1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
|
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE section PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.4//EN" "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.4/docbookx.dtd" [
]>
<section id="sn-why-is-it-called-ardour">
<title>Why is it called "Ardour" and other questions</title>
<section id="why-ardour">
<title>Why "Ardour" ?</title>
<para>
The name "Ardour" came from considerations of how to pronounce the
acronym <glossterm linkend="gt-hdr">HDR</glossterm> (Hard Disk
Recorder). The most obvious attempt sounds like a vowelless "harder"
and it then was then a short step to an unrelated by slightly
homophonic word:
</para>
<para>
<emphasis>ardour</emphasis>
<quote>
n 1: a feeling of strong eagerness (usually in favor of a person or
cause); "they were imbued with a revolutionary ardor"; "he felt a
kind of religious zeal" [syn: ardor, elan, zeal] 2: intense feeling
of love [syn: ardor] 3: feelings of great warmth and intensity; "he
spoke with great ardor" [syn: ardor, fervor, fervour, fervency,
fire, fervidness]
</quote>
</para>
<para>
Given the work required to develop Ardour, and the personality of its
primary author, the name seemed appropriate even without the vague
relationship to <glossterm linkend="gt-hdr">HDR</glossterm> .
</para>
<para>
Years later, another interpretation of "Ardour" appeared, this time
based on listening to non-native English speakers attempt to pronounce
the word. Rather than "Ardour", it became "Our DAW", which seemed
poetically fitting for a <glossterm linkend="gt-daw">Digital Audio
Workstation</glossterm> whose source code and design belongs to a
group of collaborators.
</para>
</section>
<section id="why-write-another-daw">
<title>Why write another DAW?</title>
<para>
There are already a number of excellent digital audio workstations. To
mention just a few: ProTools, Nuendo, Samplitude, Digital Performer,
Logic, Cubase (SX), Sonar, along with several less well known systems
such as SADIE, SAWStudio and others. Each of these programs has its
strengths and weaknesses, although over the last few years most of
them have converged on a very similar set of core features. However,
each of them suffers from two problems when seen from the perspective
of Ardour's development group:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
they do not run on Linux
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
they are not available in source code form, making modifications,
improvements, bugfixes by technically inclined users or their
friends or consultants impossible.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
<section id="why-linux-and-osx">
<title>Why Linux (and OS X) ?</title>
<para>
Not running on Linux is understandable, given the rather small (but
growing) share of the desktop market that Linux has. However, when
surveying the landscape of "popular operating systems", we find:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
older versions of Windows: plagued by abysmal stability and
appalling security
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Windows XP: finally, a version of Windows that seems stable but
still suffers from incredible security problems
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
OS X: an amazing piece of engineering that is excellent for audio
work but only runs on proprietary hardware and still lacks the
flexibility and adaptability of Linux.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
Security matters today, and will matter more in the future as more and
more live or semi-live network based collaborations take place.
</para>
<para>
Let's contrast this with Linux, an operating system which:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
can stay up for months (or even years) without issues
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
is endlessly configurable down to the tiniest detail
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
is not owned by any single corporate entity, ensuring its life and
direction are not intertwined with that of a company (for a
contrary example, consider BeOS)
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
is fast and efficient
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
runs on almost any computing platform ever created, including old
"slow" systems
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
is one of the most secure operating systems "out of the box"
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
More than anything, however, Ardour's primary author uses Linux and
wanted a DAW that ran there.
</para>
<para>
Having written a DAW for Linux, it turned out to be relatively easy to
port Ardour to OS X, mostly because of the excellent work done by the
JACK OS X group that ported JACK to OS X. Although OS X has a number
of disadvantages compared to Linux, its ease of use and its presence
in many studios already makes it a worthwhile platform.
</para>
</section>
<section id="why-doesnt-ardour-run-on-windows">
<title>Why doesn't Ardour run on Windows ?</title>
<para>
There have been several discussions about porting Ardour to Windows.
The obstacles are relatively few in number, but rather substantial in
significance. Ardour was written to run on operating systems that
properly and efficiently support a portable operating system standard
called <glossterm linkend="gt-posix">POSIX</glossterm> (endorsed by
the US government and many other large organizations). Linux and OS X
both do a good job of supporting POSIX, but Windows does not. In
particular, the efficiency with which Windows handles certain aspects
of the POSIX standard makes it very hard to port Ardour to that
platform. It is not impossible that we will port Ardour at some point,
but Windows continues to be a rather unsuitable platform for pro-audio
work despite the improvements that have been made to it in the last
few years.
</para>
</section>
<section id="need-dsp-hardware">
<title>Don't I need DSP hardware to run a good DAW?</title>
<para>
Please see XXX for a discussion of the merits of dedicated DSP
hardware.
</para>
</section>
<section id="ardour-is-complicated">
<title>Isn't this a really complicated program?</title>
<para>
There is no point in pretending that Ardour is a simple, easy to use
program. The development group has worked hard to try to make simple
things reasonably easy, common tasks quick, and hard and/or uncommon
things possible. There is no doubt that we have more to do in this
area, as well as polishing the user interface to improve its
intuitiveness and work flow characteristics. At the same time,
multi-track, multi-channel, non-linear, non-destructive audio editing
is a far from simple process. Doing it right requires not only a good
ear, but a solid appreciation for basic audio concepts and a robust
mental model/metaphor of what you are doing. Ardour is not a simple
"audio recorder" - you can certainly use it to record stereo (or even
mono) material in a single track, but the program has been designed
around much richer capabilities than this.
</para>
</section>
<!--
<xi:include xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
href="Some_Subsection.xml" />
-->
</section>
|
