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Audacity 3.4

audacityteam.org

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Re: Audacity 3.4

#101

Post by kzrdude »

LWinterberg wrote: post #79
kzrdude wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Audacity is also commercial, even if it's free and open source. That's because Muse is developing it and has a commercial interest in it, and their goals now (partly) govern the project. For example, that also makes them vulnerable to "enshittification".

Not really. Enshittification requires high switching costs, so users stick around despite thinking "yeah I should go somewhere else". With Audacity, switching costs are low. You either can compile the thing with the relevant features disabled, or you can just download an older version of the software and stick with that to the end of time if you dislike the changes a new version brings. Even to the suitiest of corpor…

That is a good point, but I'm not that optimistic. Maybe it dampens the effect, but for me with Musescore 4 I already think some things went in that direction.

VS Code is also not immune (I use codium, but only as a secondary editor to Neovim).

Re: Audacity 3.4

#102

Post by QuantumGood »

heycosmo wrote: post #100
Aachen wrote: post #17

> You can now change the duration of your audio clips without affecting their pitch non-destructively. Audacity 3.4 uses a new time stretching algorithm specifically made for music, which outperforms many of the commercially available options. Way to bury the lede! What's this magic algorithm being spoken of, how does it work so well? > A more detailed overview of these changes can be found in our changelog . The cha…

The time stretch algorithm is implemented in https://github.com/audacity/audacity/blob/master/libraries/l... particularly functions _time_stretch and _process_hop. It looks to me like a classic phase vocoder with vertical phase coherence (c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_vocoder ). The basic idea is this. For a time-stretch factor of, say, 2x, the frequency spectrum of the stretched output at 2 sec should be…

The old "Change Tempo" effect still works much better for voice.

Re: Audacity 3.4

#103

Post by QuantumGood »

3.4 removes the functionality that clicking on a clip separator no longer joins clips, but I have long joined at separators by highlighting an area with join(s), then using this macro set to the keyboard shortcut "j":

   Join:
   SelectNone:

Re: Audacity 3.4

#104

Post by Slow_Hand »

skrebbel wrote: post #74
Slow_Hand wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was curious myself, so I downloaded Audacity and tried. It's a granular time-stretch algorithm. By the sound of the artifacts at extreme settings it's akin to the 'Complex Pro' algorithm in Ableton Live (if you have any reference to that) and seems to be equally effective at a wide variety of sources (percussion, vocals, full records). Is it better than most commercial offerings? Hard to say after a brief test, but…

What's the regular go-to tool for audio pros? Adobe Audition or something else? I'm from the age when Sound Forge was considered leading (and Audition, then named CoolEdit, was its cheapo shareware competitor) so I'm probably way behind the times.

I'll clarify first that I word in record production. I don't work in audio post-production (film, video, tv, etc). While some of the tools do overlap, the industry standards for each discipline will differ, so I can't speak to the video side of things.

For my work the standard DAWs are Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Cubase, and Ableton Live. There are lots of options each with their own strengths, but any of these will do a great job. I think it comes down to the person's workflow preferences. Certain disciplines will favor different DAWs.

Other than that Izotope (programs like RX and Ozone) are doing cutting-edge work for audio restoration. There are certain companies that are competitive or exceed them in certain situations, but Izotope is the company you're most likely to see working professionals use these days for general utility.

It can be more nuanced than that, but I don't know if you're asking for a deeper explanation.

Re: Audacity 3.4

#105

Post by LWinterberg »

clowncity wrote: post #99
LWinterberg wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that it says "closed" at the top. Pull requests which are merged say "merged", like this one: https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/5484 You can verify for yourself that there is no telemetry code in Audacity.

Oh good. Hopefully you all learned something? Forgive me if I remain sceptical, though. I'll stick with the fork.

We've definitely learned something. And I can forgive you being skeptical, all I ask from you is to also be skeptical of outrageous claims.

Re: Audacity 3.4

#106

Post by Slow_Hand »

orlp wrote: post #81
hurryer wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good professional audio hardware is not overpriced. Sure, there are $15k microphones but you absolutely do not need those, a $1k one is top quality and not expensive if you use it regularly. You are confusing it with audiophile gear. Regarding Audacity, it's missing tons of features and it's UI is bad. Just like Gimp vs Photoshop. I did some audio production and Audacity is just not usable beyond the most basic opera…

> a $1k one is top quality $100 gets you a SM57 which probably has been on more platinum albums than any other mic.

The SM57 is a workhorse of a mic. It's great in a pinch and probably a desert island choice. It's earned it's classic status for a reason and is probably on more records and stages in the last 40 years than anything else. Great mic... to a point.

