Ardour is an open source digital audio workstation that allows for recording, mixing, editing and mastering of audio on Linux and OS X systems. It uses JACK, an audio routing subsystem, for low latency interfacing and supports various open source and commercial plug-in formats like LADSPA, Audio Units, and VST through JACK routing. The document encourages the reader to try out Ardour's versatile audio editing and routing capabilities for themselves.
3. JACKA versatile audio routing subsystem.Allows you to route physical inputs to multiple programs simultaneously.Allows you to connect outputs and inputs of programs into each other.Low latencyArdour uses this for its backend interfacing. It does not directly interface with the hardware.
4. Plug-in SupportArdour primarily supports the LADSPA plug-in format. (Linux Audio Developers Simple Plugin API)LADSPA plug-ins are open source and there are a large number of them available.If Ardour is running on OS X, it also natively supports Apple's Audio Units (AU) plug-ins.Ardour can also be compiled with native VST support, but this is not distributed with any of the binaries.Any plug-ins not supported can likely be run in stand alone mode and routed into Ardour through JACK.