Ardour 5.11 released

We are pleased to announce the availability of Ardour 5.11. Like 5.10, this is primarily a bug-fix release, though it also includes VCA automation graphical editing, a new template management dialog and various other useful new features.

Release notes for other older versions are linked in the list below.

Download  

New Features

  • VCA automation can now be graphically edited.
  • VCAs can now be selected (e.g. from control surfaces).
  • Allow VCA renaming in the editor window.
  • Bindable buttons for VCA solo and mute.
  • Add select-all-tracks shortcut in the mixer window.
  • Template management dialog (both session and track templates).
  • Allow control surfaces to hide/show plugin GUIs.
  • Realtime export now allows listening to channels being exported.
  • Non-layered MIDI recording now works (MIDI regions will be trimmed at the end of recording to avoid overlaps).
  • Add an LTC generator to the Dummy backend.
  • Update colors for the "Caineville" theme.
  • Expose Off/Play states for MIDI CC "automation".
  • Allow touch automation to be done via Ardour's own knobs (e.g. trim control).

General Fixes and Improvements

  • Fixes for consistent selection and track/bus ordering.
  • Improve display of dB values.
  • Improvements when dragging control points for log-scale or relative parameters.
  • Lookup VST parameter default values once only, at the correct time.
  • Major code cleanup for locale (internationalization) handling.
  • Create a deep-copy of MIDI sources when saving snapshots.
  • Allow saving state even when audio/MIDI engine is not running.
  • Substantial reworking of waveview rendering code.
  • More differentiation of error messages during startup.
  • Fix for a-fluid handling of out-of-memory conditions.
  • Avoid display/use of "mnemonics" in menu items (shortcuts continue to work as usual).
  • Correct an issue when sending from a source with less channels than the destination.
  • Don't invert azimuth & elevation display value for some panning configurations.
  • Fix undo being invoked from a non-GUI thread.
  • Fix crash when rapidly switching snapshots.
  • Show region name correctly in a context menu.
  • Reintroduce a command to toggle editor/mixer windows when they are tabbed.
  • Retain plugins order for copy/cut/paste + Drag-n-Drop.
  • Correctly adjust gain when selection spans multiple track/bus groups.
  • Honor groups when selecting in the mixer.
  • Convert summary display into a horizontal scrollbar (no more y-axis sensitivity for scrolling; now zooms).
  • Fix loading bundle definitions.
  • Changing type of track/bus in the add track/bus dialog no longer resets the name, if edited.
  • Take automation lanes into account when changing "visible track count".
  • Make it impossible to zoom to ridiculously zoomed-out scales.
  • Fix crash when renaming a track to an invalid name.
  • Increase the range of the a-comp stereo release time.
  • Forward-to-grid and Backward-to-grid now snaps even when in magnetic mode.
  • Correct note length setting and display in the note edit dialog.
  • Time info box updates its length display correctly across a tempo change.
  • Indicate region positional lock style with various UTF-8 glyphs (Beamed 1/8th notes => music position lock).
  • Only add a new tempo or meter on a click with the primary modifier pressed (avoid confusion with a tempo-change drag).
  • Disable tempo end drag for meter-locked tempi.
  • Cropping a single region to time selection works for multiple ranges.
  • Setting a tempo to 'Continue' via right click puts it in a permanent state of continuing the previous section's end tempo (basically what 'Lock Continue' should have been). This can be disabled (unlocked) by selecting 'Don't Continue'.
  • Reorganise menu to separate position lock style from more commonly used functions.
  • Main Menu: some re-organization of session- and global-centric windows.
  • Track/Bus mute automation now works as expected.
  • Many improvements to plugin in-line displays.
  • Fix various issues when changing automation state while rolling.
  • Make it possible to select regions at zero when the grid is set to Region Bounds.
  • Fix a bug with LTC chasing when using small buffer sizes and a large initial offset.
  • Ask user about saving when using Save As or Snapshot & Switch.
  • Fix the cursor in some TextEntry popups.
  • Show a-comp's makeup gain and gain reduction in it's inline display.
  • Many crashes at exit or close-session fixed.
  • Prevent duplicate playlist names while renaming.
  • Session > New ... cancel : now retains current session, if any.
  • Use Mach real time priority in process threads.
  • Use real-time safe MIDI buffer allocation for ALSA, CoreAudio and PortAudio (Windows) MIDI backends.
  • Fix for "MIDI Input follows Selection" (breakage introduced during 5.10 development).
  • Improve clock font used on OS X.
  • Fix --samplerate option for ardour-export standalone tool.
  • Add options for bit-depth and BWF format to ardour-export tool.
  • Ensure that broadcast data (BWF) is complaint with EBU specifications.
  • Save sample-rate for sessions created with templates.
  • Fix LV2 preset path on Windows.
  • Do not disable MIDI CC "automation" after clearing all data for a given CC.
  • Only button 1 (typically left) will now add new MIDI CC events on click.

Lua

  • Expose editor vertical zoom.
  • Expose region list.
  • Expose clone/copy regions.
  • Expose systemexec.
  • Improve script sandboxing.
  • Provide access to toggle actions.
  • Expose a new Lua message dialog.
  • Support for template scripts.
  • Support for meta-templates for Session setup.

OSC Support and Control

  • Added /*/db_delta for strip, select, master and monitor.
  • bank_up will now accept -1 for bank down so an encoder can bank.
  • GUI improvements - usability.
  • Allow user selectable group use (/use_group 1 or 0).
  • Prevent crashes or hangs in some cases.
  • Send fewer duplicate messages.

FaderPort 8 Support

  • Use 2 lines for Plugin Parameter Names.
  • Expose Plugin Bypass/Enable per plugin.
  • Shift + Select in Plugin Select mode.
  • Bypass button in Plugin Parameter Edit mode.
  • Don't allow toggling strip bypass/enable.
  • Allow selection of plugin presets.
  • Scribble-strip display preferences.
  • Fixes crash when switching snapshots.
  • Display in mixer order.
  • Add plugin GUI display options.
  • Implement "control link" (control operates on currently focused widget in GUI).
  • Fix shutdown sequence.
  • Indicate implicit solo by blinking.

Translation Updates

  • Czech translation update (Pavel Frich).
  • Japanese translation (Hiroki Inagaki).
  • Swedish translation update (Kristoffer Grundström).
  • Russian translation updates (Petr Semiletov, Alexandre Prokoudine).
  • Chinese translation update (Yq Ysy).
  • French translation correction (Léo Andrès).

Contributors

Ben Loftis, Johannes Mueller, John Emmas, Len Ovens, Nick Mainsbridge, Paul Davis, Robin Gareus, Tim Mayberry, Jelle van der Waa, Julien Rivaud, Thomas Brand, nickolas360, cooltehno