Software » Audio Editors » Audacity 4.0.0

Audacity 4.0

Audacity 4 rebuilds the application interface on Qt and introduces many new quality-of-life improvements, including a new clip-editing model. Most Audacity 3 workflows remain available, but some controls have moved or changed.

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Editing clips
Clips can be selected directly. Click a clip header to select it, or Shift-click to select multiple clips.
Several clips can be edited together. Moving, trimming and time stretching apply to all selected clips.
Clips can be grouped. Groups remain together when moved, copied, pasted or duplicated.
Clips can be placed more freely. They can move between mono and stereo tracks. Moving a clip over another replaces the overlapped part instead of blocking the move.
Splitting has a dedicated tool. Press or hold S, then click the waveform or clip header. Split, split-cut, split-delete, split at silences and split to a new track are also available as commands.
Paste handles more cases automatically. Audacity can create a track when needed, adapt compatible channel layouts and paste audio files from the operating-system clipboard.
Alignment guides, sample-boundary snapping and per-project snap settings have been added or expanded.
Interface and tools
The interface has been rebuilt on Qt, with native high-DPI rendering.
Toolbars and panels can be moved, docked, floated, shown or hidden.
UI layouts can be saved as Workspaces. Audacity includes Modern, Classic and Music workspaces.
Light, dark and high-contrast themes are available, along with accent colors, track colors and several clip styles.
The new Home screen shows recent projects with preview thumbnails.
The separate Select, Envelope, Draw and Multi-tool modes have been removed. Their functions are now context-sensitive:

Volume envelopes are displayed in the Clip gain mode.
Sample drawing becomes available when the waveform is zoomed to individual samples.
Splitting is available by holding S.
Track and effect parameters use consistent rotary controls with fine adjustment and double-click reset.
Sync-Lock has been removed. Delete, cut and paste now have explicit variants for either leaving a gap or moving later material to preserve timing.
Playback and recording
The playhead remains visible during navigation and can be dragged to a new position.
Playback can seek to another position without stopping.
Recording can start anywhere on the timeline and creates a clip at that position.
Loop boundaries and the interaction between playback, selections and loops have been revised.
Punch and Roll, lead-in recording, latency compensation, software playthrough and per-track input monitoring have been rebuilt for the new interface.
Audio Setup now includes system-default devices, refreshable device lists and custom channel mapping. Audacity can follow operating-system device changes automatically.
Official Windows builds include ASIO playback and recording support.
Tracks, meters and effects
Track headers now contain live playback and recording meters.
Preset handling is consistent across built-in, destructive and realtime effects.
Built-in effects, generators and analyzers have been rebuilt for the Qt interface.
Supported plugin formats are VST3, Nyquist, LV2 on Linux and Audio Units on macOS. Audacity can display generated controls when a plugin's own interface is unavailable.
Spectrogram has been redesigned with clearer guides and rulers, and faster rendering.
Projects, import and export
Audacity 4 uses the new .aup4 project format.
.aup3 projects open and convert to .aup4 without changing the original file. Converted projects cannot be saved back to .aup3.
Older .aup projects can be imported.
Project files store preview thumbnails and Audacity 4's additional clip and appearance data.
And last but not least, we had the audacity to change the Audacity logo.

Compatibility notes
The following Audacity 3 features are not available in Audacity 4.0, but we're working on adding them in future releases.

Time Tracks
Note/MIDI tracks
Mixer
Macro Manager and the scripting pipe
VAMP and LADSPA plugin hosting
Play-at-speed
Sync-Lock and the old tool modes were replaced by the workflows described above.

Additionally, Audacity 4 ships with some missing exporting and rendering features, analyzers, and effects.

Update: audacity-sources-4.0.0.tar.xz was updated to include SoundTouch and sbsms 3rd-party libraries.

This is a list of features in Audacity, the free, open source, cross-platform audio editor. For full information on how to use these features, go to the help pages.

Recording
Audacity can record live audio through a microphone or mixer, or digitize recordings from cassette tapes, records, or minidiscs. With some sound cards, Audacity can also capture streaming audio.

Record from microphone, line input, USB/Firewire devices and others.
Device Toolbar manages multiple input and output devices.
Timer Record and Sound Activated Recording features.
Dub over existing tracks to create multi-track recordings.
Record at high sample rates in excess of 192,000 Hz (subject to appropriate hardware).
Record multiple channels at once (subject to appropriate hardware).
Level meters can monitor volume levels before, during and after recording. Clipping can be displayed in the waveform or in a label track.
Import and Export
Import sound files, edit them, and combine them with other files or new recordings. Export your recordings in many different file formats, including multiple files at once.

Import and export WAV, AIFF, AU, FLAC and Ogg Vorbis files.
Fast "On-Demand" import of WAV or AIFF files (letting you start work with the files almost immediately) if read directly from source. "On-Demand" import of other file formats is available with the optional FFmpeg library.
Import and export all formats supported by libsndfile such as GSM 6.10, 32-bit and 64-bit float WAV and U/A-Law.
Import MPEG audio (including MP2 and MP3 files) using libmad.
Import raw (headerless) audio files using the "Import Raw" command.
Create WAV or AIFF files suitable for burning to audio CD.
Export MP3 files with the optional LAME encoder library.
Import and export AC3, M4A/M4R (AAC) and WMA with the optional FFmpeg library (this also supports import of audio from video files).
Sound Quality
Supports 16-bit, 24-bit and 32-bit (floating point) samples (the latter preserves samples in excess of full scale).
Sample rates and formats are converted using high-quality resampling and dithering.
Tracks with different sample rates or formats are converted automatically in real time.
Editing
Easy editing with Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete.
Unlimited sequential Undo (and Redo) to go back any number of steps.
Edit and mix large numbers of tracks.
Multiple clips are allowed per track.
Label tracks with selectable Sync-Lock Tracks feature for keeping tracks and labels synchronized.
Draw Tool to alter individual sample points.
Envelope Tool to fade the volume up or down smoothly.
Automatic Crash Recovery in the event of abnormal program termination.
Accessibility
Tracks and selections can be fully manipulated using the keyboard.
Large range of keyboard shortcuts.
Excellent support for JAWS, NVDA and other screen readers on Windows, and for VoiceOver on Mac.
Effects
Change the pitch without altering the tempo (or vice-versa).
Remove static, hiss, hum or other constant background noises.
Alter frequencies with Equalization, Bass Boost, High/Low Pass and Notch Filter effects.
Adjust volume with Compressor, Amplify, Normalize and Fade In/Out effects.
Remove Vocals from suitable stereo tracks.
Create voice-overs for podcasts or DJ sets using Auto Duck effect.
Other built-in effects include:
Echo
Phaser
Wahwah
Paulstretch (extreme stretch)
Reverse
Truncate Silence
Run "Chains" of effects on a project or multiple files in Batch Processing mode.
Plug-ins
Add new effects with LADSPA, Nyquist, VST and Audio Unit effect plug-ins.
Effects written in the Nyquist programming language can be easily modified in a text editor - or you can even write your own plug-in.
Analysis
Spectrogram view modes for visualizing frequencies.
"Plot Spectrum" command for detailed frequency analysis.
"Sample Data Export" for exporting a file containing amplitude values for each sample in the selection.
Contrast Analysis for analyzing average rms volume differences between foreground speech and background music.
Support for adding VAMP analysis plug-ins.
Free and Cross-Platform
Licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Runs on Windows, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux.