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Audacity 4.0

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Re: Audacity 4.0

#151

Post by joleyj »

abuani wrote: post #107
jcranmer wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private equity gets a bad rap in large part because the stories they're most famous for are the "PE buys a failing company, and the company subsequently finally fails," with the "failing" word conspicuously absent in most retellings. I'm not sure I've heard one of those stories where the company failed after being acquired by PE where it wasn't already failing before the PE takeover...

For me, private equity gets a bad rep because they've bought up all of the local mom and pop shops for just about any service I need thats face to face. All of the plumbers, electricians, general contractors, vets, grocery chains, coffee shops, and other shit were bought and had every ounce of revenue squeezed out of them. The result? All of the things I need locally cost 3-5x they did and the service is far worse. A…

Concur. Private equity is synonymous with the concept of maximum extraction in my experience.

Re: Audacity 4.0

#152

Post by relaxing »

niek_pas wrote: post #140
korzinka wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notation is cool and just right, the more I learned the more I appreciated how great contemporary notation is. Yes it's challenging to read sometines but the subject is challenging too, surely you could try to simplify it for certain applications but you'd lose a lot of flexibility. Fighting notation is like fighting piano keyboard which is also extremely convenient thing to play compared to other stuff, even to grid…

I find conventional Western notation works quite well for communicating notes, rhythms, and basic expression, but it breaks down pretty quickly once you move beyond that. E.g. a lot of the common techniques on electric guitar (bends, palm muting, tremolo/whammy bar stuff, pick slides, slap/thumping, pinch harmonics, raking) don't really have a convenient notational shorthand. That's without even mentioning synthesize…

Not sure what you consider convenient, but I’ve never had a problem reading electric guitar notation. It’s handled the same way we notate extended technique for other instruments - a combination of text above the staff, and squiggly lines on it :)

Re: Audacity 4.0

#153

Post by waffletower »

Surprised to see this upvoted to no. 1 on Hacker News in 2026. I used Audacity as recently as yesterday so I joined in and upvoted too. True that it has now displaced many commercial applications in the same niche.

Re: Audacity 4.0

#154

Post by somat »

korzinka wrote: post #124
Lio wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indirectly related his video on music notation itself, "Notation Must Die: The Battle For How We Read Music"[1], is really good IMHO. > Many people feel that western notation makes it unnecessarily hard to read music. If we want to sight read, learn music theory or just practice an instrument, surely there's a better way? Right? This has been a hot topic for almost 1000 years... AND I PUT IT TO BED RIGHT HERE! 1. htt…

Notation is cool and just right, the more I learned the more I appreciated how great contemporary notation is. Yes it's challenging to read sometines but the subject is challenging too, surely you could try to simplify it for certain applications but you'd lose a lot of flexibility. Fighting notation is like fighting piano keyboard which is also extremely convenient thing to play compared to other stuff, even to grid…

The fundamental problem in music notation is that it was designed for an 8 note system and we use a 12 note system. It's.. fine I guess, they got those extra four notes in there and millions of people read music with no problems. But it does create a lot of confusion for novice readers who now think those 8 notes are somehow more important than the other 4 or that the sharps and flats are somehow half notes(they are not, all 12 are equally spaced on a log scale) and don't even get me started on the confusing terminology, there are 12 notes in an octet, semitones? a fifth? a fifth of what? it is seven notes or 3/2's there is no 5.

With regard to the piano keyboard, again not terrible, but it definitely is a compromise to fit the mechanical needs of the piano. I really like the design of the chromatic keyboard(ever see an accordion with the big hex grid of buttons, this is a chromatic keyboard), it has the advantage that whatever key you play a song in it has the same fingering, on a piano every key has different fingering, so there is a big skill barrier to changing keys that interferes with employment of such a critical aspect of playing.

