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by PaulDavisThe1st 2306 days ago
To be fair, as the original author of JACK and the lead author of one the main DAWs on Linux, we no longer encourage the use of JACK with Ardour.

JACK is an exceptional powerful tool (if I do say so myself) but it is overkill for the majority (maybe even the vast majority) of users. We try to encourage most Ardour users to use its builtin ALSA audio/MIDI I/O support rather than JACK these days.
2 comments
cycloptic 2306 days ago
I am a JACK/Ardour user and I still use application-application routing regularly to do other things. There are some workflows that are hard to do inside any given DAW, not just Ardour. This results in me having to run multiple DAWs at once, so running Ardour directly on ALSA won't work. You're right though that this situation is overkill -- I want to help fix some of these issues but Ardour is a large project and is difficult for me to start contributing to at the moment. Porting JACK-native programs over into audio plugins also takes time. Unfortunately this means I will probably be stuck on JACK for a while.

But all that is beside the point anyway. I still stand by my statement that a new DAW should use the JACK API, for compatibility purposes. I would change my mind about this if it ever comes to the point where JACK support is removed from Ardour and the other major DAWs. Take that as you will.

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bwanab 2306 days ago
Paul, first of all, let me thank you for the great software you’re developed. As a long time JACK user, Can you point me to a more detailed write up on why it is overkill?
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PaulDavisThe1st 2306 days ago
There's no such writeup.

But look - most people don't actually want to connect multiple applications together to make music. Most people don't actually want to move audio between applications at all. As we get more and more (reasonably) good plugins available on Linux, the "monolithic" approach - do it all inside one program (e.g. a DAW or something a bit like it) is easier for most people (no complex state management) and closer to their pre-existing mental models.

If you do need/want to connect multiple applications together, then sure, JACK is great and better than more or less any other possible alternative for that purpose.

But most people don't want to do that, and increasingly do not need to either.

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johnr2 2306 days ago
> do it all inside one program (e.g. a DAW or something a bit like it) is easier for most people (no complex state management) and closer to their pre-existing mental models.

This may be a generational thing. As someone who learned recording in traditional analogue studios, I find a modular approach using JACK to be much closer to my own mental model.

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mxmilkb 2306 days ago
With the greatest of respect, maybe, going forward, it would be best for clarity to include a caveat along with your "JACK is probably overkill" statements that you are taking about users who don't require (or might be interested in it) inter-app audio/MIDI/CV routing?
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