removing a track/bus.
Improve performance of calculating tempo-map based grids.
Many fixes and improvements for BBT markers.
Keep MIDI data in position during tempo mapping.
Choice to use audio time (samples) or music time (bars & beats) now shared between a session & all markers it that session. (can be chosen in session properties dialog, in the Miscellaneous section there). This choice also affects which rulers are shown by default (though you can change that for a given session and your choice will be remembered.
Add workaround for blank audio/MIDI setup dialog on some XWayland systems (Linux).
Fix location/marker rippling when cutting locations.
Fix height of tempo ruler curve elements.
Clicking on any sort of marker now offers configurable behavior, including locating to that position.
Clips velocity sensitivity control now operational for external MIDI hardware used to launch.
Allow playhead to be optionally included as a snap target.
Fix long-standing subtle issues with the JACK audio/MIDI backend.
Fixed bug where undo operation could delete plugins.
Fix build script to work with Python 3.12.
MIDI Related:
Fix playback of MIDI notes which start at current playhead position.
Fix potential loss of MIDI playback caused by automation and transport events.
Quantization swing fixed.
Swing amount now varies from 0 (no swing) through 100 (triplet swing), 150 (hard swing), 200 (sextuplet swing) to 300 (maximum swing).
Set length of "percussive mode" drawn MIDI notes to 1 tick, which prevents any accidental overlap.
Fix MIDI SMF track splitting (which could previously result in a corrupt session).
Recording from MIDI track header piano roll now works.
Plugin Related:
Add ACE Stereo Routing plugin.
VST3: work around crash in UAD plugins when using mono configurations.
Reduce the number of plugin-related calls to TempoMap::get_grid().
Lua processors can now come with factory presets.
Fix sample rate of plugins when loading a 2nd (or 3rd...) session.
Correctly compute tempo passed to LV2 plugins.
Control Surfaces and Devices:
Console 1 support now allows navigation and editing of plugin parameters.
MIDI binding map for the Devine Versakey.
MIDI binding map for the Donner StarryPad drum pad controller.
MIDI binding map for AKAI MPC Mini (mk1 & mk2) and MPK miniplus.
MIDNAM file for Kurzweil SP4.
Removals:
There comes a point in all long-lived software where the best thing for users and developers is the removal of certain functionality that was either ill-conceived or poorly implemented. Ardour 8.0 is no different, and features these removals:
Remove option to hide or deactivate tempo map markers. The potential for confusion or even madness from this option became clear, and we opted for sanity.
Remove option to "glue to bars & beats".
For the time being, MIDI regions and data always use musical time (bars, beats) for their position and length. Audio tracks and regions use audio time (samples) for their position and length.
Location markers and named ranges use the session default time domain (music or audio) and will follow that setting if you change it.
Remove the essentially useless "Audition tool". Use the audition action instead (bound to "a"), which also handles multiple selected regions properly).
Remove attempt at scrub-dragging (sort of like a tape machine). This never worked well, and just isn't relevant to a generation raised without much exposure to "rockin' the reels"

New in Ardour 7.5 (Jun 24, 2023)

New in Ardour 7.4 (Apr 27, 2023)

New Features:
Add a volume control to the clip picker.
Add a preference item for the PPQN value in exported MIDI files.
Add an option to use a neutral color for new tracks & busses.
Add support for MIDI subgroup busses.
Add Lua DSP processor to downmix 5.1 to stereo.
Improvements:
General Plugin Support:
Hide plugin properties marked "invisible" in the generic plugin GUI.
Allow to disconnect all plugin pins
VST2 Plugin Support:
Fix crash when dragging VST2 presets from the sidebar to a track.
VST3 Plugin Support:
Try to match a plugin’s speaker arrangement with its pin outputs.
Correctly configure stereo plugins on mono tracks.
Skip redundant parameter changes.
Notify GUI when plugin parameter names change.
Update parameter and bus names on plugin’s request.
Fix deadlock when loading a preset.
Clarify scan-log messages, be less verbose.
UX/UI Improvements:
Improve naming and tooltips for the color palette.
MIDI input-follows-selection behavior now obeys the selection property on track groups (if you select a MIDI track that is part of a group sharing the selection property, then the relevant MIDI input(s) will be connected to all MIDI tracks in the group, not just some random member of the group).
macOS/Coreaudio: notify the user when a device disconnect occurs (for example, if you unplug a USB audio interface).
When adding an audio track or bus, the custom channel count now asks about the number of channels, instead of starting with 0.
Bug Fixes:
A major, deep design fix that corrects a problem that has affected control surfaces for several years. This is hard to describe but essentially, it would often be necessary to reload a session/restart the audio/MIDI engine in order to get control surfaces to function.
Fix audio file names when importing files with > 2 and <= 26 channels.
Fix setting to add/remove silence at start/end of exported files.
Make regions transparent when dragging fade in/out handles.
The ask-about-quitting dialog is now always shown at the mouse pointer position.
Disambiguate export formats that are similar except for encoder settings (allow to export multiple mp3 or ogg files at the same time).
Fix handling of VCA button events.
Check that an export channel is not empty.
Fix silent stem export channels.
Fix ordering of ripple editing when multiple, non-contiguous regions/ranges are involved.
Fix behavior when importing a ProTools session to a session with existing tracks.
Fix race condition when closing a session.
Fix blurry text on macOS Retina displays.
MIDI tracer now shows MIDI Tick (0xf9) messages.
Fix MIDI Clock generator beat position.
Improve MIDI Clock timecode master: honor start/stop messages, use a DLL to accurately track BPM, allow to quantize BPM.
Correctly set default value for LV1 logscale controls
The delete & backspace keys should now more consistently delete automation points and plugins/processors.
Correctly align the metronome when recording it to a track.
Fix occasional (position dependent) crash when consolidating range.
Fix crash when reconfiguring (adding/removing) ports of latent plugins.
Fix interpolation of MIDI control-change and pitchbend message.
Fix crash at startup if a recent session file contains invalid UTF-8 names.
