Ardour 6.7 released

Ardour 6.7 is now available. This release is a mixture of bug fixes, design improvements and a couple of new features.

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.

This is also the last Ardour release for older platforms. Future version will require at least Windows 7, MacOS Mavericks (10.9), Linux systems with libstdc++.so.5 or any later version. We are not deliberately trying to snub these older systems, but we are shifting the technology we use to create Ardour forward in time a little bit, and none of these older systems come with the necessary tools.

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

New Features

  • Dedicated “Recorder” tab/window an image showing the new recording tab/window
    • Provides a compact view of your track’s record & monitor status plus a simplified timeline that keeps everything in view at once.
    • Allows you to rename your device’s hardware inputs to match your studio connections: “Vocal Mic”, “Guitar Mic”, “Bass DI” (these names will be retained across sessions).
    • Every hardware input has a high-precision meter with peak-hold, a scrolling waveform history so you can recognize your source signals, and a PFL solo button to listen to that signal (requires the Monitor section to be engaged).
    • Vision and support for this work came from Harrison Consoles.
  • New "Streaming" preset option for export (defines correct defaults for YouTube, Apple Music, SoundCloud and Amazon Music streaming services, particularly loudness levels).
  • Allow import of SMF (MIDI) cue markers as global markers.

Improvements

  • Improvement in GUI drawing speed on macOS (snappier, more responsive feel, less CPU load).
  • Preferences window/tab significantly re-organized.
  • Overhaul LAN dialog: add loudness graph, allow for custom presets, update layout to always show conformity analysis.
  • Warn if the audio interface to be used differs from the one last used with the session.
  • After drawing automation, automatically switch that parameter to "Play" mode.
  • Allow "all-in" and "all-disk" monitoring options to be selected at the same time (just as we do for individual tracks).
  • The tab/window select buttons at the upper right now use verbs to describe what you're doing
    an image showing the verb labels on the 3 tab buttons.
  • Fix pasting processors in pre-fader position (they would end up in an unpredictable position).
  • Keep mixer input/output buttons updated if available ports and groupings of ports change.
  • Big clock window now correctly shows recording state.
  • Audition tool correctly controls transport speed.
  • Catch up with latest version of liblo (used for OSC support).
  • Add preference to keep auto-spilled automation-lanes visible.
  • Rename "Plugin Manager" to "Plugin Selector".
  • MonitorSection: fade input in/out for AFL/PFL.
  • Allow re-try when session-parameters mismatch.
  • Allow auto-spill-on-touch for Fader,Trim,Panner and Mute controls.
  • Allow removal of all xrun markers.
  • Return/Enter does not have special behavior in the processor box.
  • Make cursor visible on mixer strip gain entry.
  • Increase visual contrast of insensitive faders.
  • Change Solo button tooltip when using A/PFL.
  • Foldback: spill follows selection.
  • Foldback: improve GUI consistency.
  • Add A/PFL button to foldback strip
  • Spill only direct feeds - if track A sends to bus 1 which sends to bus 2 and you spill bus 2, only show bus 1, not track A
  • Consistent "add track/bus" widget in recorder, editor and mixer tab
  • Make group tabs insensitive when spilling sends
  • Open add-route dialog on double-click or context-click in "empty space"
  • Implement zero-latency convolver (available to Lua scripts).
  • Indicate ambiguous latency, which can lead to capture alignment issues.
  • Recover waveform-gradient-depth slider for ardour, and timeline-item-gradient-depth for mixbus.
  • Include a loudness plot on export-report.
  • Tweak export-report to fit on smaller screens (#8698).
  • Set default master-bus meter-point to output.
  • Overhaul export loudness normalization (include limiter).
  • Disambiguate export formats with same loudness but different true-peak.
  • Improve GUI behavior of the tempo dialog by preselecting the start BPM text field.
  • Use -90dB as default threshold for silence trim during export, rather than -inf dB.
  • Primary-w now closes Preferences window (like any other dialog/window).
  • Inform user if there have been dropouts during realtime export.
  • macOS: improve realtime thread scheduling.
  • Rewind/ffwd controls can now optionally act more like a shuttle (incremental) speed control (see Edit > Preferences > Transport).
  • Reduce default maximum transport speed to 2.0 to avoid DSP overload.
  • Add new config parameter for auto-return after rewind/ffwd (set to false by default).
  • Significant optimizations to speed of many operations affecting multiple regions.
  • Use sub-menus for automation parameter selection if a processor (e.g. plugin) has more than 32 automatable parameters.
  • Ignore JACK2 xruns during freewheel export for now.
  • Redesign color mgmt when entering/leaving markers of various kinds.
  • Change chat URL used via About > Chat to one that redirects via ardour.org, reflecting turmoil on the Freenode IRC network.

