Our favourite, open-source sound editing program, Audacity, has just enjoyed a timely upgrade, taking the freebie program up to version 2.0.
The latest iteration looks much as the last version – fans of eye candy-tastic interfaces should jog on here – but underneath the hood there’s been “dozens of new features” introduced.
According to the developers, the major changes include:
- 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.
Audacity is available for multiple platforms including Windows, Mac and GNU/Linux now.
Head over their website and bag yourself a copy of Audacity 2.0 now!
