Software Alternatives & Reviews

Ardour VS FL Studio

Compare Ardour VS FL Studio and see what are their differences

Ardour logo Ardour

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

FL Studio logo FL Studio

Image-Line's FL Studio, now on it's 12th version, is a well-known music production suite and the most popular beat processor on the market, due no doubt to its longevity. Read more about FL Studio.
  • Ardour Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-12-13
  • FL Studio Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-24

Ardour

Categories
  • Audio & Music
  • Audio
  • Audio Recording
  • Music
Website ardour.org
Details $

FL Studio

Categories
  • Audio & Music
  • Audio
  • Audio Recording
  • Music
Website image-line.com
Details $-

Ardour videos

What is Ardour?

More videos:

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

FL Studio videos

FL Studio 20 Full Review

More videos:

  • Review - Which Version of FL Studio Should I Get?
  • Review - FIRST LOOK AND HONEST REVIEW ON FL STUDIO 20

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Ardour and FL Studio)
Audio
50 50%
50% 50
Audio & Music
47 47%
53% 53
Audio Recording
55 55%
45% 45
Music
39 39%
61% 61

User comments

Share your experience with using Ardour and FL Studio. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

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

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.

FL Studio Reviews

10 Best GarageBand Alternatives for Android
The list of best alternatives to GarageBand will be incomplete if we don’t mention FL Studio. Though this app isn’t free, it is one of the best digital audio workstation apps that can get so close to GarageBand. It allows you to create, mix, sequence, and render audio projects from your phone. You get a long list of effects ranging from drums and bass to synth and keyboards...
Top 18 Free Music Making Software for Beginners [2023]
FL Studio is a fully-featured music production software used by many professional producers. The DAW offers a wide range of music-making functionalities in its free trial. However, if you save your project during the free trial, you cannot access them until you upgrade to a paid plan.
Expand Your Arsenal of Music Creation Tools With BandLab Alternatives
FL Studio is another powerful DAW that allows users to create professional quality music from their computers quickly and easily. It has an extensive library of samples and effects and support for virtual instruments and MIDI controllers so you can get creative with your productions immediately.
Source: bandlabwin.com
5 PRO TOOLS ALTERNATIVES FOR RECORDING AND MIXING AUDIO
FL Studio is a versatile DAW that has been used to produce music for both popular and underground artists alike. If you are interested in making EDM, hip hop or other electronic music, FL Studio is likely the best DAW for you. Ardour is another great option if you are looking to improve your recording and mixing skills. It provides an extensive range of features to help you...
9 Adobe Audition Alternatives That Do More Than Cleaning
A favorite DAW among professional musicians, FL Studio is best for house, techno, and electronic music. Look no further if you want a one-stop solution to record, mix, master, and edit your beats.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Ardour seems to be a lot more popular than FL Studio. While we know about 110 links to Ardour, we've tracked only 6 mentions of FL Studio. 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 1 month 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: 9 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

FL Studio mentions (6)

  • Computer software
    You can try FL Studio for free, by downloading the trial from their website (https://image-line.com) I think its a forever trial, and you have access to all the stock plugins, its just restricted in various ways (you can't open saved projects, for instance) but if your just trying DAW's on for size, that won't matter. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Trance Production Bootcamp
    I don't know about Ableton, but both FL Studio and Renoise offer high-functioning demos: ( image-line.com and https://www.renoise.com/ ). Source: over 1 year ago
  • where do i get FL studio?
    Where can I get a FL studio free trial? I saw something called image-line offering FL studio downloads and looked legit. Is this where I download it? Making sure I dont download malware. Source: over 2 years ago
  • How can I get sample packs?
    Log into your account on image-line.com, click your name in the top right and select "My Licenses", look for them under the "Loops" header. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Trickle down my pantaloons
    FL studio, it's a Digital Audio Workstation Https://image-line.com. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Ardour and FL Studio, 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.

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.

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

GarageBand - GarageBand is a fully equipped music creation studio for Mac

Cubase - Cubase is one of the world’s most powerful music creation software packages. From first idea to finished recording, Cubase helps you to make outstanding music.

Studio One - Studio One raises the bar for music production software. Developed by PreSonus, this platform has been used by both professional and amateur artists to make live and studio recordings.