Support for Ardour

Where to get it

#ardour at irc.freenode.net
#ardour-osx at irc.freenode.net

(for those who do not know what it is, IRC is basically a precursor to the instant messaging systems that have been become popular today. It tends to be more focused on group discussions, and has some very powerful user interfaces for it, including xchat for Linux and OS X) Ardour's core developers and several key users hang out here on IRC, at pretty much any hour of the night or day. This is where the majority of discussion about ardour development and design takes place, but user problems get addressed too. This is the best and fastest place to get immediate help with issues.

The IRC network that we use has recently (June 19th, 2009) banned access using mibbit.com. For the time being you will need to use a dedicated IRC client program, such as XChat, or mIRC or others, which are available for every computing platform. We apologize for the inconvenience.

We would like to recommend mibbit.com as an excellent Web-based interface to IRC. Just select "Freenode" as the server and "#ardour" as the channel, and you'll be on the ardour IRC channel without any software installation at all.

the Ardour users mailing list

This is where users and some developers discuss all kinds of problems and ideas related to using Ardour. When necessary, people report new issues and ideas to the developers mailing list. This is an active list, with many helpful and knowledgeable users around to help guide less experienced people. There are sometimes more general discussions about topics like recording technique, audio interface selection, etc.

the Ardour development mailing list

This is where developers and technical users discuss substantive design issues with ardour. Many bugs get reported here too, but are normally re-reported to Mantis, our bugtracker (see below). Since we started using IRC, this list has become very quiet.

mantis

this is the ardour bugtracker/feature request system.

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions about Ardour.

The Manual

Its incomplete and patchy, but it has lots of useful information.

Ardour: Support Expectations

You should probably make sure that you have the right idea about support for Ardour.

Bugs and Feature Requests

If you find that Ardour does not cater for your needs, please look in the Mantis database to see if anyone has requested the feature you need, and put your vote on it.

If the issue is not mentioned, open a new Bug and state how you think Ardour could become better (remember to use clear language; be specific and verbose in you description - we have a hard time reading minds). Please read our guide for writing good bugs reports.

And please remember: a bug report helps us make Ardour better (over time, not necessarily tomorrow!). Strongly languaged complaints and moaning on mailing lists, home pages, news groups, and other places does not (it does zap our enthusiasm though). The first and only place to file a complaint or feature request is in Mantis. Do it anywhere else, and it will not reach the precious few who are willing to do anything about it!