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Audacity 1.2.0 Released 329

Posted by timothy from the cross-platform-and-smooth dept.
mbrubeck writes "After almost two years of development, the free cross-platform sound editor Audacity has released a new stable version for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Audacity 1.2 has major improvements including professional-quality dithering and resampling, and new pitch- and speed-changing effects. Our previous stable release was announced on Slashdot in June 2002. More recently, Audacity was presented at this year's CodeCon in San Francisco."
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Audacity 1.2.0 Released More

Audacity 1.2.0 Released

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  • Good job, Audacity! Hopefully this release makes it into the Fedora repository.

    • Re:Fedora (Score:2, Troll)

      by Jameth ( 664111 )
      Just make a package yourself and send it as a contrib. What's with the pathetic 'hoping'?

      • Re:Fedora (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bonch ( 38532 )
        Because not everyone is a developer or even savvy enough to package something, and so they "pathetically hope" some heroic person will do this stuff for them. These peons we call users.

  • Slashdot math... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:15AM (#8439136)
    2004-2000 = ~ 2 years

  • Finally (Score:5, Informative)

    by Underholdning ( 758194 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:15AM (#8439137) Homepage Journal
    Anyone interested in Audacity should pay their Audacity Wiki! [audacityteam.org] homepage a visit. Audacity is open source, cross platform and it actually works. If you haven't tried it yet, now is the time.

    • Re:Finally (Score:3, Interesting)

      by TheLink ( 130905 )
      I'm looking for digital Dolby B/Dolby C filters to convert some dolby tape recordings to CD.

      http://www.dolby.com/cassette/bcsnr/ctype.html

      Looks like Audacity doesn't do it yet. Doesn't seem to be an easy way to do a complete Dolby B/C filter digitally - it's not static - the filtering depends on sound output levels. Can do a simplistic one I suppose.

  • Hopefully studio costs going down (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 192939495969798999 ( 58312 ) <info&devinmoore,com> on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:17AM (#8439141) Homepage Journal
    Hopefully open source software will help make studio recording costs go down... it costs a freaking fortune to record a band/etc., and that's part of the reason that artists get little out of their gross profits.

    • Re:Hopefully studio costs going down (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:22AM (#8439162)
      With Ardour, JAMin, and Audacity my cost (software) to record is $0.00.

    • Re:Hopefully studio costs going down (Score:5, Insightful)

      by m00nun1t ( 588082 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:29AM (#8439197) Homepage
      Software is a trivial cost in the grand scheme of things. Mixing desks, monitors, amps, sound proofing, mics, and of course rent & engineer fees are far more.

      For example, you can get a top of the line recording package such as Logic Audio for around $1000. However, a decent vocal microphone such as a Neumann U87 will set you back around $3000.

      • Re:Hopefully studio costs going down (Score:5, Interesting)

        by LizardKing ( 5245 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:38AM (#8439226)

        Software is a trivial cost in the grand scheme of things

        That really depends on what you are trying to acheive. If you want a respectable home setup, then software is likely a major part of the cost. Most amateur and semi-pro setups now consist largely of direct to disk recorders and editing suites. Effects, synths and samplers implemented in software are increasingly replacing standalone hardware.

        a decent vocal microphone such as a Neumann U87 will set you back around $3000

        That's not a "decent" vocal mic, it's an exceptional one. For most people recording popular music styles (be it rock or dance stuff) will not need anything more sophisticated than a Shure SM mic which will set them back $100.

        Chris

        • A Rode NT 2 would be a better choice for home studio use since it is a cheap but decent capacitor mic. They go for around the 200 mark IIRC. CuBase however is more like 600 - 1000 (Nuendo) so even in a project studio this is going to make little difference to the setup costs.
        • Most rock music with any budget would be done with a decent mic such as a U87 (I don't use the word exceptional as better mics are available). The difference between a U87 and an SM58 is enormous, can't even begin to compare the two. I wouldn't use an SM58 even for a demo tape. A rode would be good for a demo as another poster suggested.

          • Most rock music with any budget would be done with a decent mic such as a U87

            Again, it depends on the budget. I have recorded on top flight digital stuff as well as two inch analogue tape, and the difference in quality was not noticable to the human ear. The overall quality of the recording is rarely down to the equipment used, more often it depends on the ability of the engineer / producer.

            Chris

          • While I wouldn't use an SM58 for anything other than live use, the SM57, its twin brother, will do great. The difference between these two mics is the shape and endpiece (flat VS a pop filter). That's all. Other than that they're identical.

            Not only is the $90 SM57 the world standard for recording guitar cabinets, Michael Jackson used it for lead vocals on Thriller (spare the jokes its a kickass record). Of course a nice mic pre can be very pricey, but in a pinch use your mixer's pre and be done with it.

        • Re:Hopefully studio costs going down (Score:5, Informative)

          by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @08:41AM (#8439583) Homepage
          exactly. I know of almost NO studios that put >$200.00 mic's in front of artists espically rock or rap artists.

          sound proofing is dirt cheap... you don't have to buy real sonex and citiscape ceiling tiles at $100.00 per 2foot X 2foot panel. a mixing console will cost very VERY little today. no you don't need a 200 channel automated mixing station. Most studios now get away with a single 24 channel mackie and have the software controlling the 24 track soundcard do most of the work... as well as 99% of all mixing is done in the computer now.

          you can set up a good quality recording studio in your basement for less than $10,000.00 with open source tools.
          I know, I recently hepled one artist build his.

          • Re:Hopefully studio costs going down (Score:5, Insightful)

            by blackmonday ( 607916 ) * on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @10:54AM (#8440844) Homepage
            I'm a huge fan of open source tools, but there's just no software out there to compete with the big boys. Audacity is great as a learning tool, but you'll never find it in a professional recording studio. Steinberg's Cubase and Nuendo, and Digi's Pro Tools, and Apple's Logic division are not worrying about the free competition yet.

            And OK I'm not trolling here, but Audacity is just not that great. I tried using it to record a simple demo, and I just didn't find it useful. I'm glad its open source and it'll surely improve, but the simple free program that came with my Mac to record audio is better. Seriously. Ultimately maybe Audacity will kick Pro Tools' ass, but I just don't see it coming yet.

            • Re:Hopefully studio costs going down (Score:5, Informative)

              by Dominic_Mazzoni ( 125164 ) * on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @11:56AM (#8441589) Homepage
              I'm a huge fan of open source tools, but there's just no software out there to compete with the big boys. Audacity is great as a learning tool, but you'll never find it in a professional recording studio. Steinberg's Cubase and Nuendo, and Digi's Pro Tools, and Apple's Logic division are not worrying about the free competition yet.

              There's a big difference: Audacity is free, and so there's no reason professional recording studios couldn't use Audacity in addition to everything else. If Audacity does just one thing better (or faster, or easier), then there's no reason not to keep it around.

              And OK I'm not trolling here, but Audacity is just not that great. I tried using it to record a simple demo, and I just didn't find it useful. I'm glad its open source and it'll surely improve, but the simple free program that came with my Mac to record audio is better.

              I don't think you've tried Audacity since version 1.0. Or maybe I forgot and the Mac sound recorder had support for 32-bit-float samples, on-the-fly resampling, and noise removal?

              Dominic
              Audacity Lead Developer
              • Hi Dominic, not trolling, but impressed that you replied. My Mac came with this [felttip.com] program, and it's very cool. I believe it's only free if bundled with the mac, it seems to be shareware, and I like it better than Audacity.

                By the way, my sister is in college and they're teaching audio recording 101 with....Audacity. Congratulations, I think that's very noteworthy. I didn't mean to put your efforts down in my post.
            • Steinberg's Cubase and Nuendo, and Digi's Pro Tools, and Apple's Logic division are not worrying about the free competition yet. No, but then, neither are MS Word, PeopleSoft's HR Tools or SNK King of Fighters series worrying about the competition from Audacity. However, when you compare it to the windows software that exists in every single radio station, such as GoldWave, usually running on some Win98 computer in the corner, you're looking at a really nice drop in replacement.

              This software is used to record a voice, lay it in over a track from a CD, and then possibly, at the most technically advanced, compress the time on the voice a bit. In other words, make ads, which is what radio stations do all day. In many stations, even today, you then dump it to a cart... basically an eight-track. For the rest, you load it up into a system that stores all the ads.

              This is perfect for that use, and as a result, this is a useful piece of software. I'd also say that it's good for throwing up while rehearsing or jamming to nab stuff in case you hear something really nice.

              --
              Evan

      • $1000 is trivial? You must must be one of those successful nerds [zpub.com].
      • I've always wondered how unnecessarily inflated those prices are.

        I was skimming through some audio forums a while ago when considering getting a nice (well, by my standards) pair of headphones. I was surprised by what a lot of musicians were using for live performances -- relatively inexpensive microphones and headphones. Unless the standard for recording is *far* higher than for live performances, it just seems that musicians are getting overcharged.

        Don't get me wrong, I'm sure a zillion dollar amp and

        • Re:Hopefully studio costs going down (Score:5, Informative)

          by gordguide ( 307383 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @08:24AM (#8439461)
          " ... unless the standard for recording is *far* higher than for live performances, it just seems that musicians are getting overcharged. ..."

          Bingo.

          Live performing requires rugged microphones. Workhorses like the Shures mentioned earlier are preferred.

          A Neumann will explode if you blow on it. Send in for repair. Spend $2000.

          But, there is no comparison in the sound.

        • Re:Hopefully studio costs going down (Score:5, Informative)

          by m00nun1t ( 588082 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @08:36AM (#8439549) Homepage
          Live equipment has a whole different set of requirements than studio gear, so you can't say the standard is "higher", just different. Let's compare the top two mics, live is SM58, studio is U87.
          They are fundamentally different, SM58 is a dynamic mic, U87 is condenser. Dynamic mics tend to be less sensitive (a good thing on a loud stage), are very robust (it's live, stuff gets dropped & thrown around), have good feedback rejection, and a frequency response that gives them maximum cut through in a live mix. A u87 has none of these things. It is designed to be sensitive and sound beautiful. It is designed to be treated with kid gloves. Is $3000 a rip off? Maybe, maybe not. But if someone else comes up with a mic that sounds as good for less, I'm all ears.

