Audacity releases v3 of its free cross-platform audio software for multi-track recording and editing which replaces all previous versions for Windows, macOS and Linux. Audacity 3.0.0 is a major update on the previous Audacity 2.4.2. The format in which Audacity projects is saved has been changed. Previously projects were saved as a sometimes large number of small files, with an ‘.aup’ file to coordinate the lot. This way of doing things is sometimes called ‘pile of files’ storage.
The problem, which happened all too often, was that data files and .aup file parted ways. Users quite reasonably expected the .aup file to contain the entire project. The new .aup3 file does contain the data as well. Audacity are using an open source database, SQLite3, to store everything in one .aup3 file. That all happens ‘behind the scenes’. Given the huge nature of the change it was decided that it was too risky to include many other changes at the same time so 3.0.0 is almost entirely about this big format change.
Working with .aup3 projects editing audio should on most machines be a little faster than before, because there are fewer files being worked on. Finishing and closing a project at the end of working can be quite a lot slower, since there is more to do when a project is closed. For users with older .aup projects, these can be opened in Audacity 3.0.0 where they will be converted to the new .aup3 format.
New features included are an improvement to the ‘Noise Gate’ effect and a new analyser, ‘Label Sounds’, that can label sounds and silences. An example of where this would be useful is in the recording of vinyl LPs where it will sense tracks and be able to label them individually.
Other tweaks to the software include the facility to import and export macros, and there are a couple of new commands for using the last used tool or last used analyser that you can give shortcuts to. In addition, there have are over 160 bug fixes in this release.
To download a free copy of the software go here.
