Stargate, New Open-Source Digital Audio Station for Linux

Ardor usually takes center stage when it comes to open-source digital audio stations (DAW), however, that does not mean that it is the only option, so we are going to take the opportunity to present Stargate , another application the same type of recent creation (more or less) that aims to be “a comprehensive audio production solution, with everything you need to make music on a computer . “

As the description of the application itself published in the GitHub repository suggests , its objective is to be a self-sufficient solution with everything necessary for creating music , offering “a powerful workflow based on patterns” , “a full set of built-in instrument and effect plug-ins ” and a basic wave editor.

Stargate also has, according to the features published in its GitHub repository, a powerful track routing matrix with lateral chaining and a modular mixer architecture. In theory, it works on Linux, Windows and macOS covering x86 and ARM processors, but for now the latest version of the application only has installers for Linux on ARM and x86 and Windows on x86. It is programmed in C and PyQt mainly and has been designed and developed in such a way that it is easy to port to other platforms.

Another feature that Stargate boasts is that it is very well optimized , being able to work on a Raspberry Pi 4 or on a computer from fifteen years ago, since its requirements for x86 are a dual-core processor (seeing the amount of indicated time, we assume that it will refer to an Intel Core 2 Duo), 1GB of RAM and can work on a screen with a resolution of 720p. It is also capable of adapting to 4K displays for those users who work in professional environments.

The latest version of Stargate is 10.21.11 , which has brought many fixes for the brand new Fedora 35, another for a bug where the main track was called “audio out” in some places, and more fixes for the audio elements. and the sampler. Right now there are only installers for Fedora 34 on x86 64-bit, Debian 11 on x86 64-bit, Raspbian on ARM, Ubuntu 20.04 on x86 64-bit, and Windows 64-bit. For other Linux systems, you can consult the compilation instructions.

Stargate is free software since its code is published under the GPLv3 license. We will see how it fares in the future, but at least it cannot be denied that the project has its ambitions. As a curiosity, the name of the application is apparently taken from the science fiction saga that began with a novel and a movie in the 90s of the last century and then led to several series as a spin-off that appeared in later times.