Control Surfaces:
FaderPort8: show parameter values as formatted by the plugin.
FaderPort8: fix duplicate makeup control.
Push 2: holding shift while using the touch strip causes it send modulation instead of pitchbend.
X-Touch: now shows track colors.

New in Ardour 7.3 (Feb 15, 2023)

New Features:
VST3 multi-bus support:
Ardour now supports VST3 plugins with multiple I/O busses. This allows for instrument plugins to have dedicated additional outputs. Notably drum software which have direct outs (e.g. ezdummer, AD2), and also VST3 synths (e.g. surge) can now be used to their full potential (and without the errors that would occur with older versions of Ardour). The plugin busses are indicated in the pin configuration dialog for the plugin (see below).
To make use of this feature, you will need to re-scan VST3 plugins. To do so, open the Plugin Manager from Ardour's Window menu, then click "Re-scan All".
Searchable Preferences:
It is now possible to search for relevant items in both the global Preferences dialog and the Session Properties dialog. Type one or more words in the search box at the lower left, and then hit to find the first matching item, then again to keep searching. We've provided a fairly rich set of keywords (currently English only for the most part) for you to locate items with.
Sample-rate Independence:
Until now, Ardour needed the audio hardware sample rate and the session sample rate to match. If they did not, content would be played at the incorrect speed ("The Donald Duck effect"). Ardour is now largely sample rate independent: when engine and session sample rates mismatch, Ardour will now resample all mismatching content non-destructively, making it "sound right". We don't recommend recording new material in this scenario, but you will be able to work on the session despite not having the correct sample rate available.
The resampling quality is configurable; the setting can be found on the Signal Flow page of the Preferences dialog. The setting also affects vari-speed resampling.
AVX512 support:
Ardour already supported SSE,SSE2,NEON, AVX and various other SIMD instruction sets for its most intensive DSP work; this support has been extended to the even more powerful AVX512 instructions.
Note that for Linux this support is not present in the binaries from ardour.org. We will provide support in our binaries in the future, probably with version 7.4. Some Linux distributions will probably provide AVX512 support in their builds of 7.3, and of course if you have a machine that supports AVX512 you can build Ardour yourself.
Improvements:
Plugin Setup and Pins Configuration:
Now when you load a plugin with more than two outputs, the setup dialog will limit options to "stereo" and "all" for simplicity's sake. The Pin Configuration dialog still shows all options though.
Ardour now also doesn't create a sidechain port for plugins by default, unless a plugin specifically request one. This fixes a bug where a plugin with 1 audio input and 1 sidechain input would match a stereo track when the sidechain port is not present. The behavior preference is on the Plugins page of the Preferences dialog.
Finally, Ardour will now correctly detect mono tracks and busses and not provide stereo options when routing signal to a filter.
Export:
There have been a few user-visible changes in various exporting dialogs.
The Quick Export Dialog now sorts range markers by the time of their appearance on the timeline rather than alphabetically.
Additionally, Ardour will now check all channel configurations before exporting and list all existing files that will be replaced on export.
Tap Tempo with MIDI Devices:
Tapping tempo with a MIDI keyboard now possible. Just plug it in, choose it as a source in the Tap Tempo dialog, and punch the keys or stomp the pedal.
Routing and Bundles:
System ports are now grouped by a common prefix. This way hardware ports from different devices/clients (for example when using pipewire as jack backend) are grouped by device rather than all being listed as one bundle.
Ardour will now use pretty names of ports not just for mono bundles, but also stereo bundles. For mono bundles the name of the bundle was based on the pretty name of the port (if the port has a pretty name), however stereo bundles always used the indices of ports to make the name.
When using PipeWire (or otherwise having multiple JACK clients exposing physical ports), the indices are even less meaningful than otherwise (as different devices could appear in arbitrary order), so also using pretty names for stereo bundles makes the UI less confusing in places where these bundle names are used (for example the menu when clicking on an IOButton). Ardour also stopped truncating pretty bundle names.
UX/UI Improvements:
There is now a preference item (Edit > Preferences > MIDI) for the maximum height of a note lane in a MIDI track.
Increasing this allows you to have a MIDI track whose height only spans, for example, 1 octave. Previously you could not get this below a couple of octaves. We would be interested in user feedback regarding what the default setting for this ought to be.
It is now possible to reverse the polarity (aka phase) of an audio region, in addition to entire tracks
Use pretty names of ports not just for mono bundles, but also stereo.
In the port matrix(es), group system ports via common prefixes
The presets submenu in the processor box now includes a "reset" action
The recording page now has functioning undo/redo, and several other shortcuts.
The MIDI tracer can now be directly used on physical MIDI ports (not just destinations within Ardour)
Add and use a quarter note (quaver) symbol to Ardour's builtin font
The plugin selector now allows sorting by plugin name
Automation thinning (the removal of redundant recorded automation) added after touch/latch recording, and improved in various ways
When recording the metronome to a track, use the correct alignment at all times
Some macOS systems will see an improvement in overall GUI drawing/update performance
Fix plugin duplication when sidechains are involved
Sidechain ports for plugins are no longer created by default, but there is now a preference item to control this default
Bug Fixes:
Fix loading LV2 presets that contain non-floating point parameter values
Automation point drags now actually move the underlying data to the correct position
Automation point drags will now follow snap settings
Fix a deadlock when using "define one bar from range/region"
Fix a crash when "unlearning" a MIDI learn binding for a cue slot
Fix snapping when the snap setting is 1 bar
Fix incorrect track display when scrolling vertically in the editor with a full-size track visible
Fix importing MIDI files with duplicate track names
Convert imported SMF track names to UTF-8
Fix "automatic" audio monitoring handling when hardware monitoring is in use
A variety of tempo map editing operations now work, or work much better than they used to
Fix duplication of foldback busses
Improve the execution of other programs (e.g. ffmpeg) on Windows
Reduce the occurence of a weirdly-drawn grid
Update latency compensation information when adding or removing sends
Reduce crashes caused by use of multiple mouse buttons during drags
Fix loading Ardour2 (!) sessions that used external return/sends
Fix custom order of plugin favorites in the mixer-sidebar (This broke in ardour 6.6, now it's possible to re-order them again)
Fix crash when deleting a soloed track
Editor-sidebar track/busses toggle-buttons (mute, solo,..) now work as intended (Windows, macOS)
Fix crash after export when using export-analysis and screen-scaling
Fix mp3 export, previously in rare instances it could contain glitches
Control Surfaces:
Faderport 8: better solo handling
Faderport 8: improve monitor control
Faderport 8: improve do not reset fader to unity on selection

New in Ardour 7.2 (Dec 13, 2022)

New Features and Improvements:
MIDI Learn for Cue Slots:
This release has both user-visible and under-the-hood changes for people who use grid-based MIDI controllers and are interested in using cues.
