We’re pleased to announce release of Audacity 2.4.2 which replaces all previous versions for Windows, macOS and Linux.
Audacity 2.4.2
wxWidgets Library
The main change since 2.4.1 is that we have upgraded the wxWidgets library that Audacity uses from 3.1.1 (with patches by us) to 3.1.3 (with patches by us). We wanted to do this as a release in its own right, before we start on a longer and more complex release.
If you’re using Audacity 2.4.2 on Linux, do use the right wxWidgets library. We’ve in the past had a lot of reports of problems on Linux that turned out in the end to be because some distributions were using system wxWidgets (3.0.0) with Audacity.
Bugs fixed
We’ve fixed 41 bugs since 2.4.1. The exact number of bugs fixed depends on how you count, but anyway, it’s a worthwhile number of fixes.
Configuration Reset
There is one new small feature. In the Tools menu there is now a ‘Reset Configuration’ menu item. When you click on it, it resets most of the configuration back to defaults.
We’re pleased to announce release of Audacity 2.4.1 which replaces all previous versions for Windows, macOS and Linux.
The 2.4.0 Multi-project bug:
Audacity 2.4.1 fixes a serious bug in the briefly available Audacity 2.4.0.
With 2.4.0 we blundered. In 2.4.0 you’d get loss of and corruption of audio, when you had two projects open at the same time.
Thanks to Jack L from FreeBSD for alerting us to the problem so promptly, and giving us steps to reproduce it.
Catalina?
With 2.4.1 we have now caught up with Apple’s ‘notarization system’. Audacity on Mac is notarized and runs on Catalina.
Time Toolbar:
We have split the recording/playing time off from the selection toolbar and it can now be dragged to make it larger. This is particularly for people recording themselves playing a musical instrument, where they will typically be further from the screen when playing, and benefit from a larger numerical display.
Large ‘Time Toolbar’ (on the right)
The new toolbar can be ‘undocked’ from the foot of the screen, and made larger still, for more distant viewing.
Multi-views:
We have added a new optional mode for viewing audio. In this new mode you can see both the waveform and a spectrogram at the same time. Previously you would switch back and forth between them if you wanted both.
Multi-view mode with spectrogram above and waveform below
You can get into this multi-view mode by clicking on the down-pointing triangle beside the track name in the panel on the left of the wave. This will drop-down a menu with options, including multi-view mode.
These screenshots of Audacity showing the time toolbar and multi-view mode were made on the windows version of Audacity, using the dark theme. Dark theme can be selected from the preferences.
We temporarily re-instated the 2.3.3 release for downloads whilst we investigated a serious bug that affects 2.4.0 on Windows Mac and Linux. The bug causes loss/corruption of audio.
The bug happens when you have two projects open at the same time and paste audio from one project into the other. Thanks to Jack L from FreeBSD for alerting us to the problem and giving us steps to reproduce it.
With that information we were able to find the root cause, make a fix and release 2.4.1.
We’re pleased to announce release of Audacity 2.4.0 which replaces all previous versions for Windows, macOS and Linux.
We’ve put a lot of time and work into it.
Catalina?
We have now caught up with Apple’s ‘notarization system’. Audacity on Mac is notarized and runs on Catalina.
Time Toolbar:
We have split the recording/playing time off from the selection toolbar and it can now be dragged to make it larger. This is particularly for people recording themselves playing a musical instrument, where they will typically be further from the screen when playing, and benefit from a larger numerical display.
Large ‘Time Toolbar’ (on the right)
The new toolbar can be ‘undocked’ from the foot of the screen, and made larger still, for more distant viewing.
Multi-views
We have added a new optional mode for viewing audio. In this new mode you can see both the waveform and a spectrogram at the same time. Previously you would switch back and forth between them if you wanted both.
Multi-view mode with spectrogram above and waveform below
You can get into this multi-view mode by clicking on the down-pointing triangle beside the track name in the panel on the left of the wave. This will drop-down a menu with options, including multi-view mode.
