View Image

Audacity is an open source, cross-platform audio editor and recorder that aims to process the most popular audio formats, podcasts included. Audacity will not disappoint if you need a piece of software that can record live, convert tapes or cut and mix sounds. This utility features support for importing, processing and exporting WAV, FLAC, AIFF, AU and OGG Vorbis files. Bundled with an array of plugins and effects, this software can help you in regards to audio recording/playback, track mixing and spectrum analysis.

The rich list of effects includes noise processing, equalization, bass, high and low pass filters, as well as amplify, fade in and out, normalize, reverse, echo and phaser filters. Additional effects can be added to the program, as it supports plugins.

Audacity doesn't stand out for its interface. At first sight one wonders if this program is really going to be that easy to use. In fact, the interface sometimes makes it really hard to work with your tracks, especially when you zoom in on them for a more comfortable editing session. Besides this, I found myself constantly right-clicking on the working area and the tracks too, waiting for some handy context menu to appear but nothing came out.

After these few first minutes struggling with the interface, it's time to begin having fun. You can open as many tracks as you want by just dragging and dropping audio files onto the program's interface. Use your mouse to select the fragment you're interested in and begin working with it. You can perform the basic editing actions (cut, copy, paste) or apply effects to it. The zoom tool helps a lot when selecting small areas, as well as the chronometers found at the bottom of the program's window. Obviously, you can use the integrated player to check how your work sounds before saving the project.

Audacity features quite a large selection of filters and effects. Each one has its own setting options to adjust it to your liking. But what I loved is the possibility to preview how the filter will look on the audio track. This preview function allows novice users to test each filter before actually using it and also configure it with great accuracy.

Changes in Audacity 1.3.12

Bug fixes for:

Imports and Exports:

* AAC files could not be exported at 48000 Hz
* When importing multiple native file formats using FFmpeg, all files after the first reverted to using the native importer
* FFmpeg custom export window too large on 800 x 600 resolution monitors
* Projects froze if files imported via On-Demand were no longer available
* (Linux) WAV/AIFF exports were corrupted if overwriting an aliased file which had been imported using the command line

Labels:

* Cutting or deleting a region in the waveform and label track did not move the labels in advance of the cut
* Incorrect behavior snapping to labels and boundaries with Snap To enabled
* Labels can now be reversed if included with the audio selection
using the command line

Other bug fixes:

* When using non-English languages, Generate effects truncated the selected region
* Mice with high-precision scroll-wheels could cause a crash
* Changing recording preferences using the Transport menu did not update the menu in other open projects
* (Windows 7) Clicking in a file open or save dialog caused files or folders to disappear from the list, and file filtering was broken