Ardour Nightly Builds

There is no support whatsoever for these builds.
See ardour.org for official releases.

!!! ATTENTION !!!

DO NOT DOWNLOAD THESE VERSIONS TO USE ON ACTUAL SESSIONS.
The main branch of Ardour, which is used to build the versions available on this site, has entered a development phase that makes it unsuitable for actual work.

We have tagged it as a new version (7.0-pre0), and a warning will be displayed any time you use it. These versions (or your own self-builds of the main branch) should be considered experimental, unstable and untested. We are not interested in bug reports at this time. A notice will be posted here when the situation changes.

Operating System

GNU/Linux Windows Mac/OSX

GCC-4 builds are compatible with any Intel platform GNU/Linux releases since circa 2009 (glibc ≥ 2.2.5). Requires X11.
GCC-5 versions need a recent (2016) platform GNU/Linux with (glibc ≥ 3.4.21).

Compatible with Windows XP and any later version. (JACK is optional.)

Mac/OSX, Intel builds are compatible with OSX ≥ 10.6 (incl. macOS Catalina and Big Sur, 64bit version only), PowerPC version for 10.5 (JACK is optional.)

Architecture

32bit (i386) 64bit (x86_64) PPC (powerPC) ARM64 ARM32 (RaspberryPi)

The 64bit Version will only load 64bit VSTs. If you have 32bit VST plugins, choose the 32bit version which will also work on 64bit Windows.

64bit Version does not support plugin-GUIs of old 32-bit Carbon Audio-units. If you have 32bit only plugins, please use the 32bit version (which also runs on 64bit OSX).

Only for Power Mac G4, G5, 10.5.6 (Leopard).

Debug Version

Debug Optimized

The debug version allows the creation of proper bugreports (backtraces). The main downside is that it's a larger download and requires more space on disk to install.

Ardour is a complex piece of software with a small development team. We strive for robustness and stability but the road is long and edge-cases are plenty. The nightly builds exist for the purpose of testing and we value bug reports. Hence using a Debug build is highly recommended.

The optimized build disables internal sanity checks (assertions) and utilizes some compiler optimizations. This results in a smaller download size requiring less disk space to install it.

Variant

Free/Demo Full-Version

The Free/Demo version is gratis. It is fully-featured except that after 10min it will periodically go silent.

Full-featured versions are available to subscribers (small monthly payment). Use your ardour.org credentials to identify yourself for download (see your user page to check subscription status).

Binary Interface

gcc4 gcc5

In version 5 (since g++5.1, April 2015) the GNU C Compiler changed the C++11 interface in an incompatible way. Ardour itself is not affected, but the combination of some plugins and Ardour is. If you are using a GNU/Linux distribution that compiles plugins with the new gcc5 C++11 ABI, choose gcc5. If you do not know, use gcc4 (fall/winter 2015).
This is only relevant for a dozen 3rd party plugins which directly or indirectly use C++11 features.
Known affected plugins: abgate, ams-lv2, amsynth, beatslash, deteriorate, eq10q, guitarix, ingen, midimsg, newtonator, triceratops, vocproc.

Download

Download

 

 

Install Instructions and Notes

GNU/Linux: Download the .run installer and launch it.
One way to accomplish this is in a terminal: sh Ardour_<version>.run (substitute version).
The alternative is to use a file-browser, right-click on the downloaded file, select properties, checkbox: allow execution. Then double-click to run the installer [first time linux README].

Linux versions can be installed in parallel including alongside distribution packages. They are installed to /opt/Ardour-version/ (Note: The installer will ask to run an uninstaller, answer "no" if you wish to keep older versions alongside the new one ).

The Windows installer will replace the current version. (Note: If Ardour does not exit cleanly, uninstalling or replacing an existing installation will fail to replace font-files included with ardour. You can ignore this or fix it by rebooting the system).

OSX builds can be tested directly from the mounted DMG without installation.
Note: The application is not digitally signed. Since Yosemite, right-click (or control + click) and select Open the first time to launch it.
On BigSur, after download the application has to be released from quarantine. In a Terminal window run

xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine ~/Downloads/Ardour-*.dmg

See also: List of all available versions

Ardour is licensed in terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

The Windows, Apple and Linux names and logos visible on this site are trademarks or registered trademarks in the USA and other countries, respectively of Microsoft, Inc., Apple, Inc., and Linus Torvalds.