New features in Ardour 4

Just a month after we published a previous article [1] about the numerous small improvements that had been made to Ardour 3, developer Paul Davis publicly announced a brand new version [2][3]. So, in this article, I'll take a look at what's new in Ardour 4.

When you start up Ardour 4 for the first time, you will probably not immediately notice that significant changes have been made. The layout and the control elements in the two versions are almost identical. The only visual differences are found in the upper left under the mouse tools, but the tools themselves work the same way as before.

The fact that you are dealing with a new release first becomes apparent when you load a project from the previous version. The new release converts the project and automatically makes a backup of the Ardour 3 project version. At this point, you can also begin to see the improved performance of Ardour 4. The program reacts noticeably faster and, according to the release notes, it requires up to 80 percent less working storage. Paul Davis and his team achieved these savings through radical code optimization of the interface rather than by reducing functionality. (See the "Download and Installation" box for more information.)

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