aRts, which stands for analog Real time synthesizer, is an application that simulates an analog synthesizer under KDE/Linux. One key component of aRts is the soundserver which mixes several soundstreams in realtime. The soundserver called aRtsd (d for Daemon (computer software)) is also utilized as the standard soundserver for KDE. The soundserver is not dependent on KDE and can be used in other projects. It is a direct competitor to JACK Audio Connection Kit, another real-time sound server.

The aRts platform also includes aRts Builder - an application for building custom layouts and configurations for audio mixers, sequencers, synthesizers and other audio schema via a user-friendly graphical user interface.

=Future of aRts=

On December 2, 2004 aRts creator and primary developer Stefan Westerfeld [http://www.arts-project.org/doc/arts-maintenance.html announced] he was leaving the project due to a variety of fundamental development and technical issues with aRts. The future of aRts is uncertain, but it is likely to have few new developments and be replaced with another audio engine in KDE 4.

= External links =