Audacity 4 Rebuilds the Open Source Audio Editor But Leaves Some Features Behind (nerds.xyz) 31
BrianFagioli writes: Audacity 4.0 has been released with a rebuilt Qt interface, a new clip-editing model, customizable workspaces, native high-DPI rendering, and a new AUP4 project format. The open source audio editor also adds ASIO playback and recording support to official Windows builds, while bringing major changes to recording, playback, plugins, and project handling. The overhaul comes with some tradeoffs. Audacity 4.0 currently lacks several features found in Audacity 3, including Time Tracks, Note and MIDI tracks, Mixer, Macro Manager and scripting pipe, VAMP and LADSPA plugin hosting, and play-at-speed. The developers say they plan to bring the missing functionality back in future releases.
"bring the missing functionality back in future" (Score:5, Interesting)
Whenever I see this sort of statement, it means it's gone. If they could readily do it in a non-janky way, they'd have done it before release; the re-architecture was too fundamental to accommodate it. Particularly on an open source project, where nobody is forcing them to release on a specific schedule.
Re:"bring the missing functionality back in future (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this is generally true, but at the same time don't forget that OSS is built by highly motivated people.
In other words, it doesn't matter if a thousand people all say "we want this" ... if no one is willing to implement it. But, if even one user cares enough about the feature to build a patch for it (that the maintainers will accept), virtually any lost feature could be recovered.
Re:"bring the missing functionality back in future (Score:5, Insightful)
Open source doesn't rely simply on users making code changes, it relies on a specific subset of users. Feature developers are users who are also coders and who are also able to get up to speed on the project and who are also skilled enough to implement it and are also able to navigate the politics of the project.
If the feature didn't get implemented, that person for the original implementation has probably already left the project long ago. In many cases because they weren't a supporter of the re-architecture.
It could be because a given feature-developer wanted the production release before they wanted that feature, which would sound plausible if it were one or two significant features left behind. But once you have to start counting the missing major functionality on more than one hand, that points more at the fundamentals of the re-architecture than personal feature-developer priorities.
Re:"bring the missing functionality back in future (Score:4, Interesting)
and are also able to navigate the politics of the project.
IME most projects don't have a whole lot by the way of those. I've made drive-by contribs (i.e. one offs) on a number of projects, usually minor bugfixes, minor feature enhancements, that sort of thing. For small projects, you send a patch or PR. For bigger ones, read the contributor docs, format it in the expected format and send the PR. I've never had anything other than respectful back-and-forth. Sometimes my changes are accepted, other times it's inspired the maintainer to do their own fix instead.
Bigger projects, especially those with substantial commercial involvement can go weird places though.
Re: "bring the missing functionality back in futur (Score:2)
Re:"bring the missing functionality back in future (Score:5, Insightful)
Audacity has been on a very long journey to modernize itself. It wouldn't shock me to learn that they shipped it with functions that are being most widely used or easiest to carry over just to get over the hurdle of getting a major release out the door. It's a beloved tool; I know a bunch of people for whom it's a production linchpin, and I think the developers working on are aware of the number of edge cases where only some tiny fraction of their users make use of a feature. Those people can stay on version 3 for now.
IIRC, a lot of what needed to happen with Audacity was an overall change in user interfaces, which required a lot of deep thought about how people interact with the application. It may be that some of the unhandled features just don't align with the current user experience.
Re:"bring the missing functionality back in future (Score:5, Informative)
The same was said about MuseScore. And here we are, four years after v4.0 was tagged, still unable to save midi files with the current volume settings like v3.x did.
Did you know that the company that acquired MuseScore in 2017 is the same company that acquired Audacity in 2021?
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posting to cancel moderation
Huh (Score:1)
Purely coincidentally asked Omarchy to clone and build the same just a minute ago - able to record background office noise and play it back ðY
Downloading felt very scammy (Score:3)
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I have seen that happen on some sites. There's a re-direction to download something that is not connected with the thing you're after. You can usually get around it, but watch out for it.
