I like Using Ardour 2, Ardour 1 kind of sucked, but 2 is awesome. It works great with JACK, which is something you will learn to love.
When you create an new audio track, Ardour 2 makes a JACK input for that track, which is nice because then you can record multiple tracks at once in real time.
For instance, lets say you wanted to record some guitar with effects and a drum program you made on hydrogen... here is how to do it.
for this you would want 3 programs, Hydrogen, Ardour 2, and Creox (real time effects).
first and foremost start JACK.
Start by creating two tracks in Ardour (right click in the left hand frame). Connect the output from creox to the input of one of the tracks you just made on Ardour using the options item under the Effector menu in Creox, also while your hear make sure the input on creox is the input for your guitar. Now turn the effects on by clicking on the gear looking icon in the main window. Set the effects how you want and your done with that.
Then start hydrogen and load the song you want. Here to manage the connection you will need to use Patchage to connect the output of hydrogen to the next Ardour track. Patchage is not pretty, but it works very well for managing connections graphically.
now that your connections are set up set ardour to record by clicking on the record button of each track and the record button on the top, when you press play in Ardour, it will start recording.
do your stuff and thats how it works.
At first it seams like a funky interface because there are is fair amount of fiddling to do, once you get used to it though you will see that the fiddling gives you a high degree of control over your PC studio.
for mixing I like to Use Audacity, because it has a ridiculous amount of plug ins and an easy interface. I almost never record anything Using Audacity now because it doesn't work well with JACK in my experience.
I hope that has answered some of your questions. That is a very basic run around of how to use a couple of the many apps in Ubuntu Studio. Best advise is play around with the applications and find what you like best.
Linux works on modularity. For music production that means having a variety of programs that work together through JACK, compared to the windows world where you have "complete" sound studio programs that are not compatible with one another. Most apps have a specific purpose, use the ones that fit your preference and purpose.
cheers :guitar: