Hi thank you for taking time to hopfully give me sum much needed guildance. ive been mixing vynal for over 20 years and recently upgraded and trying to get into the digital age. i now mix using the Numark IDJ2. im looking to record my mix sets but also add samples and effects live whilst in the mix . and after maybe repair anymistakes i may make. i dont want the software to do the mixing for me like lots of programs do. i dont see the point in that you may as well just stick on a cd, sit back and listen ,im very able to mix well myself. is Ardour the right software for my needs? im fairly new to linux also. im prepared to put the time and effort required into mastering Ardour but first i need to know that this is right for my needs , words of wisdom and and point in the right direction will be most apprectiated,many thanks mick
What do you mean by “mixing”? I think you just mean in the DJ-sense of running two tracks back-to-back seamlessly. If that is the case, all you would really need is a two-channel audio interface to record the audio. You wouldn’t be able to do any corrections this way though.
Quick glance at the IDJ2 and it looks like there are multiple outputs, so there are probably some designed for what you want to do. If you want to make corrections after the fact, you will need four channels on your interface (for two stereo tracks).
As for adding samples, I recommend a midi interface. They come on some audio interfaces. You could then use a midi keyboard (I have an m-audio trigger finger that I love) to trigger samples/midi instruments in Ardour. The trigger finger doesn’t require an interface because I can just go straight to the computer via usb. If you don’t know midi, it is an instrument that produces numbers, not sounds, and you need a computer of some fashion to make your sounds. The wonderful thing about midi is you can fix and change LOTS of stuff after the fact in DAWs like Ardour. A3 is the only version that records midi, and it’s still beta but hopefully not for long 
If you want to use Ardour to add digital effects to your music tracks (like eq, echo, etc.), you may as well ditch the mixer and do the whole thing from Ardour. There are ways to control parameters in Ardour real-time with midi controllers. Abelton Live and other DAWs are kind of designed for this type of use, but I don’t have much experience there. I don’t see any reason, however, why Ardour wouldn’t do a great job. JACK (which you’ll learn about from using Ardour) is also really intuitive with a GUI and gives you a lot of freedom for routing signals.