Ardour now has a new MIDI input port dedicated to controlling trigger slots (Cue Control in). To make a good use of it, we also added MIDI Learn support for trigger slots. Navigate to Edit > Preferences > Triggers and select the device/port you want to use for this (you can also do this in the normal MIDI I/O matrix). Then set up your environment by "learning" - right clicking on a slot, select "MIDI Learn", then operate a given pad or button to a bind it to a particular slot. All mappings are saved into sessions rather than globally. So your setup can vary between sessions, but you can also create templates and/or binding maps for persistent configurations.
Currently, there is no MIDI Learn for Cues ("scenes" in Live/Bitwig) or for the stop button in a given track, but actions now exist (Cues/trigger-cue-N (where N is the row number), Cues/stop-all-cues-now and Cues/stop-cues-N-now (where N is the track ID), for example) so that you could use these in a binding map.
The under-the-hood part of the changes is a slight rewrite of Ardour's code that implements support for MIDI-based control surfaces. Multiple devices from different vendors have a similar way to do some things, so we moved all similar code into one place and enhanced it. So far, this affects Ableton Push 2 and Presonus Faderport (1st generation), although you won't see any difference. This reorganization also simplifies adding support for more grid-based controllers in the future (Novation Launchpad Pro is on our radar, in particular).
TouchOSC Support Improvements:
Thanks to newly added zeroconf/mDNS support, now TouchOSC users only need to tap the Browse button to discover Ardour and connect to it, no need to input the IP address manually. So far, this only works on Linux and macOS, mainly because Windows is falling behind in that regard (a workaround is possible but will take time).
Moreover, Ardour now supports saving, recalling, and getting status feedback from mixer scenes over the OSC protocol. This has been created with TouchOSC in mind as well.
MIDI Lyrics Importing:
If you enable the Import MIDI Markers option in the import dialog , Ardour will now import lyrics from MIDI files as region markers. After that, you can use the pre-existing feature to promote region markers to location markers (and clean up region markers).
Rulers and Tempo Maps:
Sadly, 7.0 and 7.1 revealed a lot of issues with the new implementation of the tempo map. This was apparent from the many crashes that were encountered by users actually using the features of the tempo map.
The crash situation is now vastly improved (with many thanks to those users who provided us with excellent bug reports and backtraces, allowing the crashes to be understood and fixed). The tempo map situation is still due for some further improvements, specifically in the area of tempo-mapping operations (fitting the map to a live performance), but the more obvious features can now be used without so readily crashing the program.
A couple of other minor changes to the tempo map workflow:
The behavior of a twist-tempo drag operation remains unchanged, but these are now started from the BBT ruler, not the tempo ruler.
BBT ruler: we no longer try to guess what inter-quarter ticks and labels should be shown, but instead just use the grid based on time signature denominators (i.e. if the time signature is 7/8, the BBT ruler "grid" will be be eighth notes). However, note that what is actually labelled (and sometimes even visible) may depend on your zoom level too.
MP3 and Opus Support:
Ardour already uses FFmpeg for MP3 support. But now that libsndfile supports MP3 encoding (since version 1.1.0), it is possible to fall back to libsndfile if ffmpeg is not available. This is mainly for the benefit of GNU/linux distribitions, support for MP3 encoding is be checked at runtime.
Ardour can now decode and encode Opus files without using the command line for post-processing. This requires libsndfile version 1.0.29 and newer.
Builds of Ardour provided at ardour.org are shipped with the latest libsndfile code.
Consistent Audio/MIDI Monitor Modes:
Now that both Audio And MIDI tracks support all three record modes, monitoring should be consistent. When recording, Sound on Sound now does cue monitoring, while Layered (opaque) and Non-Layered monitor only the input.
A few things worth noting:
When not recording MIDI, tracks still monitor both Input and Disk (unless Non-Layered mode is set).
MIDI tracks always monitor input as a fallback.
Audio tracks can use hardware monitoring.
Opaque MIDI regions will now obscure regions below them, just like audio regions.
UX/UI Improvements:
We improved the way files from bounced regions are named. Here is the new logic:
If just one region is selected, Ardour will automatically suggest using the region name as is.
If more than one region is selected, and regions are on different tracks, Ardour will allow adding a prefix to the file names, e.g. adding "take1-" prefix to "piano" and "bass" regions of respective mono tracks will create "take1-piano.wav" and "take1-bass.wav" files.
If more than one region is selected, and at least two regions are on the same track, Ardour will hide the Bounce to Trigger Slot option.
There have been two more UX/UI changes:
Re-order redirect-box (plugin) context menu: move plugin-specific items (presets, edit, rename, etc) to the top, group related items together.
Ensure that the session-save dialog remains above all other Ardour windows.
The grid (when visible) now generally appears to be above regions rather than obscured by them. Previously, stacking regions would progressively obscure the grid lines.
Themes:
Step-entry dialog is now themeable, and scalable. Previously fixed size, black icons were used.
Updated cubasish and cleargray themes for better text legibility in the pin editor dialog.
Fix VU meter color in default theme and some other themes.
Xcolors theme: update alert:cyan and widget:ruddy to Teal #9.
