Audacity updates and news

[64Guitars]

Audacity 2.3.0 released today - Sept. 29, 2018

"Many new features, and over 90 bugs fixed (since 2.2.2)."

https://www.audacityteam.org/audacity-2-3-0-released/

[Farrell Jackson]

Hi 64. Do you know if the latest version has the silence feature in the edit section like the older versions of Audacity had? I found that very useful when editing unwanted sound out of a track between vocals. Now I have to reduce the volume by the maximum to get a similar result. Also, do you know of another way to do it?

Farrell

[64Guitars]

Hi 64. Do you know if the latest version has the silence feature in the edit section like the older versions of Audacity had? I found that very useful when editing unwanted sound out of a track between vocals. Now I have to reduce the volume by the maximum to get a similar result. Also, do you know of another way to do it?

Do you mean where you select a section of audio, then press Ctrl+L to completely silence the highlighted section? If so, that's still there and I've never noticed it to be missing from any previous version. Perhaps that's because I've always used the Ctrl+L shortcut rather than selecting it from a menu and it's possible that they moved the menu location between versions. I'm not sure where it was originally in the menus but in 2.3.0 it's in the Edit menu under "Remove Special". I assume the menus and shortcuts are the same in the Windows and Mac versions as they are in the Linux version which is what I'm using.

[Farrell Jackson]

Yes that's it. I've not used the Ctrl+L shortcut before but that does work. I saw the "Silence Audio" was missing but I didn't look far enough in the "Remove Special" menu. That's much easier than using the decreased volume. Thanks for clearing that up for me 64!

Farrell

[64Guitars]

Audacity 2.3.2 was released yesterday (May 13, 2019). It has over 20 bug fixes and a few minor improvements. The biggest improvement only affects new users; the LAME mp3 encoder is now built-in for Windows and Mac versions of Audacity. In the past, you'd have to find LAME online, then download it and install it to give Audacity the ability to export mp3 files. That was due to patents on the mp3 format which prevented the Audacity developers from including mp3 support with Audacity. But those mp3 patents have now expired, so Audacity will ship with built-in mp3 support from now on. Currently, it's only in the Windows and Mac versions; Linux users still have to install LAME separately. I'm not sure why that is but it's not a problem for most Linux users.

https://www.audacityteam.org/audacity-2-3-2-released/

https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/New_features_in_Audacity_2.3.2

[Farrell Jackson]

Got it, thanks for heads up 64!

[64Guitars]

Audacity 2.4.0 was released today (May 16, 2020).

https://www.audacityteam.org/

The Mac version now works on Catalina.

There are also lots of new features and bug fixes for all versions (Linux, Mac, Windows).

https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/New_features_in_Audacity_2.4.0

[Flash Harry]

That's today's job...

[Farrell Jackson]

Got it ! Thanks again 64 for keeping us updated on the latest versions of Audacity!

Farrell

[64Guitars]

Oops! A serious bug has been found in Audacity 2.4.0 which causes loss/corruption of audio, so they've temporarily removed it from Downloads while they investigate.

https://www.audacityteam.org/audacity-2-4-0-released/

So you might want to avoid 2.4.0 until the bug is fixed. Presumably, that will be released soon as version 2.4.1.