Before You Start (macOS Edition)

Thanks for deciding to try Ardour on your macOS system. Please read EVERYTHING on this page before proceeding to use Ardour. Every single sentence here contains vitally important information.

How To Install

If you downloaded source code, these instructions are not for you. See the building instructions instead.

You should have been able to download the .dmg file, and your browser should have opened it up in a Finder window that contains the striking red Ardour logo on your desktop.

You can now drag the icon to somewhere on your hard drive, and then click that location to start Ardour.

How To Uninstall

To uninstall Ardour, just drag the icon/folder to the trash. For a complete uninstall, also remove the folder $HOME/Library/Preferences/Ardour which contains your preferences and settings for the program.

Your Mouse/Trackpad

Ardour has been written with the assumption that you have (at least) a 2 button mouse available. There is a lot of useful functionality built into context menus that appear when you right-click on most objects.

If you are using an Apple laptop that appears to have only a single button, you should use Apple icon → System Preferences → Keyboard & Mouse →Trackpad to set the touchpad into "two-finger tap = right click" mode. Then you can get access to the context menus and more by just tapping with two fingers instead of one.

Note that you will find Ardour (and other digital audio workstations) even easier to use if you spend a little money on a full 3 button USB mouse with a mousewheel. They are cheap, easy to use and will all work with your MacBook.

Background: lots of people think that ctrl-click is always the way to get right-click operation on macOS. Its not. This is simply a per-application convention that many apps (but not all) have used. ctrl-click does not send the program something that looks like a right-click, it sends it a normal click with the additional information that the ctrl key is pressed. Some apps have used this as the signal to do some of the same things that right-click is associated with. Ardour has its own independent uses for ctrl-click, so we require to you configure your system to send a genuine right-click in order to see context menus and more.

Consider Cmd-Scroll

you may want to visit the System Preferences dialog, and choose Keyboard/Mouse to disable the default mapping of cmd-Scroll. macOS ships with this bound to "zoom screen", which might be useful for some users, but probably not audio-focused ones. Ardour uses cmd-Scroll for zooming itself, and you may find it very useful to have this available.

What To Do When It Doesn't Work!

Please see our page on how to report a bug.

Finally, please do come and talk to us on our IRC channel. You may be used to online forums as a place to get help, but in our world, we prefer to do things in real time rather than go back and forth on a very delayed communication channel. It is harder for us to support our macOS users because they generally do not build Ardour from source, but we can still talk you through many common problems in a few minutes online. This is preferable for us, and we think its probably better for you too.