Remove cruft from diehard theme.
Misc Changes:
Add action and shortcut to add BBT marker at playhead, and default the BBT time for the new marker to 1|1|0.
Delete/BackSpace clears selected trigger-slot.
Add context so that BackSpace could be used to both clear a trigger slot and delete a processor in a mixer channel.
Thin MIDI automation when combining regions (bug #9117).
Add named ranges to quick export dialog.
Render opaque layered [MIDI] regions transparently onto a grid.
Add tooltip for mixer-strip color/number label about double-click and right-click actions.
Update ArdourSans font, include UTF8 symbols used by Ardour, add API to force ArdourSans font (for UTF8 symbols), and use ArdourSans for symbols cross platform.
Only use playlist-name when bounced region-name is unset.
The Bank/Patch buttons in the step entry dialog were hidden. Those actions are not currently implemented.
Lua Scripting:
Lua Convolver tweaks. show how to use IRs from the session-folder, set file when instantiating the plugin.
Update Lua VAMP scripts, follow readable API change since 7.0.
Add Lua method to show system env for v in ARDOUR.LuaAPI.env():iter() do print(v) end`.
Add Lua bindings to change mute-points.
Bug Fixes:
Fix region gain when splitting and cutting regions.
Fix sndfile_data_width use of low bits of subtype of libsndfile format.
Fix "Couldn't create output file" error message .
Various PulseAudio fixes.
Fix compilation on some older systems (amend 3fb9052).
Copy state when replicating VST3 plugins (#9006).
Fix memory leak when replicating plugins.
Add missing bracket when tagging split-by-channel MIDI files.
Fix negated origin time in main clock.
Fix bad escaped trailing newline in #define.
Fix concurrency issue when deactivating plugins.
Fix LV2 Atom ringbuffer overflow/corruption.
Allow to override default stack limit for background processes and do not limit stack-size when freezing tracks. This fixes an issue with plugin state save/restore that requires excessive stack to do that.
Special case tansient-parent windows on macOS. This fixes an issue that plugin windows cannot be re-stacked but were previously always stacked in the order they were opened.
Prevent crash when running unconfigured meter processor.
Deliveries support mismatched chan-counts. This issue was introduced in f3423b8, which assumed that number of input channels matches the number of outputs. With flexible I/O this is not necessarily the case.
Fix soundcloud curl callback. This also addresses C++17 compatibility.
Fix session-archive of stereo files. Archiving creates a dedicated mono file for each Source. When the original session has (embedded) stereo files, the channel needs to be temporarily set to 0.
ALSA: fix autostart when using different I/O devices.
Fix copying MIDI regions w/automation.
Fix manual drawing of MIDI automation (avoid offset, bug #9142).
Resolve export format ambiguities. This fixes an issue when switching formats.
Potential fix for "/bus/... master ..." target in MIDI binding maps failing.
A number of fixes and improvements in AudioClocks related to the difference between displaying a position vs. displaying a duration.
Fix manual drawing of MIDI automation (avoid offset).
Temporal: fix various incorrect uses of ::samples() in audio time arithmetic.
Fix behavior of duration-displaying AudioClocks when using the scrollwheel to edit.
Fix macOS URI open, use macOS API to open finder at given path.
Pick route colors from the color palette (with random variation, bug #9115), when use stripable palette colors, use them sequentially.
Fix Lua biqaud filter parameter range.
Remove remnants from AudioMidi Tracks. This fixes meter faceplace background color when adding a MIDI port to an audio track.
MIDI tracer: disable trace when window is closed. This fixes a bug with some MIDI port constantly tracing, because trace_parser is never unset.
Temporal: fix ::get_grid() crash condition.
Fix unnecessary error messages from time info box.
SessionDialog: avoid crash if enter is pressed twice rapidly.
MIDI automation (avoid offset, bug #9142).

New in Ardour 7.1 (Nov 3, 2022)

New features and Improvements:
Quick Audio Exporting:
Ardour now has a Quick Audio Export feature that expects you to do just two things: select exporting file format and the extent of what is being exported (whole session or a range selection, if one is present).
Further Timing Fixes:
Timing revamp was one of the major changes in 7.0. This is where we eliminated the reason why many MIDI-related bugs were possible in the first place. In 7.1, we fixed a few more bugs that could be reproduced when creating new MIDI regions or trimming existing one in the part of the timeline where a tempo ramp is happening.
Cue Updates:
The Cue Markers ruler now has Clear All Cues command in the context menu. We also added the Cue Markers option to the main menu (View -> Rulers) which we overlooked when releasing 7.0.
Clips Update:
The folder where files from FreeSound are downloaded to is now also listed in the clips list.
Mixer Scenes Update:
In some cases, users might want restoring a mixer scene only for a selection of tracks, e.g. to an entire set of drum tracks but not the guitars or the keys. It is now possible to do so: select tracks of interest in the mixer view, right-click the mixer scene restore button, and choose Restore for selected tracks.
Send/Return UI Update:
We revamped the UI for external sends and returns (port inserts). The dialog now has gain and panning control, polarity control, and allows customizing latency.
Export Spectrogram UI Update:
We improved the readability of the X-axis units in the export spectogram. Before, Ardour distributed time labels evenly but with odd times depending on the export range extent. Now, it rounds the interval down to nearest power of ten ... and if suitable, scales that up with a factor of 2 or 5. This will make sure that the time labels are nice with a minimal amount of non-zero digits. That makes it easy to do math and interpolate when reading the graph.
Additionally, the total length is no longer the right-most label, but the length can be found in the top-right corner.
I/O Plugins Update:
I/O Plugins ports are now listed separately in the connection matrix, with dedicated I/O Pre and I/O Post tabs created automatically when you add plugins. For tracks and busses, the connection button drop-down list now also features matching I/O Plugin ports.
Better Usability for Automation Editing:
Picking automation nodes with a mouse could be difficult: the position would have to be very precise, so we adjusted the proximity threshold to make it more tolerant to the mouse position.
