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QTRACTOR AN AUDIO/MIDI MULTI-TRACK SEQUENCER

 * Home
   * Intro
   * Screenshots
   * Features
   * Requirements
   * Downloads
   * Installation
   * Configuration
   * Bugs
   * Support
   * Acknowledgements
 * Downloads
   * Git
 * Screenshots
 * Documentation


WHAT'S QTRACTOR ?

Qtractor is an Audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer application written in C++ with
the Qt framework. Target platform is Linux, where the Jack Audio Connection Kit
(JACK) for audio, and the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) for MIDI, are
the main infrastructures to evolve as a fairly-featured Linux desktop audio
workstation GUI, specially dedicated to the personal home-studio.

Qtractor is free, open-source software, distributed under the terms of the GNU
General Public License (GPL) version 2 or later.

Project page: https://sourceforge.net/projects/qtractor

Weblog: https://www.rncbc.org

Wiki: https://sourceforge.net/p/qtractor/wiki/

 * User Manual & How-To's:
   qtractor-manual-and-howtos.epub
   qtractor-manual-and-howtos.pdf




SCREENSHOTS


Click on image to see more screenshots...


FEATURES

 * Multi-track audio and MIDI sequencing and recording.
 * Developed on the Qt C++ application an UI framework.
 * Uses JACK for audio and ALSA sequencer for MIDI as multimedia
   infrastructures.
 * Traditional multi-track tape recorder control paradigm.
 * Audio file formats support: OGG (via libvorbis), MP3 (via libmad, playback
   only), WAV, FLAC, AIFF and many, many more (via libsndfile).
 * Standard MIDI files support (format 0 and 1).
 * Non-destructive, non-linear editing.
 * Unlimited number of tracks per session/project.
 * Unlimited number of overlapping clips per track.
 * XML encoded session/project description files (SDI).
 * Point-and-click, multi-select, drag-and-drop interaction (drag, move, drop,
   cut, copy, paste, paste-repeat, delete, split, merge, freeze)
 * Unlimited undo/redo.
 * Built-in mixer and monitor controls.
 * Built-in connection patchbay control and persistence (a-la QjackCtl).
 * LADSPA, DSSI, native VST(2), VST3, LV2 and CLAP plug-ins support.
 * Unlimited number of plug-ins per track or bus.
 * Plug-in presets, programs and chunk/configurations support, including native
   VST FXB/FXP file support.
 * Unlimited audio/MIDI effect send/return inserts per track or bus.
 * Loop-recording/takes.
 * Audio/MIDI clip fade-in/out, cross-fade (linear, quadratic, cubic).
 * Audio/MIDI clip gain/volume, normalize, export.
 * Audio/MIDI track and plugin parameter automation (dynamic curves,
   sample&hold, linear and spline modes).
 * Audio clip time-stretching (WSOLA-like or via librubberband), pitch-shifting
   (via librubberband) and seamless sample-rate conversion (via libsamplerate).
 * Audio/MIDI track export (mix-down, render, merge).
 * Audio/MIDI metronome bar/beat clicks.
 * Unlimited tempo/time-signature map.
 * Unlimited location/bar markers.
 * MIDI clip editor (matrix/piano roll).
 * MIDI instrument definitions (a-la Cakewalk(tm) (*.ins));
   SoundFont (*.sf2) and MIDI Names XML (*.midnam) files also supported.
 * MIDI controller mapping/learn/assignment (mixer and plug-in parameters).
 * MIDI system exclusive (SysEx) setups.
 * JACK transport sync master/slave.
 * JACK session support.
 * NSM (Non/New Session Management) support.
 * MMC control surface enabled.
 * MIDI Clock, Song Position Pointer (SPP) support.
 * Configurable PC-keyboard and MIDI controller shortcuts.