Re: Audacity 4.0

#155

Post by gcr »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #125
dbcooper wrote: post #2

Release video looking at the new UI (Qt6 based): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTQymidLYIM

It should be illegal to announce a UI update and not include at least screenshots, so thanks for sharing.

The URL should probably be its landing page, which does a good job with the overview: https://www.audacityteam.org/audacity-4/

Re: Audacity 4.0

#156

Post by ant0ni »

marmarama wrote: post #118
kragen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LADSPA sounds pretty critical; did they really ship with that missing?

LADSPA v1 is ancient and fundamentally quite broken, and that's what they dropped. Audacity 4 ships with LV2 (i.e. LADSPA v2) support. FWIW I don't think I've used a v1 LADSPA plugin for a decade.

it might be ancient, but it's also very simple. it's relatively easy to import a single header and write a working plug-in, which makes it attractive for enthusiasts.

Re: Audacity 4.0

#157

Post by ihujonigyin »

somat wrote: post #154
korzinka wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notation is cool and just right, the more I learned the more I appreciated how great contemporary notation is. Yes it's challenging to read sometines but the subject is challenging too, surely you could try to simplify it for certain applications but you'd lose a lot of flexibility. Fighting notation is like fighting piano keyboard which is also extremely convenient thing to play compared to other stuff, even to grid…

The fundamental problem in music notation is that it was designed for an 8 note system and we use a 12 note system. It's.. fine I guess, they got those extra four notes in there and millions of people read music with no problems. But it does create a lot of confusion for novice readers who now think those 8 notes are somehow more important than the other 4 or that the sharps and flats are somehow half notes(they are…

To sum up: you don’t like the current notation system, terminology and piano keys but also don’t have anything else to add to the discussion other than “I don’t like it”.

Re: Audacity 4.0

#158

Post by ihujonigyin »

fishfasell wrote: post #101
stevoski wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This video is simply excellent. Really shows the challenges involved. His other videos are awesome too. He is an expert in making great software AND a great video creator.

He also hit the nail on the head- reaction videos are just low effort click bait.

[flagged]

Re: Audacity 4.0

#159

Post by andrepd »

Lio wrote: post #106
Lautzi wrote: post #9

I highly recommend this video [1] by the Head of Software at Muse who had a big part in the development of Audacity 4.0. Some great insights and really fun to watch! [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYM3TWf_G38

Indirectly related his video on music notation itself, "Notation Must Die: The Battle For How We Read Music"[1], is really good IMHO. > Many people feel that western notation makes it unnecessarily hard to read music. If we want to sight read, learn music theory or just practice an instrument, surely there's a better way? Right? This has been a hot topic for almost 1000 years... AND I PUT IT TO BED RIGHT HERE! 1. htt…

His video about reality TV music, and the one about the newest musescore default font, are some of my favourite yt videos of all time. Great communicator.

Re: Audacity 4.0

#160

Post by Lio »

somat wrote: post #154
korzinka wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notation is cool and just right, the more I learned the more I appreciated how great contemporary notation is. Yes it's challenging to read sometines but the subject is challenging too, surely you could try to simplify it for certain applications but you'd lose a lot of flexibility. Fighting notation is like fighting piano keyboard which is also extremely convenient thing to play compared to other stuff, even to grid…

The fundamental problem in music notation is that it was designed for an 8 note system and we use a 12 note system. It's.. fine I guess, they got those extra four notes in there and millions of people read music with no problems. But it does create a lot of confusion for novice readers who now think those 8 notes are somehow more important than the other 4 or that the sharps and flats are somehow half notes(they are…

This is actually covered in the video. It's the "we should use a chromatic scale" argument and is surprisingly old.

The answer to why people don't use a chromatic scale is also in there. Very roughy, it's harder to sight read intervals between notes.

Standard music notation is a like a London Underground map, it's symbolic rather than literal.

Being more symbolic gives standard notation many advantages once you learn it.

The video does a much better job of explaining that than I've given. It really is very good.

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