

Audacity 2.0 Released - thenextcorner
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/news?id=2012-03-13/2.0-release

======
haberman
Wow; I was one of the first developers to work on Audacity way back in 2001,
but I haven't kept up with its development in a long time. It's exciting to
see a new major release.

I'm always amazed and proud at how widely I see Audacity being used. Most
recently I spent the 5 weeks as a juror on a criminal trial, and I saw
Audacity installed on the prosecutor's computer.

~~~
mbrubeck
It sure has been a long time, hasn't it? Audacity 2.0 has been in development
since 2005 (in form of the "unstable" 1.3.x series)!

haberman and I first met when I started contributing to Audacity more than a
decade ago. Later he helped me apply for a job at Amazon.com and we became
teammates. Since then we've drifted away from Audacity development, both left
Amazon to work in startups, and haberman is now at Google while I ended up at
Mozilla, but we are still good friends and keep in touch -- and also debate
technical minutia on HN. :)

Audacity has always been short on developers for a project with such a large
userbase, so development has often been slow. But the contributor community
was one of the friendliest I've been involved in, thanks in large part to the
great stewardship of Audacity's creator Dominic Mazzoni. If you use Audacity,
please consider checking out the code and fixing a bug or two!

~~~
haberman
Yep! Not to mention Dominic also helped me get the jobs at both Amazon and
Google. Working on Audacity in college and meeting all these people was such a
great experience and opened up so many doors. One time I even picked up Monty
of Ogg Vorbis fame from the airport to go to an Audacity Hackathon.

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robgough
I love this app, that it's free and easy to use for the hospital radio station
I help run. So thanks to all those involved.

Is there anyone with some design chops who can't help them out though?

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mark_l_watson
I use Audacity all the time: with customers' permission, I will record short
bits of our Skype calls if I think that later I might want to refer back to
directions, requirements, etc. This saves needless note taking.

Great app!

~~~
callmeed
Sorry, but I haven't used Audacity in a while ... how exactly do you record
Skype calls with it? Is there some sort of integration with the app or your
sound card?

~~~
jodoherty
This isn't what he's doing, but if you use an audio routing system like jackd
on Linux or Soundflower on Mac OS X, you can capture audio output from one
application (flash youtube videos, Skype, iTunes, etc.), mix it with your
system input, route the superposition of both signals to Audacity, and record
everything into the same stream. You can also use audio routing to mix a
conversation into the input of an icecast server. That way you can stream a
live Skype conversation mixed with music and sound effects into an Internet
radio show while also recording and monitoring it.

<http://jackaudio.org/>

<http://cycling74.com/products/soundflower/>

~~~
5xz41s0P8T5N
OS X: Audio Hijack (USD 32)
<http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/buy.php>

~~~
dfc
Save $32:

    
    
      apt-get install jackd2

~~~
getsat
You mean:

    
    
      brew install jack

~~~
dfc
Haha. Definitely not for me, but you are correct given the impetus brew is
more apropos.

------
AndyKelley
Summary of release notes:

* Many effects significantly improved, especially Equalization, Noise Removal and Normalize. Vocal Remover now included plus GVerb on Windows and Mac. VAMP analysis plug-ins now supported.

* Improved label tracks with Sync-Lock Tracks feature in the Tracks Menu. Multiple clips per track. Tracks and selections can be fully manipulated using the keyboard. Many more keyboard shortcuts.

* New Device Toolbar to manage inputs and outputs. Timer Record feature. New Mixer Board view with per-track VU meters.

* Automatic Crash Recovery in the event of abnormal program termination.

* Fast "On-Demand" import of WAV/AIFF files if read directly from source. FLAC now fully supported. Added support for optional FFmpeg library for import/export of AC3/M4A/WMA and import of audio from video files.

This hardly seems to justify a leap from 1.3. That and the fact that selection
and playback _still_ work in the most counter-intuitive way imaginable.

~~~
mbrubeck
_> This hardly seems to justify a leap from 1.3._

Audacity uses even/odd version numbering for stable/unstable release branches,
like the Linux kernel once did:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning#Odd-
number...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning#Odd-
numbered_versions_for_development_releases)

So when Audacity 1.0 was released, new feature development moved to the 1.1
branch, while the 1.0 branch received only bug fixes. When the 1.1 branch was
considered "finished" it became the new stable version 1.2.0, and the 1.0
branch was abandoned. Then new feature development moved to the 1.3 branch,
which has now been released as the new stable version Audacity 2.0.

If I remember right, many of the major changes between the 1.1/1.2 series and
the 1.3/2.0 series were under the hood, such as support for new versions of
Portaudio and wxWidgets (which added compatibility for newer hardware and
operating systems), improvements to the file format, and enhancements to the
importers.

