Audacity updates and news

[T.C. Elliott]

Audacity news. I've not delved into it, but it seems audacity is trying to collect some data and some people are upset. One person I discussed this with said, "the Linux people have even bigger issues with it. The data collection prevents it from being used by kids and this violates the GPL. Basically: It's not free software if it's not free for kids to use."

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/07/04/open-source-audacity-deemed-spyware-over-data-collection-changes

[64Guitars]

That's disappointing. I hope it gets resolved. One of the great things about open source software is that the project can be "forked". That's when somebody else takes the source code in its current state and starts changing it according to their own values and ideas as a new, independent project. The article you linked to says "Conversations on both Reddit and GitHub have include talk of a fork of Audacity into a new project, in a bid to eliminate it of the data collection and licensing alterations."  So there's hope.


On a more positive note, Audacity is working on a new Source Separation effect. This would allow you to take a pre-mixed track such as a commercial recording, for example, and split it into individual tracks for bass, drums, vocals, guitar, etc. It remains to be seen just how well this will work, but even if it's just so-so, it will be a great help in learning songs because you'll be able to focus on just one part at a time. According to their news updates, it's progressing quite well and could be available in a release very soon.

https://www.audacityteam.org/source-separation-and-extensible-mir-tools-for-audacity/

[64Guitars]

Here's another article about the data collection issue:

https://fosspost.org/audacity-is-now-a-spyware/

And here's an article about the call for a fork to a new project:

https://fosspost.org/audacity-fork-needs-help/


Update (July 6, 2021) - The story has even made it to the BBC News site: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57721967

[Ted]

Wow! Talk about good news (source separation) and bad news (spyware) about one of my favorite applications. Hopefully the threat of a fork will be enough to get the team at Muse to reconsider this. Or, minimally, make this data collection an opt-in proposition.

[64Guitars]

Audacity 3.1 was released on Tuesday, October 26, 2021. It has some nice new features that are commonly found in other popular DAWs.

https://www.audacityteam.org/audacity-3-1-is-out-now/

New features: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/new_features_in_this_release.html

Release notes: https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Release_Notes_3.1



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpA138b-J9s

[Greeny]

Nice. Thanks 64!

[guitarron]

That is a significant upgrade. I stopped using Audacity a while back because, for my needs, I was more comfortable working in reaper.
But this is worth checking out again.

[64Guitars]

Audacity 3.1.1 released today, November 11, 2021. This is a bugfix release. See the release notes.

[64Guitars]

Audacity 3.1.2 was released on 16 Nov 2021. Another bugfix release. See the release notes.

[64Guitars]

Audacity 3.1.3 was released today (Dec, 23, 2021).

https://www.audacityteam.org/audacity-3-1-3-released/

Highlights:

• Improved overall performance, but especially the loading of projects which they claim will now load up to 50x faster than version 3.1.0.
• Made it harder to accidentally create loop regions when attempting to use Timeline Quick Play.
• Added snap guides when resizing clips.
• Added new default shortcuts Shift+L (set loop to selection) and Alt+Shift+L (Clear Loop).
• Re-added selection and quick play indicators in the timeline.
• Fixed various crashes and other bugs. Details can be found in the release notes.