Qtractor is a

hard disk recorder A hard disk recorder (HDR) is a system that uses a high-capacity hard disk to record digital audio or digital video. Hard disk recording systems represent an alternative to reel-to-reel audio tape recording and video tape recorders, and provide ...

and

digital audio workstation A digital audio workstation (DAW) is an electronic device or application software used for recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software program on a laptop, to an integra ...

application for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

. Qtractor is written in C++ and is based on the Qt framework. Its author is Rui Nuno Capela, who is also responsible for the Qjackctl, Qsynth and Qsampler line of

audio software. Qtractor's intention was to provide

software simple enough for the average home user, and yet powerful enough for the professional user. Released under the terms of the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end user In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user) is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ulti ...

, Qtractor is a

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

application.

Overview

Qtractor is a non-destructive digital audio and MIDI multi-track composition sequencer and arranger software application. It does not affect, alter or modify the audio and/or MIDI files that are displayed as Clip Objects. Exceptions are files resulting from capture and recording operations or from explicit changes made through specialized Clip editing (e.g., MIDI Editor). Qtractor was simply the hobby project of one developer. Development was started in April 2005, initially as a Qt3 application. Since October 2006, it is officially a Qt4 application. Meanwhile, it can be built against Qt5. Qtractor is natively hardwired and exclusive to the JACK Audio Connection Kit infrastructure, and the ALSA sequencer for MIDI. It is a

-only application.

Features

*Supports all sample rates, only restricted by hardware. *Supports multiple audio file formats, both compressed and uncompressed, including older formats such as 8SVX and

.iff Interleaved Bitmap (ILBM) is an image file format conforming to the Interchange File Format (IFF) standard. The format originated on the Amiga platform, and on IBM-compatible systems, files in this format or the related PBM (Planar Bitmap) forma ...

. *Clip editing and automatic or manual

time stretching Time stretching may refer to: * Audio time stretching and pitch scaling, in audio * Time stretching, in video * Time dilation In physics and relativity, time dilation is the difference in the elapsed time as measured by two clocks. It is ei ...

abilities. *Supports most major audio and MIDI file formats and most

plugin technologies. *Clips may be easily edited by dragging the left or right edges for cropping, or even for timeshifting, by using the shift key modifier. *Qtractor may be used in an

audio mastering Mastering, a form of audio post production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device (the master), the source from which all copies will be produced (via meth ...

environment. Its integration with

JACK Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, ...

makes it possible to use mastering tools such as JAMin to process the audio data. *Qtractor has both an audio and MIDI metronome with user selectable audio samples. *Easily move and copy plugins (with params) among tracks. *Keyboard commands (hotkeys) are entirely customizable. *Audition audio files within the Files dialog. *Built-in Qjackctl Connections dialog. *Supports

LADSPA LADSPA is an acronym for Linux Audio Developer's Simple Plugin API. It is an application programming interface (API) standard for handling audio filters and audio signal processing effects, licensed under LGPL-2.1-or-later. It was originally d ...

, DSSI (this includes DSSI-VST wrapper), native

VST (version 2 and 3), CLAP and LV2 plugins.

Compatibility

Qtractor relies on plugins to enable many features from

audio effects Audio effect may refer to: *Audio signal processing, effects applied to sounds in music production and performance *Effects unit, a device that processes sound *Sound effect A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or en ...

processing to

dynamic Dynamics (from Greek δυναμικός ''dynamikos'' "powerful", from δύναμις ''dynamis'' " power") or dynamic may refer to: Physics and engineering * Dynamics (mechanics) ** Aerodynamics, the study of the motion of air ** Analytical dyna ...

control. Qtractor supports the

plugin architecture, as well as DSSI, native

VST (versions 2 and 3), , CLAP and LV2. Support for

Steinberg Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH (trading as Steinberg) is a German musical software and hardware company based in Hamburg. It develops music writing, recording, arranging, and editing software, most notably Cubase, Nuendo, and Dorico. It als ...

's VST plugin standard with

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are ...

is available using the DSSI-VST wrapper. Qtractor stores these connections, and re-establishes them when a project is reloaded.

References

Qtractor home page

External links

Project home page
{{Audio editors Free audio editors Free music software Free software programmed in C++ Audio editing software that uses Qt Audio software with JACK support Digital audio workstation software Software derived from or incorporating Wine Digital audio editors for Linux Linux-only free software

Overview

Features

Compatibility

See also

References

External links