Almost every available function in Ardour can be bound to a keyboard shortcut (and those few that cannot will usually respond to an OSC command). Ardour comes with a rich set of default key bindings for the most commonly used functions.

These bindings strive to be mnemonic, that is, easy and intuitive to remember, and follow widely accepted conventions. As a general rule, the first letter of an operation will be used for as a shortcut, if available. This does not necessarily lead to the best ergonomics for rapid editing—there are alternative binding sets for that—but it does make it simpler for newcomers to remember some of the most useful ones, for example
S for Region > Edit > Split" or
P for Transport > Playhead > Playhead to Mouse.

Existing key bindings in menus are listed on the right side of the menu items. To create a custom key binding for a menu item quickly, navigate to the relevant (sub-) menu, hover over the item with the mouse and press the desired combination of modifiers and key.

Ardour will silently re-assign the binding if you use a key combination that is already in use, possibly removing a standard keyboard shortcut without warning you. That might lead to confusion when you ask other users for help, and they explain something in terms of a standard key binding, which will then have a completely different effect on your system.

Almost every key binding in Ardour can be looked for and/or changed in Window > Key Bindings.

The conventions for using modifier keys ( ,  ,   etc.) differ among platforms, so we provide different default bindings for each.