Cakewalk By bandlab vs Ardour

The Sonar DAW comes with a new and improved UI with extra focus on being customizable.

A Pro Channel ensures that you have all the necessary plugins in a really good mixing rack with console emulation for all busses and channels. This feels and sounds like a real mixing console.

The last few years they have given updates with new features and fixes nearly every month. Great support, constant innovation.

In addition to an effects rack and ProChannel effects that you can insert into each track, it also allows you to insert effects plugins on individual audio or MIDI clips.

Using the non-destructive editing, you can easily cut one of those clips into smaller pieces if you'd like to apply an effect non-destructively to an individual note or musical phrase.

New projects can have the entire session defined from a template. Tracks, IO, folders routing, etc.

Group tracks into folders to expand/collapse Solo Mute or Archive.

Includes inbuilt bridge allowing a 64-bit software to use a 32-bit plugin and vice versa without having to painstakingly use an external bridge to bridge the plugins. This will save one from bridging every new plugin that isn't compatible.

You can create an unlimited number of audio tracks, patch points, aux tracks and busses. Each track can send its output or an unlimited number of aux sends to any patch point or bus. A patch point can route to any number of aux tracks. Each aux track or bus can send its output or an unlimited number of sends to any other patch point or bus. (* A patch point is a destination where audio can be sent from any output or aux send, while an aux track is a track that receives its input from a patch point. This allows the track to be used similarly to a bus, with the additional flexibility of allowing multiple aux tracks to get their input from the same source point, and the organizational convenience of having the track alongside other tracks, instead of in the separate bus area).

If your computer has a touch screen, use gestures to optimize your workflow.

It has some of the best pitch correction available, and it comes with the DAW.

When you're done with a project, upload it straight to SoundCloud or YouTube from the Sonar DAW.

You can play video alongside your audio tracks during playback to make it easier for post-production or audio-to-video sync.

Professional, complete and very efficient DAW. It is unbelievable how BandLab does not charge a penny for it!

Everything is very straightforward and intuitive, making its workflow quite streamline and easy to customize.

It comes with a lot of Hardware Instrument definition templates and you can easily build your own.

The interface is very intuitive once you learn the program. It's like working in the studio with physical components.

Also good for small screen laptops.

Free for all.

Ardour is cross-platform and works on Windows & macOS.

Ardour is open source, so it can be downloaded and modified without restriction.

Unlike some other DAW's which often limit saving, exporting, or advanced features, Ardour permits you to try all the features for free, with the only limitation being ten minutes of project length maximum.

Demo.

On Linux, you can use JACK to freely route audio and MIDI to and from other software as hardware.

You can view and edit plugins directly from the console's mixing channels.

Thanks to JACK support, and the inclusion of built in tools, the routing options of Ardour are limitless.