There was another issue users ran into. When automation lines with significant change are zoomed in time, the slope gets smaller (towards horizontal) as the control points moves further away from the visible area. That was rendered correctly, but the corresponding mouse events happened as if the line had a steeper slope. So now the Y values are scaled when X values are clamped.
And then we changed to the way automation lines are drawn to show edge-lines. This adds points to the lines so that they always extend to the edge of regions (not control points).
Even more improvements to automation editing are coming in the next updates of Ardour.
Improvements in Tempo Map Editing:
We changed internal gears where tempo map editing is involved. This allows for cleaner implementation of editing tempo markers and tempo ramps, with less bugs. Additionally, we made dragging tempo markers smoother, fixed a few crashes, and made a few more improvements all around.
Overall Usability Improvements:
Remove visible spacer right of the mini-timeline. This improves consistency, the center widgets are already visibly separated by their background..
Align toolbar buttons. Removing the shadow makes toolbar and editor-tool buttons align when the editor-mixer is hidden. It also improves consistency with all other tabs that have no shadow on the left. Increasing the table border width to 1, makes aligns the editor-mixer button with the main toolbar..
Editor region list: the name column can be resized now.
Labels in the connection button have been improved for internal connections: the updated is now updated when the name of a connected route changes, partial internal connections are now indicated..
Connection matrix tabs have shorter names now, as the program name is not really required to indicate "Tracks", "Busses", etc..
The list of available rulers in the right-click menu over the rulers header now lists items in the same order it is in the action ruler section, with the same names..
Double-clicking on mixer strip name label/color button brings up color picker.
Scale plugin Analysis UI. This also increases the default font size and adds a -15,+15 dB range mode..
Key binding changes: use primary-e for quick export, primary-d for duplicate, secondary-d for multi-duplicate.
New Options in the Preferences dialog:
we now provide two more options in the Preferences dialog.
The main The Plugins page now allows choosing whether the Plugin Manager should be automatically opened when plugins are found missing upon opening a session.
The Plugins -> GUI page now exposes a plugin GUI behavior option we added in version 7.0. It allows choosing what to do with plugin windows when closing them. Hiding means a plugin window is stored in the memory, can be re-opened faster than from scratch, but it also takes resources. Destroying means the plugin window will be re-created form scratch the next time the user opens it. Ardour also allow treating VST2 and VST3 plugins differently because of specifics of the respective plugin APIs.
Other Changes:
update URLs from the Help menu to use HTTPS.
Xcolors theme update from LAM.
Update blueberry_milk-ardour.colors.
BBT Ruler: less clutter at various zoom levels
New TouchOSC surface definition for clip launching control
Multiple PulseAudio support improvements.
Bug Fixes:
Fix a serious error that would delete a file used by a MIDI region after the region was duplicated with "MIDI region copies are independent".
Fix an issue where the first and only clip being played would not adjust to the tempo
Properly convert v6 music-time-locked MIDI regions
Numerous fixes for automation data using musical time
Fix pan automation.
Fix MIDI draw operations that span tempo changes.
Improve drawing of automation lines, and fix crashes while editing line segments.
Fix placement of notes drawn in "percussive mode".
Properly manage undo/redo of tempo map changes.
MIDI recording now displays correctly in most cases.
Optimize stretching/pitch shifting with Rubber Band.
Fix initial values shown in the Insert/Remove Time dialog.
Fix bug in German translation
Fix MIDI Clock synchronization.
Fix issues with closing/deleting plugin windows at session close.
Freesound browsing functioning on Fedora Linux.
Various fixes for the PulseAudio backend when used with Pipewire.
Fix clock display when using sample-rates >= 88200 Hz.
Correctly restore custom generic midi settings.
Ensure that freesound token dialog is always on top (of similar windows).

New in Ardour 7.0 (Oct 16, 2022)

Cues ("Clip Launching"):
Probably the biggest visible change in Ardour 7.0 is the arrival of "clip launching" similar to the workflow pioneered by Ableton Live and now also provided by Bitwig, Digital Performer, Logic and others.
Clip launching allows you to experiment with combinations of various loops and one shot samples, with all sound appropriately (but optionally) time-stretched to fit the tempo map of the session, and start/stop quantized to the groove.
Trim or extend the effective length of clips and choose how many times they will repeat before they trigger a follow option.
You can build automated sequences with controlled randomness, using follow options: Forward, Reverse, Jump and Multi-Jump (which randomly picks between specific slots). A great way to add random fills and unexpected twists to your drum tracks!
Unlike some other DAWs, MIDI clips in Ardour can have 16 MIDI channels, and every clip can have its own patches (sounds) assigned. You can use multi-timbral MIDI files for various effects, including layering or "true flams" (same note, different channels),
In this release, only Ableton's Push 2 surface can be used as a controller to control cues, but future dot releases of 7.x will bring support for Novation Launchpads and other related devices. The existing Push 2 support is fairly deep - most of the features of Live's "Session" mode for the device are implemented.
Although we modelled much of Ardour's clip launching behavior on Ableton Live, there are differences.
Loop Libraries for Ardour:
With clip launching now a major feature of Ardour, we had to make a choice for our release regarding whether or not we would include any pre-existing content with the download. We did not want to make the download of Ardour substantially larger than it already is, and so we decided to include some MIDI material, and then create a new download system to access gigabytes of additional audio / MIDI loops.
On both the Cues and Edit page/tab, you'll find the Clips tab on the right hand side. It provides limited management of a sample library (which we might improve over time). But perhaps more importantly it comes preloaded with 8000+ MIDI chords, 5000+ MIDI chord progressions and 4800+ MIDI drum grooves, ready to use (and obviously royalty free and redistributable).
You'll almost certainly want to use other material too. You can add folders containing audio and/or MIDI loops and samples yourself by simply drag&dropping them onto the Clips tab. You can bounce regions and ranges from the Editor page to the Clips tab, straight from the timeline.
