Software Alternatives & Reviews

Ardour VS Bandlab

Compare Ardour VS Bandlab and see what are their differences

Ardour logo Ardour

Record, edit, and mix on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

Bandlab logo Bandlab

Capture, nurture, and collaborate on song ideas in the cloud
  • Ardour Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-12-13
  • Bandlab Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-11-04

Ardour videos

What is Ardour?

More videos:

  • Review - Ardour Review ENDED
  • Tutorial - Ardour Tutorial - Digital Audio Workstation for Linux

Bandlab videos

BANDLAB - free online DAW

More videos:

  • Review - STUDIO RECORDING USING PHONE? BANDLAB APP REVIEW | Last Christmas - Yennybelles Cover
  • Review - Why Cakewalk by Bandlab? Top 5 Reasons

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Ardour and Bandlab)
Audio
100 100%
0% 0
Music
30 30%
70% 70
Audio & Music
69 69%
31% 31
Audio Recording
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Ardour and Bandlab

Ardour Reviews

  1. Great for the poor man. Still needs A LOT of improvements, specially on midi editing.

    Copy Yes, you can start a project from scratch and end up with a great sounding track using Ardour. Specially if you use mostly audio. For those like me who use both audio and midi editing, it may easily drive you to a real nightmare. The DAW doesn't behave as you would expect. The "share regions" will get you good as you edit one region and it "magically" ruins the original one. Oh, just use copy instead of share, like they say right? Nope. It still bugs you to the bone. So you have to go manually "unlinking" every single region. Some regions may be a single note, for example, and you can miss that. Oh, so I will consolidate all regions before unlinking! Nope, there is not such thing here. Another example: You want to keep only a certain midi note on your midi track, the C3 that is you Drum Kick. You cannot do it, unless if you go deleting every single other note, one by one! Terrible isn't it? No, you cannot copy a single note through the entire track. Sometimes I managed to select a note through the track and delete it. So I took note how I did it and... Next time it's a negative! With so many different selections of tools, smart, playhead, etc, it appears the DAW confuses itself and do not respond appropriately. So... my advice to you is not to fall for what I did, which is believing Ardour can do everything it says it does, cause it doesn't. Keep simple with audio recording and editing. Do your midi stuff elsewhere and run from the nightmare I got myself into. Nevertheless, it is great cost/benefit DAW. Worthy a try. Yes, you can start a project from scratch and end up with a great sounding track using Ardour. Specially if you use mostly audio. For those like me who use both audio and MIDI editing, it may easily drive you into a real nightmare. The DAW doesn't behave as you would expect. The "share regions" will get you good as you edit one region and it "magically" ruins the original one. Oh, just use copy instead of share, like they say right? Nope. It still bugs you to the bone. So you have to go manually "unlinking" every single region. Some regions may be a single note, for example, and you can miss that. Oh, so I will consolidate all regions before unlinking! Nope, there is not such thing here. Another example: You want to keep only a certain midi note on your midi track, the C3 that is you Drum Kick. You cannot do it, unless if you go deleting every single other note, one by one! Terrible isn't it? No, you cannot copy a single note through the entire track. Sometimes I managed to select a note through the track and delete it. So I took note how I did it and... Next time it's a negative! With so many different selections of tools, smart, playhead, etc, it appears the DAW confuses itself and do not respond appropriately. So... my advice to you is not to fall for what I did, which is believing Ardour can do everything it says it does, cause it doesn't. Keep simple with audio recording and editing. Do your midi stuff elsewhere and run from the nightmare I got myself into. Nevertheless, it is great cost/benefit DAW. Worthy a try.


Top 18 Free Music Making Software for Beginners [2023]
Ardour is an open-source DAW designed to help music-makers make pro-level music by offering robust tools for recording, editing, and mixing songs on Windows, macOS, or Linux PCs.
5 PRO TOOLS ALTERNATIVES FOR RECORDING AND MIXING AUDIO
Ardour is a free and open-source DAW with capabilities similar to Pro Tools. It was designed for audio professionals, but it can be used by any musician or producer who wants to create professional-quality recordings. Ardour has a traditional track recorder layout with timecode and multi-track editing. It also includes a powerful mixer, effects processors, and recording tools.
10 Best Audacity Alternatives for Audio Recording and Editing
It offers a feature to see your recording wave while letting you adjust and monitor the input gains for clear and clean recordings. Ardour presents a huge editing platform with editing tools like trim, cut, swing and transpose, etc. so that you can easily mix your tracks with the tools like a fader, mute and automate, etc.
Top 10 LMMS Alternatives and Similar Software
Ardour is a very capable alternative for LMMS. Ardour is a bit complicated to use. That’s why it’s recommended only for those who have prior professional experience of editing and mixing music. If you’re an audio engineer, you’ll love Ardour for recording a piece of music and then editing and mixing it. It comes with some recently added features-
Best LMMS Alternatives 2017
This LMMS alternative is a hard disk recorder as well as digital audio workplace application. It turns on GNU/Linux and Mac OS X. Ardour’s purpose is to provide digital audio workplace software suitable for proficient use. Ardour source code is freely accessible but pre-built binaries are profitable free-libre software.