These screenshots of Audacity showing the time toolbar and multi-view mode were made on the windows version of Audacity, using the dark theme. Dark theme can be selected from the preferences.
We’re pleased to announce release of Audacity 2.3.3 which replaces all previous versions for Windows, macOS and Linux.
Catalina?
Audacity still does not support macOS Catalina properly, but can be used with a workaround. This is because we have not caught up with Apple’s requirements for ‘notarization’ yet. We are working on this for the next release.
On the 5th and 6th of November we had an active and productive meeting in Cambridge, working hard and also having fun. We had not met as a team since 2014, and some of us had not previously met each other in real life before.
Lots got talked through. The post-its on the picture behind are pink for problems (we didn’t have red post-its) and green post-its for solutions. Beer was drunk. Food was eaten. Demos of work in progress were shared and explained. The problems of and ways forward with Catalina discussed. People took on tasks to take on when they got back home:
“It’s a lot easier to say ‘No’ in email!”
I think we were all surprised how quickly and easily we talked through and agreed on what we will do for Audacity 2.4.0. With everyone in the room together at the same time, making decisions happened really fast.
The roadmap for Audacity 2.4.0 includes resolving the macOS Catalina problem, updating libraries, and a number of frequently requested new features.
Yes, we talked about iPhone and Android versions of Audacity. They are still pipe dreams at this stage, but we did at least talk about how we could go about them. With more frequent Audacity Unconference meetings, ambitious plans like that are more likely to actually happen.
Two years ago we set ourselves targets for bug reduction for a year ahead, and we did the same again a year ago. The TL/DR is that we met the target last month. Over the last two years we’ve reduced our bug count from 605 bugs (August 2017) to 404 (July 2019). This isn’t because we’ve slacked off on testing for, identifying and recording new bugs! We’ve actually stepped that up a notch. In the last two years we’ve closed 636 bugs, but we also opened 435 new ones. So the net result is we have made good inroads on bugs, rather than wiping out all the recorded bugs entirely.
The graph below tells the story. Live bugs are bugs we still have. Slain bugs are bugs that we have identified and fixed.
As you can see, the bug slaying activity has been sustained continuously over the two years, rather than being in fits and starts. The most important aspect for us is that the proportion of live bugs (blue) relative to slain bugs (green) has decreased substantially, from 55% to 23%.
Our scope for improving the proportions further is limited. Many of the live bugs are ‘hard’ because we have already dealt with most of the easy ones. Some potential future improvements we have in mind could be seen as ‘massaging the statistics’. For example, we want to take the 64 enhancement requests out of the 404 live bug counts. We have those requests for improvements in our bug tracker, but arguably they belong somewhere else.
Most of the bug tracking and recording and checking bugs really are fixed is done by Peter Sampson. He doesn’t get nearly enough outside recognition for the work he does. David Bailes reports and fixes the lions share of bugs related to accessibility, which often affect users with normal vision too. Steve Daulton is the main person finding and fixing Linux-only bugs. Other developers pitch in too, especially with clearing the more serious higher priority bugs.
The number one place we find out about new bugs from is you. A big thank you to all of you who report bugs back to us, and who help us reproduce them on our own computers, so that we can then get on the path to fixing them.
Audacity 2.3.1 replaces all previous versions for Windows, macOS and Linux. We’ve restored support for Linux which was missing in 2.3.0. Also Audacity for macOS is now a more modern 64-bit build.
Over 20 bugs fixed, and a few small improvements/changes to features (since 2.3.0).
That annoying message from Apple saying: “32-bit support will be going the way of the dodo”, no longer shows when you install Audacity on Mac. The new 64-bit Audacity works with 64-bit libraries. To use FFmpeg or MP3 libraries with 64-bit Audacity, you will need to download the updated 64-bit versions.
On Windows, you may find that recording is disabled until you change Windows permissions for the microphone! That’s a security feature introduced by Windows. This affects all versions of Audacity, and affects many other audio programs.