You might also appreciate easy access to a large set of existing loopable material. As part of the 7.0 release, we convinced a few of the creative folks who post loops at looperman.com to allow us to package and redistribute their material. When you open Window > Library Downloader you will find many libraries of both rhythmic and melodic material for use in your sessions. All these libraries are royalty free, though the actual license may vary from CC-by-0 to MIT license or others. Many thanks to creators Speak, LenoxBeatMaker, NegusFirst and ProdGraverr for their collaboration on this. We look forward to adding more in the future.
Of course, you can also use files from nearly any loop provider, in dozens of audio/MIDI file formats, including the bundled content of other DAWs. Mac users will find Ardour preconfigured to show their existing collection of accessible loops from Garageband or Logic.
You add folders to your Clip Library by simply drag & dropping a folder on the Clips tab. Audition MIDI files with our built-in General MIDI Synth or your preferred synth. Generate your own loops and drop them onto the Clip tab to store them in your User Library for use in other sessions or to distribute. Bounce from the linear tracks into your User Library, and use your own tracks as clips in the Cues grid.
Cue Markers (Clip Sequencing):
Sometimes after finding things you like on the Cue page, you may want to be able to work on the timeline in a more "linear" workflow. Ardour 7.0 not only allows you to launch clips in a similar style to Live, Bitwig and others, it has the ability to sequence them from the timeline. A new "Cue Marker" rule lets you launch cue scenes by having the playhead pass over them. This allows you to build your arrangement without ever having to commit to a particular audio rendering. 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.
Cue playback is continuous: you can even locate between cue markers, and the entire arrangement is calculated up to that point -- so even if you start your session with only a single drum clip, you can locate anywhere on the timeline and hear your clip playing!
There is a Stop cue marker which stops all of your clip playback on the timeline. Then you can re-start it with another cue marker later! And you can also mark individual clips as "isolated" which prevents them from launching from cue scenes, allowing you to fire those clips manually even if "Play Cues" is enabled.
Internal Time Representation?:
Ardour 7.0 is built around a completely new and totally different representation of time than previous versions. Internally the program has the concept of two different time "domains" -- audio time and musical time. Every representation of position and duration has a defined domain. When you move an object by 4 bars, it moves precisely 4 bars, not the best representation of 4 bars in either samples or seconds. A parameter control point that is 4 beats after the start of a region is exactly 4 beats after the start of the region, not an approximation of that in audio time.
For the most part, this major engineering project should be mostly invisible to users (other than in helping to fix bugs caused by inaccuracies converting between audio and musical time in earlier versions). We plan to build more functionality into Ardour in future versions based on this new time representation. That will include sample-rate independence for sessions, and also the ability to lock MIDI data to audio time positions when desired.
Ripple Modes:
Ardour now has 3 "ripple editing" modes. Ripple editing describes what happens when you cut/delete material from a track, and later material moves earlier to "fill the gap".
Ripple Selected:
In this mode, after deleting a region or time range, all selected tracks will ripple.
Ripple All
In this mode, all tracks will ripple in response to range deletion
Interview
In this mode, rippling will only occur if more than one track is selected. Otherwise, we assume you are just removing incidental noise like "uhm" and "ah" from one track. You can just move the mouse down when selecting to apply the edit to both/all tracks. This is particularly useful when editing 1-on-1 interviews/discussions for podcasts, etc.
Mixer Scenes:
Mixer scenes allow you to quickly store/restore all automatable settings in the mixer window (track solo/mute/gain etc, plus all plugin parameters). You can compare 8 different mixes with a single click, as well as audition a "mixer scene" using a "momentary" mode. This takes plugin A/B'ing to a new level, allowing you compare settings across as many plugins as you wish to, with a single click.
You will find them at the lower left of the Mixer view, with View > Show Mixer Lists enabled. Note that mixer scenes do not save/restore the presence/absence of specific plugins.
MIDI Editing:
By default, copies of MIDI regions are now unlinked. If you want repeating MIDI material in your session, bounce the MIDI region to a cue slot and let it play from there. If you actually use the linked-copy setting, be sure to set it for a new Session once using Ardour 7.0..
Add new keyboard bindings for note length control (combinations of , ., left-arrow, right-arrow and various modifiers, which we hope you'll find trivial to remember once you've used them for a short time).
When transposing, expand MIDI streamview note range when/as necessary so that notes do not vanish.
Scroll while in internal edit mode, with no note selection, will scroll the note range. Normal canvas scroll can be accessed in this mode via Primary+Tertiary-scroll (Ctrl+Shift on Linux/Windows, Cmd+Shift on macOS).
Simple click on region in internal edit/draw modes selects region.
Fix midi-note Copy+Paste and Duplicate actions.
Provide a toolbar menu to explicitly select note-length, channel and velocity.
MIDI Draw: note-length-auto means 'use the Grid for note-length' (prior behavior).
MIDI regions can now be combined, like audio regions. Note, however, that there is no "uncombine" operation.
MIDI regions can now be either opaque or transparent, just like audio region. An opaque region obscuring another causes MIDI events from the lower region to be ignored. Can be controlled just like audio region opacity.
Edit operation to deinterlace MIDI (split a midi region into per-channel regions) added.
Delete notes (in draw/edit modes) with the middle button.
Ctrl+d (in edit mode) now duplicates selected notes.
Much better visibility for MIDI not velocity bar.
"q" will quantize selected notes if there are any, rather than the entire region (if there are not).
Enforce a minimum length when drawing MIDI notes.
Take snap enable state into account when drawing new notes.
When drawing notes, the grid should be scaled to the zoom scale.
When using unlinked MIDI region copies, the copies use a full-length version of the underlying MIDI file. In earlier versions, the copy would get a truncated version of the MIDI file. This allows you to lengthen the copy when appropriate, not just shorten it.
When nudging notes, if nudge clock is zero, use main grid to determine distance.
MIDI Stem Export:
Ardour has long allowed stem exports (1 file per track) for audio, but 7.0 brings the arrival of stem exports for MIDI tracks also. If you use complex multi-region arrangements of MIDI, this is one way to generate a single SMF file for each track.