~~~
freebullets
Why not release it as 1.4?

~~~
mbrubeck
Since there's no "right" answer for version numbers, it's hard to answer
questions like this. If the developers feel that 2.0 is a good number for
their new release, then who are we to argue with them? (And why should we care
in the first place about what number appears in an about box somewhere..?)

It's been eight years since Audacity 1.2 was released (and at least six years
since 1.3 development began), and the code has seen pretty major changes in
that time even though they happened gradually and not all are obvious from
looking at the UI. I think it's fair to call 2.0 a major upgrade from 1.0 and
1.2.

Or to look at it another way: If you haven't changed the major version number
after ten years of development, then you'll probably never change it. And if
you're never going to change that number, it's redundant and you might as well
drop it. (This is roughly what the Linux kernel did when it switched from
2.6.x.y to 3.x.y after fifteen years of 2.x releases.)

------
shaydoc
I love audacity, it started me and my bro off on our music recording road. My
bro recently produced his album with it! "Shaky Horse"
<http://declandoherty.bandcamp.com/>

~~~
omegant
Nice songs, I would love to see them a bit more produced though. The guitars
are beatifully recorded but the voice is somewhat more irregular. Keep the
good job!

~~~
shaydoc
thanks for taking the time to have a listen, I agree with you on getting them
produced a bit better also!

------
dfc
Whenever I have used audacity to do simple audio edits I feel like I am using
an elephant gun for a fly swatter. For some reason I never feel the same way
when I use gimp to do the equivalent minor image modification.

~~~
lmm
Really? I find the opposite; gimp has a two minute load time and an interface
that expects you to study it. Audacity opens up and gives you big obvious
buttons for the simple things - if anything it looks too simple, as if all you
can do is basic cutting and splicing.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Exactly. I use Paint.NET for most of my work with images; GIMP is used as a
last resort, if PDN is missing a feature I really need at that moment.

------
akurilin
Audacity is a great free tool in the arsenal of a budding musician and
transcriber. You can slow down tracks without changing pitch to try to
understand what notes are being played.

Coupled with Reaper, also free if you're a big cheapo, somewhat analogously to
the WinRar model, you get so much great functionality for so little.

------
VMG
it works great but some visual polish wouldn't hurt...

~~~
leviathant
Agreed. I was really hoping that with 2.0, there would be at least some
attempt at refining the interface.

Compare the interface to Reaper (The Cockos team has three main contributors,
right?), Cubase or Vegas, or if you want to get shiny, Propellerheads or
Line6.

A fresh coat of paint goes a long way.

~~~
akira2501
Sorry to be snarky; but, compare $0 (Audacity) to $225 (reaper), $500
(cubase), $600 (vegas), $130 (Propellerheads).

~~~
leviathant
Having bought and upgraded Vegas & Cubase, and evaluated Reaper (which is $0
for cripple-free evaluation & $60 for a non-commercial license) I am fully
aware of the cost. Winamp (made by one of the guys behind Reaper) was free,
even before AOL bought Nullsoft, and still managed to look better than every
other MP3 player out there.

There are people who have offered their services, presumably free of charge. I
think Audacity would be a lot more inviting if more effort was put into the
look and usability of the interface. Need money? Come up with a plan and a
Kickstarter page.

I'm not saying it should be a DAW. I'm just saying it should look like
something that was released in 2012, rather than something that was released
in 1998.

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frigite_
I love Audacity. The only thing I'd like to see changed is labelling/splits.
It is a pain in the ass to the point that I usually just cut the start and end
off save that and then undo.

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genu1
To all my Mac users out there: What are you using to record Skype calls?
Anyone know if Audacity 2 will allow Mac users to record system audio?

~~~
wildwood
Audacity plus Soundflower will do the trick.

<http://cycling74.com/products/soundflower/>

~~~
cowmix
SoundFlower is a little buggy on Lion still.

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devindotcom
Love it whenever one of these great free apps get major updates. Been using
Audacity on and off for years.

------
udp
_> The Audacity Team is elated to announce the release of Audacity 2.0 for
Windows, Mac, GNU/Linux, ..._

Seems weird it's specifically _GNU_ /Linux they support, yet they can't be
dependent on GNU userland or GNU libc if they support Mac.

~~~
dfc
RMS would say its weird that you think there is anything other than
GNU/Linux...

<http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_controversy>

~~~
starwed
Not quite.

<http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#linuxsyswithoutgnu>

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davedx
I use Audacity to record live radio shows, DJ mixes, edit sounds for games and
even for the odd bits of quick and dirty sample manipulation for music
production. For the price it's a really great piece of software. :)

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jamroom
Audacity is sweet - now if they would just get someone on board to cleanup the
UI - maybe some new buttons?

~~~
meatsock
i'd prefer them to spend the time making sure the button works correctly. why
is the UI so odious?

~~~
sassafras
in UI design, polish and usability == working correctly

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alantrick
OH CRAP, IT HAS REAL-TIME EFFECT PREVIEWS haha no just kidding