That said, the ceiling of what's possible is far higher than what an SM57 can deliver. Not to diminish it. In some instances it's perfect, but one wouldn't have to look far to find better choices, depending on the context and needs of the record.

A Toyota Corolla (don't @ me, I'm not a car person) might be a low-cost, reliable choice in a pinch, but it's far from embodying what automobiles are capable of.

Re: Audacity 3.4

#107

Post by Slow_Hand »

seanw444 wrote: post #89
orlp wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a $1k one is top quality $100 gets you a SM57 which probably has been on more platinum albums than any other mic.

Exactly. After a certain point, you get diminishing returns. $100 gets you probably 85-90% of the way there, which is certainly more than enough. People forget that a good mic and a good DAW do not fix a bad take. The price of the tools is less important than their proper usage, and simply recording things well. You don't even need an SM57. I know for a fact the iPhone mic and iPhone Garageband has been one artist's…

The SM57 is a great mic in some situations. A lot of situations even. But saying that an artist can use an SM57 or an iPhone mic on a hit record and is sufficient is missing the point.

Steven Soderbergh has shot several feature films on an iPhone and the movies were still great, but they're nowhere close to unlocking the full potential of visual expression that you'd get with more refined tools.

Artists who are serious about their craft will keep an SM57 and an iPhone mic in their color palette (Frank Ocean comes to mind), but that's all they are for serious practitioners: a creative choice.

Re: Audacity 3.4

#108

Post by Slow_Hand »

vintermann wrote: post #68
Slow_Hand wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was curious myself, so I downloaded Audacity and tried. It's a granular time-stretch algorithm. By the sound of the artifacts at extreme settings it's akin to the 'Complex Pro' algorithm in Ableton Live (if you have any reference to that) and seems to be equally effective at a wide variety of sources (percussion, vocals, full records). Is it better than most commercial offerings? Hard to say after a brief test, but…

Do you really make enough from being an audio professional that price doesn't matter? Whether you do or not, there are a hell of a lot of hawkers of software and "hardware" alike, who stand ready to sell their overpriced "professional" tools to people who fail to make it in the music industry (which is going to be most of them, regardless of tools or even skills). A high sticker price is a way to prove your commitmen…

Yes. I'm seasoned enough and do the work often enough to be discerning about my choice of tools. An amateur cook might not worry about their choice of chef's knife, but someone doing the work every day is going to make the investment in tools that enable them to express themselves at their full potential, and with minimal resistance. These tools may sometimes appear overpriced to outsiders, but for a regular user it makes a big difference and is worth the investment.

I've also been around the block long enough to know what tools are worth investing in and which to avoid, so I'm not worried about vendors with bad value add.

The "Mixdown Industrial Complex" that provokes gear lust in audio professionals is not something I worry about at this point. I'm mostly satisfied on the tools that I use and the shiny new thing doesn't interest me like it once did. The focus now is on the work.

Re: Audacity 3.4

#109

Post by Aachen »

bdhcuidbebe wrote: post #85
Aachen wrote: post #17

> You can now change the duration of your audio clips without affecting their pitch non-destructively. Audacity 3.4 uses a new time stretching algorithm specifically made for music, which outperforms many of the commercially available options. Way to bury the lede! What's this magic algorithm being spoken of, how does it work so well? > A more detailed overview of these changes can be found in our changelog . The cha…

> The library name links to a Microsoft repository. You link to the official audacity and chose to (incorrectly) describe it as ”a Microsoft repository” Why being dishonest?

If I say GitHub repository, does the sentence then make sense to you? I tend to forget that GH is Microsoft's similar to how people around here forget WhatsApp is Facebook or random brands are Nestlé, so I try to get in the habit of calling things by the parent brand to decrease the obfuscation

Maybe I should simply have said git, though. Didn't think of that until now at the end of writing this reply. No dishonesty intended, quite the opposite in fact

Re: Audacity 3.4

#110

Post by nemetroid »

LWinterberg wrote: post #95
nemetroid wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did introduce a mandatory CLA which allows for using the code in non-GPL ways, even noting that this was the purpose of introducing the CLA. https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/932

Indeed: > Audacity's source code is currently released under the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2). We intend to update the license to GPLv3 to enable support for new technologies not compatible with GPLv2 (i.e. - VST3, which is compatible with GPLv3). VST3 is dual licensed with some Steinberg license and GPLv3. The purpose of the CLA was to be able to migrate Audacity binaries to GPLv3 with VST3 support.…

Migrating to GPLv3 and publishing in app stores was clearly not the only purpose. The linked page says as much.

> The CLA also allows us to use the code in other products that may not be open source, which we intend to do at some point to support the continued development of Audacity.

I am well aware that you're allowed to do this with permissively licensed code, too.

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