When a synth is present on the MIDI track you have to disable processing to get raw MIDI data, otherwise stem-export will export the track's output, which may include MIDI filters or midi-to-audio synths.
The Return of Freesound:
Once again, Ardour can be used to directly search and use nearly 600,000 samples hosted by the Freesound project. Freesound changed their login process several years ago, but we have finally updated our code to follow those changes. You will need your own Freesound account, and to tell Ardour a special login code that Freesound will give you the first time you try to download within Ardour. After that, you can browse and import Freesound samples as if they were on your local hard drive.
The import dialog showing the Freesound tab within Ardour
We've also added a user-configurable size for the amount of locally cached Freesound samples, and a way to filter searches by license type.
I/O Plugins:
Thanks to some work carried out by Harrison to support new features in a specialized version of Mixbus, Ardour 7.0 sees support for I/O plugins: plugins that run outside the context of any track or bus. Pre-processor I/O plugins run before Ardour does any processing -- you could use a plugin there to pre-process physical input, or to receive data over a network. Post-processor I/O plugins run after Ardour has completed processing -- you could add room correction or per-monitor correction there, or use a plugin that delivers data to a network. This is not a substitute in any way for running plugins in busses (or tracks), but opens up new possibilities for I/O routing and processing.
Control Surfaces:
Control protocols: add API to control selection by RID.
Generic MIDI: re-enable the "select" function.
Control protocol: allow protocol implementations to override RID selection API.
Generic MIDI: extend select function API and make argument be bank-relative, always.
Adds iCon QCon ProG2 specific MCP button handlers.
Adds support for iCon Platform M+ controller.
Adds support for iCon Platform X+ extenders with iCon Platform M+.
Adds three new device profiles for using the iCon Platform X+ extenders with the iCon Platform M+ controller as the master unit.
Adds support for iCon QCon ProG2 controller.
Add midi maps for Akai mpk225.
Added MIDI MAP for Alesis Q49 V2 master keyboard.
Add program names for Kurzweil PC3A series, object version "2.31.2".
Add Roland A-30 binding map for controlling Ardour's Play/Stop.
Push 2 pad tuning.
Push 2 replicates most of Ableton's "Session" view for triggering etc.
New OSC messages to trigger scenes/cues and stop all cues. .
Record Modes:
Now that support for opaque MIDI Regions was added, there is proper support for three recording modes:
Layered, new recordings will be added as regions on a layer atop existing regions.
Sound On Sound, behaves like Layered, except underlying regions will be audible.
Non Layered, the underlying region will be spliced and replaced with the newly recorded region.
Improvements:
Overhaul Audio/MIDI Setup dialog.
Report roundtrip I/O latency in the GUI.
Allow to edit group from the RouteGroupMenu.
Plugin Manager: add action to discover newly installed plugins.
Show plugin manager when missing plugins are found.
Announce LV2 features relevant for JUCE [LV2] plugins
Retain MIDI monitor connection.
JACK: work around connection loss when re-starting JACK backend.
JACK: re-create backend when re-connecting to the server.
Fix JACK-MIDI monitoring when hotplugging devices.
Reconnecting unconnected ports always succeeds.
SMF: Often files do not have Track & Instrument names. Make something up to avoid file collisions.
SMF: API change: report format (0,1 or 2) and total channels used.
MIDI import: Support for separating the channels of a Type1 midifile track(s).
Deinterlace MIDI: split a midi region into per-channel regions.
Add NSM ':switch:' capability.
Improvements and optimizations for various assembler routines.
Move to a new version of waf, the build system we use.
Implement Region export, allow to export multi-channel audio regions.
Improve GUI HiDPI support.
Update default dark-ardour theme.
Update Clear Gray theme
Allow loop auditioning.
Retain the instrument plugin used for auditioning.
Copied regions now inherit all sensible properties.
Fix region multi-duplicate behavior.
Fix moving automation with region.
Fix trim_region_to_{loop|punch} ... coverage logic was reversed.
Fix region drag-across-tracks that would auto-partition the receiving track.
Fix duplicate undo/redo when stretching multiple regions.
Always place first automation point using the current value of the parameter.
When cutting or clearing an automation range, always add boundary points.
Fix Crop operation: all layers, preserve fades.
Fix stacked region view.
Indicate muted regions by a canceled speaker (when available) instead of '!'.
New GUI appearance option to offer track/bus colors (muted) as backgrounds for editor & mixer strips.
Fix ToggleRoll (<space>) when auditioning.
Hide scroomer when using layered mode.
Correctly restore Mixer pane sizes.
Keep export-format dialog on top of export dialog.
Add export format option to re-import exported file(s).
Add a no-file, analysis only export mode.
Adds ability to bank over in mackie sends subview.
Virtual Keyboard: fix stuck notes when playing fast.
Add plugin tags for some Apple, x42, and Harrison plugins.
Fix audible hiccup at end of realtime export.
Use "Wav (tagged)" as default export profile.
Fix mp3 export on big-endian systems.
When exporting with a .cue file, enforce Latin1 filenames.
Overhaul vari-speed shuttle control display.
Avoid some GTK deprecated methods.
Ctrl-dragging a tempo mark uses horizontal, not vertical motion to adjust tempo.
Add Ctrl-drag on tempo bar/ruler to adjust tempo more directly.
Fix consolidating to FLAC file(s).
Coreaudio: improve DSP performance by joining the audio workgroup.
Coreaudio: increase coreMIDI robustness, allow for late events from Bluetooth devices.
Reduce mixer redraws, and fix scrolling to newly added tracks.
Fix printing keybindings.
Do not show blank MIDI Port Config page when no MIDI devices are present.
Fix video-file audio extraction on big-endian systems.
On Windows, suggest WinMME as default audio backend and enable MIDI by default.
Consistently replace colons in IO/Port names - allow colon as part of track names.
Sort ports by name in the connection matrix.