Bandlab Reviews

  1. Perfect for when you are on the go.

    Bandlab may not be as powerful as the other DAWs out there. But the one thing it does have is a mobile app. The app is constantly improving on itself and the support team is very personable. There are limitations such as no way to creat busses and limited to only 16 tracks. But you can utilize other software to enhance tracks if needed. For someone who is always on thr Go and theres not much time to work on a project at home or in the studio bandlab will be your hero. You can simply arrange from your phone where ever you are. The plug ins are very elaborate and powerful as well. They have virtual instruments which i have yet to see from the few other DAWs ive used. And their online Mastering is actually very very rich in sound if you gain stage correctly. Between me and you. I also love the cloud aspect of it. I use bandlab as a form of backing up my work in case disaster occurs. So for that they get give stars.

    🏁 Competitors: FL Studio Mobile
    👍 Pros:    Cloud storage|Mobile app|Simple yet powerful and efficient tool|Virtual product generator
    👎 Cons:    Limited features|No bus|Sometime not work smooth & lagging

10 Best GarageBand Alternatives for Android
BandLab is a free, powerful, and easy-to-use music creation app. You can access recent projects, track types, musical tools, beats, and music studios from Create section of the app. It has a vast library of guitar, bass, and looper packs. You can record kits, keys, and more with virtual instruments and the Sampler can turn any sound into an instrument. The FX feature can...
Expand Your Arsenal of Music Creation Tools With BandLab Alternatives
Making Music With BandLab: A Beginner's Guide BandLab is a powerful application for Windows that allows users to create, record, and share music. The free application provides an all-in-one platform for musicians, producers, and songwriters to collaborate on projects. BandLab is an excellent tool for aspiring musicians who want to get started... Continue Reading →
Source: bandlabwin.com
Best Music Making Apps for Android 2023: The Essential Guide
Bandlab mixes up a combination of music-making and social interaction. So you can make your own music and share it and discover other artists all within the same app. But the key bit for us is that the music production part is rather good.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Ardour should be more popular than Bandlab. It has been mentiond 110 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Ardour mentions (110)

  • Ask HN: Is There a Blender for Music?
    Effects you can hear. [0] https://ardour.org/ [1[ https://cybershow.uk/. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • What Is the Future of the DAW?
    I'm the lead author of Ardour [0], and I'd very much like to hear more about your frustrations, since over the next 1-2 years, paying attention to non-European musical culture is one of the things I hope to focus on during development. You can reach me via the email address in my profile, or maybe use our forums at discourse.ardour.org. Thanks. [0] https://ardour.org/ <= a cross-platform open source DAW that has... - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Red Blob Games: Interactive visual explanations of math and algorithms
    One extra detail, something I've learned from 20 years of working on dragging all kinds of objects around the GUI of Ardour [0]: handle ALL button press and release events as drag events where there is no movement. [0] https://ardour.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Absolute beginner seeking advice
    I am aware of the 'Real Tone Cable' however I am curious if this is what I should be buying if I also intend on recording my playing in a software such as 'Ardour'. Source: 10 months ago
  • How to map multiple samples with linux-sampler?
    I just loaded an instance of samplv https://samplv1.sourceforge.io/ into the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), Ardour https://ardour.org/ . Source: 10 months ago
View more

Bandlab mentions (20)

  • Ran out of breath during the chorus and nearly passed out haha.
    It does just have a silly hole and leaks saliva like mad. Should get it a tiny sanitary napkin haha. I'm using Cakewalk mostly, or https://bandlab.com which is the same thing on the web. Source: 10 months ago
  • Digital music creation newbie here
    Yeah, BandLab is simple and easy to get up and running and could be worth trying. (Well, I've tried BandLab online at bandlab.com rather than the app.) It's self-contained and comes with its own instruments. I think it could do ambient and cinematic, but I won't vouch for orchestral-level cinematic per se (but getting orchestras to satisfy me in any DAW might involve more tweaking than I would bother with.). Source: 11 months ago
  • What is the best music production software for a total beginner
    Bandlab.com works in browser, comes with lot of loops, some instruments and effects included. 50M total users - you can easily find somebody for collaboration, more people can work together. You can look into and modify some of other people songs - great entertainment value. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Where can I buy punk/pop punk drum kits?
    Bandlab.com has a massive free sample library (just need an account, or to connect a google account). Searching for "Punk" results two Pop Punk sample packs. Source: over 1 year ago
  • I have been having this problem for a week and I just don’t know why plz help
    Whenever this happens I clear my cookies and log in again. If you don't know how to clear cookies, click the lock next to where is says bandlab.com. then click cookies... Then click remove until nothing is there. Reload the page. You will be logged out after reloading the page. Log back in. Hope this helps! Source: over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Ardour and Bandlab, you can also consider the following products

Audacity - Audacity is a free and open-source audio production software suite that includes a surprising array of editing tools and recording systems.

FL Studio Mobile - Create & save multi-track music projects on a smartphone

Reaper - Reaper is a focused digital audio workstation (DAW) developed by Cockos. In the creation of the software, the digital audio technology company intended to make audio editing accessible to the masses.

Amper Music - Artificial intelligence music composer

LMMS - Make music with a free, cross-platform tool

AMPLI.FI - Live online music community. Twitch for tunes.