Audacity

This article is about the audio software. For the meaning of the term and other uses, see Audacity (disambiguation).

Audacity

Audacity 1.3.12 Beta
Developer(s)	The Audacity Team
Initial release	28 May 2000[1]
Stable release	1.2.6  (November 15, 2006; 5 years ago (2006-11-15)) [+/−]
Preview release	1.3.13  (April 11, 2011; 7 months ago (2011-04-11)) [+/−]
Written in	C and C++ (using the wxWidgets toolkit)[2][3]
Operating system	Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Unix
Available in	Over 20 languages
Type	Digital audio editor
License	GNU GPL v2+[4]
Website	audacity.sourceforge.net

Audacity is a free software, cross-platform digital audio editor and recording application. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and BSD.

Audacity was created by Dominic Mazzoni while he was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University. Mazzoni now works at Google, but is still the main developer and maintainer of Audacity, with help from many others around the world.

The latest release of Audacity is 1.3.13, a beta, released on 11 April 2011.^[5] As of 10 October 2011, it was the 11th most popular download from SourceForge.net, with 76.5 million downloads.^[6] Audacity won the SourceForge.net 2007 Community Choice Award for Best Project for Multimedia.^[7]

Features and usage

Audacity can also be used for post-processing of all types of audio, including podcasts by adding effects such as normalization, trimming, and fading in and out.^[8] Audacity has also been used to record and mix entire albums, such as by tUnE-yArDs.^[9] It is also currently used in the OCR National Level 2 ICT course for the sound creation unit.

Audacity's features include the following:

• Importing and exporting of WAV, AIFF, MP3 (via the LAME encoder, downloaded separately), Ogg Vorbis, and all file formats supported by libsndfile library. Versions 1.3.2 and later support Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC).^[10] Version 1.3.6 and later also support additional formats such as WMA, AAC, AMR and AC3 via the optional FFmpeg library.
• Recording and playing back sounds
• Editing via Cut, Copy and Paste (with unlimited levels of Undo)
• Multitrack mixing
• A large array of digital effects and plug-ins. Additional effects can be written with Nyquist
• Built-in LADSPA plug-in support. VST support available through an optional VST Enabler.^[11]
• Amplitude envelope editing
• Noise Removal based on sampling the noise to be removed. Surface noise from records, for example, can be removed with hardly any discernable effect on the music.
• Audio spectrum analysis using the Fourier transformation algorithm
• Support for multi-channel modes with sampling rates up to 96 kHz with 32 bits per sample
• Precise adjustments to the audio's speed while maintaining pitch (Audacity calls it changing tempo), in order to synchronize it with video or run for a predetermined length of time
• Changes to the audio's pitch without changing the speed
• Features of modern multi-track audio software^[12] including navigation controls, zoom and single track edit, project pane and XY project navigation, non-destructive and destructive effect processing, audio file manipulation (cut, copy, paste)
• Conversion of cassette tapes or records into digital tracks by automatically splitting the audio source into multiple tracks based on silences in the source material
• Support for multiple platforms — Audacity works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Unix-like systems (including Linux and BSD), among others
  • The latest stable version supports Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista, but Windows 95 and NT are not supported. Windows 7 support is still provisional. For Windows 7, the developers recommend the latest 1.3.x Beta^[13]
• Audacity uses the wxWidgets software library to provide a similar graphical user interface on several different operating systems.

Limitations

A plug-in is required for VST plug-ins in Audacity 1.2.x.^[14] Audacity lacks dynamic equalizer controls, real time effects and support for scrubbing.^[15] MIDI files can only be displayed.^[16]

Only "provisional" support is provided for Windows 7, although the program can be made to run under it with certain known issues, involving launching the application, recording and playback and the interface. Development of the Audacity 1.3 beta series is focusing on providing full Windows 7 support.^[17]

Audacity does not currently support WMA, AAC, or most other proprietary or restricted file formats.^[18]

Language support

In addition to English language help, the ZIP file of the downloadable Audacity software program includes help files for Afrikaans, Arabic, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian and Welsh in its user interface. A partial Bengali help file is also included.^[19]

The Audacity website also provides tutorials in several languages.^[20]

See also

Free software portal

• List of free software for audio
• List of Linux audio software
• Multitrack recording

References

1. ^ "Audacity: Credits". http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/credits. Retrieved 2008-08-15. 
2. ^ SourceForge (July 2004). "Project of the Month July 2004 - Audacity". http://sourceforge.net/potm/potm-2004-07.php. Retrieved 2008-11-27. 
3. ^ United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (2004). "E-Commerce and Development Report 2004". http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/ecdr2004ch3_en.pdf. Retrieved 2008-11-27. 
4. ^ Audacity Team. "License, and Advice for Vendors and Distributors". http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/license. Retrieved 2010-02-23. 
5. ^ http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Retrieved 2011-04-11.
6. ^ "SourceForge.net: All-Time Top Downloads". http://sourceforge.net/top/topalltime.php?type=downloads. Retrieved 29 October 2010. 
7. ^ "SourceForge.net: 2007 Community Choice Awards". http://sourceforge.net/community/index.php/landing-pages/cca07/. Retrieved 2008-01-19. 
8. ^ "Podcasting with Linux Command Line Tools and Audacity". http://www.packtpub.com/article/podcasting-with-linux-command-line-tools-and-audacity. Retrieved 2008-01-19. 
9. ^ "World of Wonder". The New Yorker. May 2, 2011. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2011/05/02/110502crmu_music_frerejones. 
10. ^ Audacity development team (2006-10-30). "Audacity 1.3.2 a 1.2.5 released". http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/news?id=2006-10-30/1.3.2-release&lang=en. Retrieved 2010-01-19. 
11. ^ Audacity development team. "Audacity: Plug-Ins and Libraries". http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/plugins. Retrieved 2011-01-28. 
12. ^ "Compare Sequencing & Multi-track Recording - Kelly's Music & Computers Comparison Charts". Kellysmusic.ca. http://kellysmusic.ca/chart/compchart.asp?chartid=6. Retrieved 2009-12-16. 
13. ^ Audacity (undated). "Audacity - Windows". http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows. Retrieved 2008-10-11. 
14. ^ "FAQ:Installation and Plug-Ins - Audacity Manual". Audacityteam.org. 2009-11-25. http://www.audacityteam.org/manual/index.php?title=FAQ:Installation_and_Plug-Ins. Retrieved 2009-12-16. 
15. ^ Audacity Project (November 2008). "Audacity Feature Requests". http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Feature_Requests. Retrieved 2008-11-08. 
16. ^ "Quick Guide - Audacity Manual". Audacityteam.org. http://www.audacityteam.org/manual/index.php?title=Quick_Guide. Retrieved 2009-12-16. 
17. ^ Windows 7 OS
18. ^ Audacity Features
19. ^ Changing the current language
20. ^ MultiLingual

External links

• Official website
• Audacity Wiki
• Editing audio in Linux:Audacity