The developers of Ardour have announced the release of version 2.0. This release is immediately is available as a Mac OS X (10.4) universal package and also as source code. Linux distributions will have pre-built binaries available in the near future.

Nearly 2 years of work have gone into this new version. Along the way a huge number of bugs were fixed, performance and workflow were improved, and many new features were added. Highlights of version 2.0 compared to the last stable release (0.99) include:

• New user interface featuring:
  • More accessible menus.
  • Improved overall GUI design.
  • Instant accelerator key rebinding direct from menus.
• Destructive recording ("dubbing") capabilities (as used by the new Harrison Xdubber).
• Undo/redo across program startup/shutdown.
• Redesigned and more stable support for VST.
• Support for 24 bit integer native files in addition to 32 bit float as in 0.99.
• Modular support for hardware control surfaces, including the Frontier Designs Tranzport and Mackie Control Protocol devices.

In addition there are literally hundreds of minor fixes and smaller features that have accumulated during the work on 2.0. This new version is fully backward-compatible with older releases of Ardour, and can be installed in parallel with them. Please note that older versions cannot load sessions saved by Ardour 2.0.

With the release of 2.0, the project's development will accelerate as it returns to focusing on major features and workflow. We also look forward to the results of this summer's Google Summer of Code projects involving MIDI editing and surround panning. Version 2.1 is expected to be released within a few months, containing new features that have been under development but were not merged into this release.

Ardour is available for free download - users are encouraged to support the development of the software through subscriptions and donations. The software itself is available free of charge.