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I believe he's talking about the front page, not the download page. As in https://www.audacityteam.org/ [audacityteam.org] . With a large red bubble around Download Audacity 4.0 and an unhighlighted link to Download Without MuseHub.
Whether it's shady is in the eye of the beholder. Is it shady to promote another free product by the same group, or is that just marketing? Personally, it's slightly shady but not that big of a deal.
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Last time I rebuilt my PC a few months back I downloaded Audacity, off their official site, and whatever that Muse crap is definitely snuck onto the computer without my intent.
If they've changed the arrangement since then, good, but at least a few months ago there were definitely some dark patterns at a minimum pushing people towards the bloatware installer.
Re:Not sure what it's for exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never met a DAW that didn't have a nightmare UI.
Audacity does not.
If I just want to futz with a audio clip, Audacity is the first choice.
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I've never met a DAW that didn't have a nightmare UI.
Best I've ever used is the old Syntrillium CoolEditPro, before Adobe screwed it up in the later versions of Audition.
Second best is Live. It's fairly intuitive for doing basic things. It gets iffy when doing more complicated track layouts, but all DAWs do.
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Re:Not sure what it's for exactly (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed. It's a no-nonsense way to do basic audio tasks. I use other DAWs (Reaper at the moment) for more complicated things, but Audacity has one killer feature which is loopback recording -- allows easy recording from online sources, videos, etc., anything that goes through your computer speakers.
I just tried the new version, and the UI is clean and friendly, and the loopback feature is still there!
It's not ready then (Score:4, Insightful)
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How has anyone here been screwed? It's audacity, not windows 11. Precisely zero people are forced to upgrade and the software still works the way it always does.
Tenacity Fork (Score:5, Informative)
Impressed. (Score:2)
It sucks that they haven't fully reimplemented some features BUT one thing I was going to say was "unless they rewrote it in C++ using Qt then they shouldn't have bothered" and I was aghast to learn that is exactly what they did!
Considering the new possibilities opened by changing to Qt (people really underestimate it's power), I look forward to seeing what they do next.
MuseScore 4 also dropped MIDI output (Score:2)
And never put it back. It's unconscionable. These features will not be back. I'm sticking with Musescore 3.
There's an hour long overview (Score:1)
About a year ago, the project lead for Audacity posted an almost-hour-long video to youtube that goes over their work updating to Audacity 4. It's mostly a PR video, but it does go over their process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The reason they give is (and I'm paraphrasing and cherry-picking heavily here) that they're making a decision to deliver something useful now, even if it doesn't contain all features, especially since 3.7 is still available. It also gives them a cutoff point so they can start wo
Racoons.... (Score:2)
When devs release new versions with a prettier interface and missing features I always assume they're prepping the product or company to be sold or they're trying to get money from donors or investors.
Investors are like racoons, they love shiny things.
Audacity 1.2.6 was the peak (Score:1)
I run Audacity 1.2.6, and refuse to use anything newer.
Whatever idiots took over the project and built 2.0 should have stuck to their anime and left FOSS development to people who knew how to use a PC.
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I run Audacity 1.2.6, and refuse to use anything newer.
I find the realtime effects in Audacity 3 pretty handy, though they're a rather limited selection. For example, I use a separate Nyquist plugin for nicer compression, which means it's not realtime. I try not to rely too much on a single piece of software, as they seem to come and go, and maintaining old versions on up-to-date distributions is not fun.
Whatever idiots took over the project and built 2.0 should have stuck to their anime and left FOSS development to people who knew how to use a PC.
Real Men (TM) use Ecasound for multitrack processing on the command line, like I did back in the 00s.
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I prefer OBS for live production.
I have Adobe Audition, but I use FOSS Audacity 1.2.6 or Adobe Premiere Pro to edit recorded audio. Premiere Pro has such awesome effects available with a click or three, and I'm used it its interface. I wish Audition was just a subset of Premiere Pro.