Bug Fixes

  • Fix Windows process thread priorities.
  • Fix double region freeze, stuck changes (#8701).
  • Fix session loading when aborting latency measurement (#8691).
  • Fix export race condition (and crash).
  • Update drag-n-drop mininum movement threshold (#8686).
  • Fix several incorrect transport behaviors.
  • Fix crashes when rippling many regions.
  • Fix incorrect port lists due to using a custom sorting method.
  • Use correct harvid bind address on BigSur.
  • Loading old route-templates now working.
  • Use correct insert-position when adding route from template.
  • Correct behavior when dragging a region to the dropzone (#8672).
  • Video-monitor display fixed when locating.
  • Fix deadlock when duplicating regions w/ripple.
  • Fix insert + ripple undo/redo.
  • Fix crash when consolidating range with automation.
  • fix "trim to loop" region edit operation so that it applies to any region that intersects the loop, not just those spanning it.
  • Fix shuttle wheel semi-tone mode.
  • Ctrl-surface: do not name single-channel bundle ports.
  • Consistent port-matrix channel name display.
  • Fix crash if no audition synth is unset.
  • Fix blurry text in connection manager.
  • Remove redundancy between CD and DVD-A export formats, which are identical.
  • Fix formatting of `-inf' on some Windows systems.
  • Fix BPM button text display on Windows.
  • Fix possible BPM button text overflow.
  • UTF8 compatibility with default windows font.
  • Fix undo after non-layered record pass.
  • Fix crash at exit with classic Faderport.
  • Include Tracks and Busses in connection dropdown (#8636).
  • Avoid a crash when reopening a session saved with selected MIDI notes.
  • macOS: Fix crash when timing issues alter startup process.
  • Correctly show splash screen content.
  • Fix a crash when separating ranges that include automation.
  • Don't put empty "split" commands on the undo/redo list.
  • Fix session-archive extraction on Windows.
  • Prevent use of "recorder:" in audio/MIDI file names (causes strange issues on Windows).
  • Fix potential issue during creation of session archives on macOS.
  • Fix for lost/empty MIDI files when using snapshots (#8552).
  • Fix analysis chunksize to be multiple of channel-count (#8631).
  • Fix crash when removing custom transients.
  • Fix export-analysis true-peak display offset when stripping silence (#8578).
  • Collect Playlist::ContentsChanged() signals (#8626).
  • Ignore pinout when copy/pasting plugins using Ctrl+c/v.
  • Code changes to support newer glib definitions for atomic variables (no volatile specifier).
  • Fix display of region peak information for trimmed audio regions.
  • Foldback: fix removing last fb bus.
  • Fix A/B plugins, skip internal but visible plugins (e.g. LAN).

Improvements in audio/MIDI Backends

  • ALSA (Linux): add option to prefer interleaved access.
  • ALSA (Linux): Fix swapped systemic latencies.
  • ALSA (Linux): handle asymmetric systemic latencies correctly.
  • PortAudio (Windows): Fix a problem with ASIO buffer sizes.

Plugin-related Changes & Improvements

  • VST3
    • Linux: prevent registering multiple identical file descriptors.
    • work around plugins with missing controller state.
    • Fix MSVC related crashes.
    • Add option to not show Micro Edit ctrls by default.
    • Prevent recursive endless resizing.
    • on macOS, add entitlements to get plugins working.
    • pass a read-only state stream to the plugin (#8642).
  • VST2
    • Support MacVST2 plugins with multiple child views (e.g. UAD).
    • Fix enter/return ambiguity -- thanks to falktx.
  • macOS (VST and AU)
  • Fix Mac Plugin re/sizing.
  • Included Plugins
    • a-delay: BPM is independent of the meter (quarter notes / min).
    • a-fluidsynth updated to use Fluidsynth 2.2.

Control Surfaces

  • Various: Fix one off in calculation of fader position.
  • Binding map for Maschine Mikro MK2.
  • Binding map for Alesis_VI25.map.
  • Mackie Control: device description and profile for Arturia MkII keyboard/control surface.
  • Mackie Control: if master surface has a jog wheel *and* a scrub button, button toggles between scroll and shuttle behavior.
  • Mackie Control: set select state correctly during initial setup.
  • Mackie Control: Don't crash if master fader is not avaliable.
  • Fix OSC "/marker" feedback.

Lua Scripting Changes & Improvements

  • Add Lua Bindings to access Bundles.
  • Add lua methods to control range locations.
  • Prevent denormals in Lua DSP state (LPF, Biquad).
  • Add Lua binding to rename session.
  • Fix Lua `get_processor_param` API.
  • Fix Lua bindings for C++17/C++20 (#8683).
  • Add Lua bindings to modify region gain curve.
  • Lua API for sends, sidechains and monitoring.
  • Add a Lua binding to determine Ardour version.

Theme Updates

  • Update Clear Gray RecBox, and Cubasish theme colors.

Translation Updates

  • French.
  • German.
  • Russian.

Contributors

Artem Alimov, Ben Loftis, Bruno Vernay, Cameron Sexton, Carlo Stemberger, Daniel Ceregatti, David Robillard, Elizabeth Harmon, James Crompton, John Emmas, Len Ovens, NeonRay Tracer, Paul Davis, Robin Gareus, Tiefseetauchner, Tobias Kannenberg, Todd Naugle, cooltehno

Translators

Olivier Humbert (French), Edgar Aichinger (German), Alexandre Prokoudine (Russian)