Audio Recording

Commercial quality DAW software are priced around $400. Again using Windows as an operating system requires you to have license that could cost you up to $200. Plugins to be used in DAW such as Waves can also cost up to $300. All in all you need around $900 to $1000 for a complete system excluding your computer and recording hardware/gears. While I am using Adobe Audition frequently in Windows OS along with the Waves and Sony plugins to produce majority of my tracks; I also use Linux frequently and started to like Ardour- a free digital audio workstation that works with Linux and Mac only.

The good news is that with this software, you can record, mix and master entirely for free along with all the open source audio plugins. This software can be installed in a popular distribution of Linux such as Ubuntu which again can be installed in your computer for free. This tutorial will show the entire installation and configuration process of Ardour in Linux using Ubuntu distribution (Ubuntu 10.04 or Lucid Lynx). Make sure you already installed Linux/Ubuntu operating system first. This also assumes you have the right audio hardware in your PC such as audio interfaces/firewire and quality soundcards (not on-board sound card).

1.) First, make sure you are using the Ubuntu distribution is updated. In Ubuntu, go to System – Administration – Update manager, make sure it says “Your system is up to date”.

2.) Install “jackd” first, these are low latency audio tools very useful for recording. Go to System—Administration–Synaptic Package Manager. Login using your root Linux password. Under quick search, type jackd

3.) Check “jackd” and then click “mark for installation” , there are also other dependent packages to be installed so just click “Mark” also. To install these packages, click “Apply” in the Synaptic package manager menu. If it ask “Apply the following changes”? Click Apply.

4.) If it ask enable jackd for realtime process priority? Check yes and click “Forward”. After installation it will be marked with green marks beside them. Make sure jackd, jackd-firewire, and qjackctl are green marks.

5.) Close Synaptic package manager. Go to Places—Computer—File System–etc–security–limits.d. Make sure there is a file there called “audio.conf” with the contents below:


@audio – rtprio 99
@audio – memlock unlimited
#@audio – nice -19

6.) Add yourself to the @audio group. Go to System—Administration—Click “Manage Groups”. Click “audio” group under “Group settings”, then click “Properties”. Under “Group members”, check your Ubuntu username and click OK. Verify by entering your root Linux password. Then close all windows.

7.) Logout to your username and login again (not restart or reboot just click Logout).

8.) After logging back in, Go to Applications – Ubuntu Software – and in the search box , type “Ardour”. When you see “Ardour GTK2”, click “Install” then proceed by entering your Linux password to authenticate.

9.) After installation, launch Ardour by going to Applications –Sound and Video– Ardour GTK2.

10.) What you will see next is the “Session Control”. Do not change anything under “Device” and “Advanced” tab. Leave everything in its default settings at first. Now go to “Options” tab. Do not change the real time priority or any other settings and just check “No zombies”. I find this as a solution to the following common errors:

a.) “Ardour could not start JACK”
b.) “JACK has either been shutdown or it disconnected because Ardour was not fast enough”.

11.) Finally click “Start”. You are then ask to start a new session. Select “new session” tab.Type the name of the sesssion example, “sessiontest” . Then for convenience I saved the files to my Ubuntu desktop. Click “New”

12.) The nice-looking Ardour digital audio workstation environment will then load up, ready to accept tracks for you to record, mix or even master. See screenshot below: