Audacity 3.0 Digital Audio Editor Released With New File Format

[Michael]

Yeah, "citation needed"..

The release announcement... "Working with .aup3 projects editing audio should on most machines be a little faster than before, because there are fewer files being worked on."

[reavertm]

Yes but just below they wrote themselves:
"Finishing and closing a project at the end of working can be quite a lot slower, since there is more to do when a project is closed. We think the trade offs are worth it."

[schmidtbag]

Audacity to me has been one of the first truly successful open-source projects. At least, successful in the sense of being competitive. Aside from more complex (and frankly, undesirable) features like autotune, there isn't a whole lot it can't do. Of the features it lacks, most of them are more inconveniences than something that prevents you from getting the job done.
That being said, it seems to be best as a post-recording editing tool for mono or stereo tracks.

[reavertm]

I use it instead of Ardour or Rosegarden because those "pro tools" are just too complicated to use for me. If only they ported it to Qt. Besides that, I agree it's one of the most successful OS projects. Close to Gimp. Successful as used often by people on Windows as well.

[schmidtbag]

I use it instead of Ardour or Rosegarden because those "pro tools" are just too complicated to use for me. If only they ported it to Qt. Besides that, I agree it's one of the most successful OS projects. Close to Gimp. Successful as used often by people on Windows as well.

I would say it's far better than GIMP. GIMP is what people use when they can't afford to use something better and don't want to pirate something, or, when they don't do enough image editing to make commercial software worth buying. I like GIMP better than most people but it is pretty far behind other image editors. Audacity is something people use because they actually want to.

But yeah, a Qt port would be great.

[torsionbar28]

Still using that ugly interface?

I actually prefer these older Motif-like gui elements. They are very clearly defined with good contrast, and gui consistency over the years is a good thing. Remember when Microsoft switched Office to the "ribbon" menu, and people spent years re-learning where everything was at? All the training manuals had to be re-written. All the knowledgebase and howto articles had to be re-worked. It was a giant productivity hole and for no reason. I hate that ribbon. Some things are better left the same, even if that means not keeping up with the latest visual style trend du jour.

[ix900]

I would say it's far better than GIMP. GIMP is what people use when they can't afford to use something better and don't want to pirate something, or, when they don't do enough image editing to make commercial software worth buying. I like GIMP better than most people but it is pretty far behind other image editors. Audacity is something people use because they actually want to.

But yeah, a Qt port would be great.

I use both because I want to. Even if I have money to burn on something else, still wouldn't. So we both only have opinions and they are opposite that way.

That said, haven't really used Audacity for some years now. Its been broken as hell on my OS. Its been so bad that when I tried it recently it crashed and crashed and crashed some more. Possibly 3.0 will fix that.

[Sonadow]

I use it instead of Ardour or Rosegarden because those "pro tools" are just too complicated to use for me. If only they ported it to Qt. Besides that, I agree it's one of the most successful OS projects. Close to Gimp. Successful as used often by people on Windows as well.

Don't kid yourself.

The only reason people on Windows use GIMP or Audacity is cost. They have no desire to buy expensive software like Adobe Photoshop, Logic Pro or Pro Tools.

[Calinou]

To be fair, it does use a lot of custom widgetry with theming that lags behind native widgets... especially the big round transport controls that are still present in various LTS distro releases.

That reminds me, has there been any efforts towards creating a cross-platform dark theme for Audacity? I don't remember if wxWidgets has much in the way of custom theming…

[Dr. Righteous]

Audacity to me has been one of the first truly successful open-source projects. At least, successful in the sense of being competitive. Aside from more complex (and frankly, undesirable) features like autotune, there isn't a whole lot it can't do. Of the features it lacks, most of them are more inconveniences than something that prevents you from getting the job done.
That being said, it seems to be best as a post-recording editing tool for mono or stereo tracks.

Would agree. It work but unfortunately it relies on some pretty antiquated librarys for audio affects and codecs. So operations are single threaded and time consuming.