Virtual Instruments and Midi

Getting Stuff Done How do I .... ?
#1

Hi everyone, I’m a potential newbie to Ardour and just starting out with music recording, production, and similar activities. Until now, I’ve been an “analog” musician (a singer), but I’m ready to make a change towards recording my music. To share my songs with the world, I’m looking for a suitable DAW working with WINDOWS 10. After trying several options, I recently discovered Ardour. Before I download it and start my way working through it, I would be grateful if someone could help answer a few of my questions.

  1. I need virtual instruments, such as drums, piano and the like. Are those available on Ardour or do I need to get those from another source and import them to Ardour?
  2. I like working with MIDI. Does Ardour offer an in-built arpeggiator?

I have tried out quite a bunch of DAWs so far, but none of them really convinced me, although I am aware that it takes time and effort to fully comprehend the workflow of a DAW.

Thanks a lot for your answers to which I am looking forward.

Stay tuned, always. AlienorChex

#2

  1. The official version of Ardour from this site comes with a General MIDI Synth that offers drums, piano, and other instruments. For the most part, however, virtual instruments in Ardour are handled by third-party plugins. Ardour is compatible with LADSPA, LV2, VST2, and VST3 plugin formats. (Edit: as noted below, the AU plugin format is also supported.)

  2. Ardour does not have a built-in appegiator, but this could be provided by a plugin as well. (Edit: as noted below, this is incorrect.)

#3

As a matter of fact, since Ardour 8.0 we do in fact have three built-in Arpeggiator plugins.

1 Like
#4

Ardour is compatible with LADSPA, LV2, VST2, and VST3 plugin formats.

… and, on macOS, AudioUnit (AU) plugins also (just to be complete in case someone on that platform reads this and concludes that we do not handle AU).

#5

Project I am working gives Ardour everything you’re looking for out of the box including the arp in the “Session Player” tracks, I am hoping to have things finalized and officially released within the next couple weeks.

Only caveat is it assumes you’re using Ardour on Linux:

Edit: Just saw you’re working on Windows 10 and as of right now I am only targeting Linux so this won’t work for you however a lot of the instrument plugins you see on the youtube video should work on windows.

Edit2: How bout a list of links to the actual referenced plugins in the video (All have Windows versions):

x42 General MIDI Synth: x42 General MIDI Synth( should be included with the bundled version of Ardour from the website)
Surge XT: https://surge-synthesizer.github.io
ZynAddSubFX: https://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.io
AVL Drumkits: x42 AVL Drumkits
Beat DRMR (won’t be used in final project as it is not FOSS): Beat DRMR by Beat - Drum Sampler Plugin VST Audio Unit

Hope this helps.

#6

Thank you very much for your comments, which help a lot. I think I should give Ardour a go, sounds promising.

#7

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