Audacity History

New features in Audacity 1.3.2


Collapse/Expand Tracks
In Audacity 1.3, every track has an upward-pointing triangle at the bottom of the label area on the left side of the track.

Multiple clips per track
In Audacity 1.2, there is one audio 'clip' per track. There is no easy way to time-shift part of a track without moving the rest. In Audacity 1.3, you can split a single track into multiple clips. You can move these clips around between different tracks, making it easy to construct complex compositions out of hundreds of smaller audio samples.

Selection Bar
In Audacity 1.2, the current selection is contained in a status bar at the bottom of the window. In Audacity 1.3, this is replaced by a fully functional Selection Bar, which displays and controls the current selection (your choice of Start and End, or Start and Length), and the current audio position. The selection bar is fully editable - just click in any field and type to change the current selection precisely. In addition, many formatting options allow you to view times in different units, such as samples, CD frames, or NTSC video frames.

Improved Label Tracks
Label Tracks are Audacity's way for you to create markings and annotations within your project. In Audacity 1.3, Label Tracks are much improved, with support for overlapping labels, and support for modifying both the left and right edge of the label region just by clicking and dragging.

QuickTime and Audio Units on Mac OS X
On Mac OS X, Audacity can now import and audio file supported by Apple's QuickTime technology. This includes .MOV and .MP4 (AAC) files. Unfortunately encrypted audio files (such as those from the iTunes Music Store) cannot be imported directly into Audacity - Apple does not allow this to be done easily because it would be too easy to circumvent the encryption this way.

Also on Mac OS X, Audacity now supports Audio Unit plug-ins. Audacity searches for Audio Units in the usual location, in the system or user's Library folder.

Other features

 * Better performance with large projects
 * Project integrity check on open
 * Transcription toolbar
 * Upload
 * Batch
 * Cut lines
 * CleanSpeech



User Interface

 * New Mixer toolbar allows you to control the output volume, input volume, and input source directly from Audacity.
 * Every track now has its own gain and pan controls.
 * Uses improved project file format.
 * Block files (stored in Audacity project directories) now use the standard AU format. Though some Audacity meta-information is in these files, they can now be read by many other popular audio programs as well.
 * Import RAW has a simpler GUI but support for far more file formats. The autodetection algorithms are much more accurate than in 1.0.
 * Using high quality resampling algorithms, with the option of better quality for mixing than for real-time playback.
 * Preliminary support for Time Tracks, for changing playback speed over time.
 * Vertical zooming of tracks.
 * Improved look and placement of toolbars.
 * New custom mouse cursors.
 * Complete implementation of editable keyboard shortcuts.
 * Find zero-crossings.
 * Mouse wheel can be used to zoom in and out.
 * Multi-Tool mode.
 * Amplify and fade using envelope.
 * Labels can store selections (like Audacity 1.0.0).
 * Open multiple files from the same dialog.

Effects

 * Repeat Last Effect command.
 * Support for LADSPA plug-ins on all platforms.
 * VST support now comes through an optional LADSPA plug-in called the VST Enabler.
 * Most effects now have a Preview button.
 * Compressor (Dynamic Range Compressor).
 * Change Pitch (without changing tempo).
 * Change Tempo (without changing pitch).
 * Change Speed (changing both pitch and tempo).
 * Repeat (useful for creating loops).
 * Normalize (adjust volume and DC bias).

Audio I/O

 * 1-second preview command (just hit the '1' key on your keyboard).
 * Looped play (Shift-click on the Play button).



User Interface

 * Tooltips appear in Statusbar.
 * Vertical cursor follows play/record.
 * Pause button.
 * Drawing tool (with three different modes).
 * Vertical Resizing of stereo tracks is more fun.
 * Adjust selection by click-dragging selection boundary.
 * Toolbar button context-sensitive enabling/disabling.
 * Better zooming functionality (centers region).
 * Multiple ways to display the cursor position and selection.
 * Snap-to selection mode.
 * Drag tracks up and down.
 * Align and group align functions.
 * Cursor save/restore.
 * Working history window.

Effects

 * Effects broken down into three menus: Generate, Effect, and Analyze.
 * Generate menu lets you generate silence, noise, or a tone.
 * Nyquist support (supports plug-ins written in Nyquist, an interpreted functional language based on Lisp).

Localization

 * Improved localization support.
 * More languages available.
 * Language selection dialog on first startup.

Mac OS X

 * Support for more audio hardware
 * Support for full-duplex (play while recording).
 * Support for MP3 exporting using LameLib Carbon.
 * Hardware and Software playthrough support.

Unix

 * Audacity now has a man page (it describes command-line options and how to set the search path).

File Formats

 * Uses libsndfile, which fixes some bugs and improves performance. Allows a wide range of uncompressed audio formats to be imported and exported

Searching for Files:

 * On Windows and Mac OS, Audacity now looks for translations in the "Languages" folder and all plug-ins in the "Plug-Ins" folder, relative to the program.
 * On Unix, Audacity looks for translations in &lt;prefix&gt;/share/locale and looks for everything else in &lt;prefix&gt;/share/audacity and also in any paths in the AUDACITY_PATH environment variable.

Core audio processing

 * Support for 24-bit and 32-bit sample formats.
 * Automatic real-time resampling (using linear interpolation).

Effects

 * Support LADSPA plug-ins on Linux / Unix

File formats

 * New XML-based Audacity project format.
 * Full Ogg Vorbis support now (importing and exporting).
 * Support for reading and writing many more types of uncompressed audio files, including ADPCM WAV files.

Toolbars

 * New toolbar drawing code; automatically adopts your operating system's colors.
 * New toolbar buttons (Skip to Start, Skip to End).
 * New Edit toolbar.
 * Toolbar buttons disable when they're not available.

User Interface

 * Fully customizable keyboard commands.
 * Autoscroll while playing or recording.
 * New Ruler, used in main view and in FFT Filter effect.
 * The waveform now displays the average value in a lighter color inside the peak values.

Localization

 * Audacity can now be localized to different foreign languages.

New libraries in Audacity 1.1

 * libmad for fast MP3 importing.
 * libid3tag for editing MP3 file information.
 * libsndfile to read and write more audio file formats.
 * PortAudio for cross-platform audio playing and recording.