Fix relative Audio Unit window sizing.
Allow creating region source markers while recording.
Indicate current snapshot.
Fix "when refilling, cannot write" disk-reader bug.
Implement "Unlink from unselected" for MIDI regions.
Remove checks/tests for JACK and QJackctl during installation.
Allow VCAs to control A/PFL.
Prefer new Rubberband engine for timestretch.
Fix bug with end if a region not playing when pitch-shifting a region.
Apple+H (hide window) shortcut does not work, so hide it.
Range analysis was only accessible by context-click, but has now been added to the main menu.
Implement Draw-tool opaqueness option.
Add Ctrl-drag on tempo bar/ruler to adjust tempo more directly.
Add polarity invert switch to sends.
Enable level meter for external sends.
Force latency update callback after measuring port-insert latency.
Simplify video-export, allow only standard settings.
Update commandline parameters for ffmpeg 5.0, and make the dialog slightly less cluttered.
Refine video-export UI (tooltips, error dialog, etc).

New in Ardour 6.9.0 (Feb 2, 2022)

This release continues to include official builds for Apple M1 systems. They are not a part of the regular download system, but can be found on the nightly builds site.
Plugin Manager:
Find it under the Window top-level menu
The Plugin Manager provides a complete list of plugins that were found on your system, and data about each plugin's scan results.
New standalone scanner applications for VST and AU plugins will scan your whole plugin collection without danger of crashing Ardour.
The new scanner dialog allows you to skip individual plugins without canceling the whole scan process. Or set the scanner to auto-timeout while you take a break, and come back later to re-scan those individual plugins that wanted some user input.
Sort and filter your plugins by name, brand, tags, or format.
Tell Ardour to Ignore troublesome plugins so we won't try to load them at all.
Ardour loads AU, VST2, VST3, and LV2 format plugins. Choose the format that works best for each plugin, and hide the ones you don't use (but might be used in some existing sessions).
Improvements:
You can watch a video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYa2Q3j-Ibs] about these features in Mixbus (the behavior is identical there to Ardour).
New GUI control allows blocking MIDI patch changes during session loading.
Preference items to enable/disable VST2 and/or VST3 support.
Add explicit actions for changing between stacked and overlaid region views, making this bindable (to a computer keyboard or MIDI).
LV2 plugins: add support for plugins with multiple Atom ports (e.g. Sfizz, the SFZ player)
Slip-contents editing now more easily accessible using Ctrl-Shift-drag (Cmd-Shift-drag on macOS) anywhere in a region. It is no longer necessary to place the mouse cursor near the edges of the region.
Fix drawing the red recording rectangle to honor latency compensation (region no longer visibly jump at rec-stop).
Playlist Management Substantial changes to playlist management include:
Global playlist actions like "New Playlist for rec-armed tracks" allow you to record a new take on all tracks that are record-armed, whether they are in a Group or not. You'll find these actions in the Track menu.
"Copy Playlist for All Tracks" will store the timeline state of your arrangement, edits and automation. You can later switch between them while leaving your static mixer and plugin settings intact.
Select a track and click "?" keyboard shortcut to open the Playlist Selector dialog. Click any playlist to listen to the alternative takes of that track, OR...
...change the scope to "ALL Tracks" and you can switch all tracks that have a matching playlist to your selection: if you recorded a take of the drums and bass together, you can switch the drum and bass playlists together even if they aren't in a Group.
Create the perfect vocal or guitar comp: Create a new empty playlist and call it 'comp'. Then use the selector to switch between different takes and move the best take to your comp playlist. You can even have more than one comp playlist to compare with each other. And like the other playlist functions, you can edit multitracks with ease: by group, rec-armed, or ALL tracks.
Varispeed Changes:
The GUI for the "shuttle control" has been modified to present a simpler, easier to understand interface.
Click on the "VS" button to enable/disable varispeed as well adjusting the varispeed settings. .
The VS button will blink when varispeed is enabled.
Varispeed settings are persistent, so you can revert to regular playback, then later re-enable varispeed to get back.
Bug Fixes:
Splash screen management has been changed. On Linux, this may conflict with your window manager's behavior - if so, go to Edit > Preferences > Appearance > Quirks and try the "Show/Hide" setting.
Support for a Wine/windows build to run Windows VST plugins "natively" on Linux has been removed. ardour.org has never distributed these builds. There are plugin wrappers/bridges such as Yabridge that do a better job of making this possible.
Muted MIDI regions are now actually muted.
MIDI capture duration is correctly computed when loop recording.
MIDI capture alignment is now correctly implemented.
Loop recording working again after an unnoticed breakage.
Various fixes for recently added region markers during editing.
The "Escape" key now behaves identically while in internal editing modes as when in other mouse modes.
Prevent accidental addition of multiple markers at the same position.
In the Recorder tab, do not show input meters for control-only ports Faderport, Mackie, etc.
During a slip-contents drag, regions are now transparent so that you can align transients.
Fix Apple Coreaudio Source (used for MP3 import on macOS) -- was broken since 6.0
Control Surfaces:
US2400: Fix direction of pan knob LEDs.
Mackie Control:
Change combined meter to use a peak meter with falloff.
Reset surfaces once connected.
Correctly handle the Monitor section being removed.
Update the meters even when the transport is stopped.
Move meter deflection calc to a function.
Improved support for iCON QCon Pro X.
When reconnecting ports, don't give up on first failure.
Don't call port write directly since it bypasses active chk.
Improve debug trace output by skipping meter write output.
Hold the surfaces lock while resetting the master_surface.
Don't crash when the master is on the right.
Use selected device's info when building the Keys dialog.
Fix one off error in timecode display that broke spaces.
Use space as replacement for invalid characters on timecode display.
Fix logic in timecode display update.
Translation Updates:
German.
Korean (New!).
Contributors:
Robin Gareus, Ben Loftis, Paul Davis, Todd Naugle, William Light, Adam Sampson
Translators:
Edgar Aichinger (German), JungHee Lee (Korean)