Audacity updates and news

[64Guitars]

The bug has been fixed in version 2.4.1 which is available now.

https://www.audacityteam.org/audacity-2-4-1-released/

[Farrell Jackson]

Updated. Thanks again 64!

Farrell

[Redler]

Updated, thanks for the link, 64!

In my opinion it still has "a bug". If I have for example a project with 15 tracks and I would like to listen to two of them as "solo", I must mute 13 tracks. It's a bit troublesome. On my old PC I had a version which allowed to set one or more tracks to "solo mode".

[64Guitars]

In my opinion it still has "a bug". If I have for example a project with 15 tracks and I would like to listen to two of them as "solo", I must mute 13 tracks. It's a bit troublesome. On my old PC I had a version which allowed to set one or more tracks to "solo mode".

To solo more than one track, hold down the Shift key when clicking Solo.

You can also configure the behaviour of the Solo button in Edit / Preferences / Tracks / Tracks Behaviour. See https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/tracks_behaviors_preferences.html#solo.

[Greeny]

Got it on my work Mac now - thanks! Haven't used it yet, but it's a long bank holiday weekend :-)

Thanks for the heads-up!

[Redler]

 Ok, thanks a lot 64!

[64Guitars]

Version 2.4.2 was released today (June 26, 2020). Not much has changed though. It mainly updates a graphics library that it uses, though I doubt that you'll see any difference. But if you like to always have the latest version, this is it.

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

[WarpCanada]

I have several daws that I use regularly and I still find AUdacity has a growing list of uses for me.

1., After exporting from my Boss Recorder or my DAW, I do a playback in Audacity and listen for dropouts, A/D overload, or any audio glitches.  Also since it's possible to export a mix and accidentally have too long a tail (empty time without sound) or to have too short a tail (the fade out can be lost), or many other things, I feel more confident in a mix after exporting it to Audacity and listening.

2. After the "audition" of my exported mixdown I often go back into my DAW and fix mix issues I heard listening via Audacity.  Or I may even notice that the whole track isn't levelled/normalized and stays down in the -6 dB area and never approaches 0 dB.  Or I may notice that my song is a wall of 0 dB continuous ear-attack and I wonder, how will a listener enjoy a song with no buildup, and no dynamic range, that's just continuously LOUD?    For some reason seeing it as smear of digital audio Toothpaste outside the multitrack environment is very helpful.

3.  It's a great all round format convertor. 

4.  It works as a great test application for sound card driver issues.  On windows for instance, my main daw CUBASE requires ASIO, so if there's an ASIO driver issue with something and I want to know if it's the ASIO layer that's gone barkers in windows, I use Audacity to send to WASAPI audio layer in Windows, and listen through my DAW's audio interface, but without the ASIO layer's stupidity.   If the rig works but ASIO is down, it's reboot time, if I have more work to do in Cubase.

5.  I use it to fix up my dawless mixdowns from the boss BR600,  add additional fade-outs and fade-ins, EQ out something that I couldn't EQ right on the boss because I find EQing through menu diving almost impossible, and so on.

[WarpCanada]

And did you guys know Audacity has a boatload of frequency analysis and spectral editing features?  Wow!

[64Guitars]

And there's a separate Mixer screen (select "Mixer Board..." from the View menu). When I first started using Audacity many years ago, I didn't know about the Mixer Board and I was mixing my tracks from the track view screen using the little level sliders at the left of each track. The Mixer Board makes mixing much easier with its long sliders and level meters.



By the way, I just noticed a cosmetic bug in the Mixer Board. The two buttons on each track both say "Mute". The bottom one should actually say "Solo". I'm sure it did in previous versions, so this bug must have just been introduced in version 2.4.2. It's only cosmetic though. Clicking the bottom button will solo the track. You can also solo multiple tracks by holding down the Shift key as you click each track's Solo button.