Version 2.1 of Ardour is now available, with a few brand new features, including native (X11-free) OS X support, and many important bug fixes. Source code is available as well as the DMG for X11 on Mac OS X.

For the first time, they will be releasing a native OS X version of Ardour that does not require X11 (or JACK, for that matter, since the package includes JACK). These are still being tested, and will be released as soon as they believe they will work on most people's systems.

Brand New Features not present in previous minor releases (2.0.1-2.0.5):

• "Native" OS X support:
  • No need for X11 anymore.
  • Built using the GTK-OSX port of GTK to Quartz/Cocoa.
  • To compile this on OSX, please read the guide.
• New import dialog:
  • Better auditioning.
  • Better presentation of options.
  • Resampling quality control.
• New JACK control dialog:
  • If you don't want to use qjackctl and don't require and external JACK patcher (i.e. "Let me just run Ardour, dammit!") this dialog will allow you to configure JACK. It only appears (as a tab in the new session dialog) if JACK is not running when Ardour is started.
• Mouse scrubbing:
  • Switch to mouse audition mode.
  • Button1-press and drag.
• Separate MMC device ID's for send & receive.
• Range context menus modified for greater clarity and simplicity.
• Crossfades involving transparent regions now work appropriately.
• Click or drag in rulers works better.
• Update click data when sample rate changes.
• Provide limits to in-memory undo history depth.
• Provide limits to saved undo history depth.
• Optionally tie editor & mixer display order together.
• Provide GUI control for timecode-slave-is-synced.
• Make Ctrl-w close any dialog.
• Generate peakfiles for embedded files asynchronously.
• Metering now works more appropriately with no inputs.
• Big clock is always on top.
• Reduce memory usage during I/O from multi-channel audio files.
• Change window visibility during startup.
• Use new translation domains, to avoid ardour 0.99 and ardour 2.X from colliding when installed in parallel.
• New option (only-copy-imports) to avoid creating sessions that reference external audio files (i.e. all audio is either native, copied or hard-linked into the session).
• Retain MIDI control information for plugin parameters.
• Auto-reconnect ALSA sequencer MIDI ports at startup.