REQUIREMENTS

The software requirements for build and runtime are listed as follows:

Mandatory:

 * Qt framework (core, gui, xml), C++ class library and tools for cross-platform
   application and UI development
   https://qt.io/
 * JACK Audio Connection Kit
   https://jackaudio.org/
 * ALSA, Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
   https://www.alsa-project.org/
 * libsndfile, C library for reading and writing files containing sampled sound
   http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile/
 * LADSPA, Linux Audio Developer's Simple Plugin API
   http://www.ladspa.org/

Optional (opted-in at build time):

 * libvorbis (enc, file), Ogg Vorbis audio compression
   https://xiph.org/vorbis/
 * libmad, High-quality MPEG audio decoder
   https://www.underbit.com/products/mad/
 * libsamplerate, The secret rabbit code, C library for audio sample rate
   conversion
   http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/
 * librubberband, Rubber Band Audio Time Stretcher,
   an audio time-stretching and pitch-shifting library
   https://breakfastquay.com/rubberband/
 * liblo, Lightweight OSC implementation
   (needed for DSSI GUI and/or NSM support)
   http://liblo.sourceforge.net/
 * DSSI, An API for soft synth plugins with custom user interfaces
   http://dssi.sourceforge.net/
 * VST SDK, Steinberg's Virtual Studio Technology
   https://www.steinberg.net/
 * LV2, Audio Plugin Standard, the extensible successor of LADSPA
   http://lv2plug.in/
 * liblilv, Lightweight LV2 implementation stack
   https://drobilla.net/software/lilv
   https://drobilla.net/software/sratom
   https://drobilla.net/software/sord
   https://drobilla.net/software/serd
 * libaubio, a library for real time audio labelling
   https://aubio.org




DOWNLOADS

Qtractor's already in some kind of beta stage of development and hence fully
functional. Though, the bleeding-edge development source tree is readily
available from the sourceforge's public Git repository.

LATEST RELEASE

2024-01-27 - A Winter'24 Release.
qtractor-0.9.39.tar.gz

 * Added build checks on whether to use old or newer style of LV2 include
   headers.
 * Introducing new Transport/Step/Backward and Forward menu actions, to move the
   play-head backward and forward, in bar/beat/fraction (snap-per-beat) steps,
   respectively.
 * Introducing View/Options.../Display/Custom/Style sheet (*.qss) application
   theming option.
 * Improved MIDI clip editor centering to current mouse pointer position in main
   timeline (tracks-view); on both horizontal and vertical axes.
 * LV2 Plug-in Control Input Port-change request extension feature support
   added.
 * Fixed an old one-off plug-in parameter change command aliasing (undo/redo).
 * Updated copyright headers into the New Year (2024).

Previous and older pre-releases, including the change log, are also available
here.

You can browse all files available for download, including binary packages, at
Qtractor Files on SourceForge.net.


INSTALLATION

Unpack the tarball and in the extracted source directory:

> cmake [-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=prefix] -B build
> 
> cmake --build build [--parallel Njobs]

and optionally as root:

> [sudo] cmake --install build

Note that the default installation path prefix is /usr/local .


CONFIGURATION

Qtractor holds its settings and configuration state per user, in a file located
as $HOME/.config/rncbc.org/Qtractor.conf. Normally, there's no need to edit this
file, as it is recreated and rewritten everytime qtractor is run.


BUGS

Probably plenty still, Qtractor maybe considered on beta stage already.


SUPPORT

Qtractor is open source free software. For bug reports, feature requests,
discussion forums, mailling lists, or any other matter related to the
development of this piece of software, please use the Sourceforge project page.

You can also find timely and closer contact information on my personal web site.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The dated Qtractor quick start guide and user manual for version 0.5.x has been
authored by Seth Kenlon & Klaatu.

The older user manual for version 0.3.0 and before, have been co-authored by
James Laco Hines and Stephen Doonan.

Qtractor logo/icon is an original work of Andy Fitzsimon, borrowed from the
public domain openclipart.org gallery.

A special mention should also go to the translators of Qtractor, of course:

 * Pavel Fric (cs)
 * Guido Scholz (de)
 * David Reyes Pucheta (es)
 * Yann Colette (fr)
 * Olivier Humbert (fr)
 * Massimo Callegari (it)
 * Takashi Sakamoto (ja)
 * Esteban Viveros (pt)
 * Alexandre Prokoudine (ru)

And, of course, last but not least, to all the past, present and future
contributors of the Qtractor Wiki.

Thank you all.


Enjoy,

rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela
rncbc at rncbc dot org