A similar ‘recording is disabled’ problem occurs with macOS Mojave. Details about these in the FAQs in the manual:
This all may not sound like much has happened since Audacity 2.3.0, but the team behind Audacity did put in a lot of work to make this happen. Thanks also to users who reported bugs in 2.3.0 and stayed in contact with us afterwards to help us find them.
Audacity 2.3.0 replaces all previous versions for Windows and macOS.
(The current release for Linux is Audacity 2.2.2. Additional information on the Linux download page.)
Many new features, and over 90 bugs fixed (since 2.2.2).
We are still compiling Audacity as 32-bit. Whilst MacOSX works with 32-bit, it would prefer a 64-bit version of Audacity. We are working on a 64-bit version for Mac for 2.3.1. On Windows you may find that recording is disabled until you change Windows permissions for the microphone! This affects all versions of Audacity, and many other audio programs.
New in Audacity 2.3.0:
New feature – “Punch and Roll Recording”
Pinned-play-head can now be repositioned by dragging
Play-at-speed now can be adjusted whilst playing.
Toolbars controlling volume and speed can now be resized for greater precision
Macros (formerly ‘Chains’) substantially extended
New Macro palette
Macros can be bound to keyboard keys
New commands
New ‘Tools’ menu
New ‘Scriptables’ commands
Nyquist gains AUD-DO command
Nyquist effects are now translatable and translated
More dialogs have help buttons now
Increased legibility of trackname display
Half-wave option for collapsed tracks
Sliding Stretch
Dialog (option) for entering labels
See: 2.3.0 New Features for longer descriptions and links on how to use the new features.
Bug Fixes
Over 90 bugs that were in 2.2.2 fixed, including:
Windows: Queen Mary 1.7.1 Vamp plug-ins crash Audacity on opening Plug-in Manager – bug #1244
Inconsistent behavior when recording with a selection defined – bug #1839
Ctrl + M does not open label for editing – bug #1852
Vertical Zoom in by clicking in the vertical Scale, or context menu, in waveform views is inconsistent – bug #1810
Deletion of all tracks cannot be undone – bug #1845
Timer Record with a selection present can get a truncated recording with data loss – bug #1851
Duplicate shortcuts can be created – bug #1786
Labels longer than 260 characters are now supported – bug #1905
Using Spectrogram Settings in TCP or using Preferences causes Audacity to reset Project Rate to default rate in Quality Preferences – bug #1977
Cut Preview should play all selected/sync-locked tracks, respecting Mute/Solo during preview – bug #231
Audacity 2.1.3 now properly supports Windows 10 (thanks to an upgrade of the PortAudio library) and on macOS has some previously missing support for Magic Mouse/Trackpad (thanks to Paul Licameli).
However, the goalposts we’re aiming for keep moving, and we only have partial support for Macs updated to Sierra. We found on some Mac Sierra machines that important extensions to the core of Audacity can become unavailable. Full details of Mac Sierra support here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Partial_Support_for_Mac_Sierra_in_2.1.3.
Audacity 2.1.3 is the last version of Audacity that will officially support Windows XP.
New Distortion effect, Rhythm Track (was called Click Track) and Sample Data Import (thanks to Steve Daulton). Also effects are no longer grayed-out when in pause.
New scrub ruler (Paul)
New ‘pinned’ option so the waveform moves and the recording/playing head stays still. (Paul)
New features in Timer Record (Mark Young & Steve)
Changed in Audacity 2.1.3:
On Mac, audacity.app is now added to /Applications/ directly rather than adding a folder there.
64 bugs/annoyances in 2.1.2 fixed of which 15 were long standing issues. (Entire team involved; Tracking and testing by Gale)
Lots done (by Paul) to systematically deal with memory leaks.
Fuller details on the changes since 2.1.2 can be found in the 2.1.3 Release Notes.
Thanks to all involved in making this release, especially translators who don’t normally get enough thanks for the work they do.
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