          Remember when you look around audio forums and look at what "most musicians" are using, remember that "most musicians" have little money and have either no ear or just never been exposed to high end gear to appreciate the real difference. Find a good shop and a helpful sales person, bring along a well mixed CD you know well, and listen to a few pairs of headphones - listen to the $50 ones and the $500 ones and make up your own mind. Personally, I have a set of Beyer DT770 headphones. Not the *best* sounding for the money, but good for studio work where isolation is also important. A good balance, around $220.

          (Note: while I like it, the U87 isn't my favourite studio vocal mic. I prefer the TLM 170 - the warmth of a U87 but much clearer).
          • You don't have to spend huge amounts of money to get great sounding headphones. I personally own a pair of Sennheiser HD 495's. Only set me back $60 and they blow away almost anything under $150 (check out this graph [headphone.com] to see how they perform). I would love to spend $200+ on a great pair of headphones but not in this crappy economy.
    • Does Audiocity really rank up there with Protools, reason and/or other expensive software apps that are used now??

      Just from what I have seen, those apps have more to them. Am I missing something??
    • I don't see the cost of an audio editing program affecting the overall cost of record production. Records cost so much because they hire engineers, prodcuers, marketeers (like bucaneers but robbing your cash not your jewels) and then have to also pay the band. Let's not forget the prohibitive cost of a Neve console or an Appoge sound channel. The 200 or so they will save on a commercial audio product is not really going to make a noticeable difference here.

      • Another thing that adds to the recording costs of major label artists is that they frequently go into the studio with no completed material. The label demands a new album when the band has just finished touring to support the last one. Enthusiasm and energy are at a low ebb, and the band spend ages knocking new material together. This often gets written off as "pre-production".

        Chris

  • Linux On The Desktop (Score:3, Insightful)

    by osewa77 ( 603622 ) <naijasms@NOSpaM.gmail.com> on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:17AM (#8439142) Homepage
    Programs like this are a big step forward for the dream of "Linux on the Desktop"

    • Re:Linux On The Desktop (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Underholdning ( 758194 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:39AM (#8439235) Homepage Journal
      I'd like to see linux on the desktop as much as the next guy, but I really don't see why this program, albeit great, helps. Linux on the desktop will not happen until my mother can install linux. She can install Win XP, but she's not even close to installing a standard Debian. Since Audacity is cross platform, it really doesn't give linux any edge at all.
      • This is a step toward desktop acceptance of Linux. These type of programs are among those that get brought up when people say "But I work with music and Linux doesnt have xyz-tools....".

        It being cross-platform is even better for Linux, because it means people who begin using it on Windows (for example) could easily switch to Linux at a later date.

        Also, your mom will not need to be able to install Linux (IMHO) -- rather, she'll have to be able to go to Best Buy (or wherever) and say...

        Your mom: I need

      • Re:Linux On The Desktop (Score:3, Informative)

        by yog ( 19073 )
        I think the OP's point was that Linux users (not necessarily your mother but people who consciously want to adopt Linux despite the lack of some software availability) now have one more useful tool that runs natively and one less reason to have to run Windows. The fact that Audacity is cross-platform is only good news; it can get adopted more widely this way. Spreading the roots makes the tree stronger.

        I think CoolEdit and its successor Adobe Audition are slicker, more mature products, but Audacity does

  • The world of Out Of Phase Stereo (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:21AM (#8439156)
    I use Audacity a lot to do "Out Of Phase Stereo" or OOPS to remove the "center" of a stereo recording.
    Many songs put the vocalist at the center so this is a useful way to remove vocals from a song.
    1) Load your favorite .MP3, .OGG, or .WAV song
    2) one click to split into two tracks (left & right)
    3) click on either left or right track, select "Invert" from the Effects menu...this is the key step.
    4) click-select both tracks and select "Quick Mix"
    5) you are left with a mono recording that has the former "center channel" (usually the vocals) removed!

    This won't work on "live" concert recordings and works best with "Pop/Rock" from the 1960s & 1970s

    Thomas Dz.

  • still lack vital ui feature? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:21AM (#8439157)
    i remembered testing it and being really satisfied with its editing features. but, i had no index while playing a project, of where the sound-head was in the file. i am used to seeing a line that shows which audio data is played at the moment, yet audacity lacks that features? is this now available?
    • While playing it shows a red triangle above the tracks and a vertical red line through all the tracks at the playing position. When you pause the line goes away but the triangle stays.
    • For me, Audacity 1.0 is just fine for what I do - digitizing tapes and records, simple home-studio recordings. What I always missed:
      -fade in and out tools
      -what you said
      -and to be able to chose the soundcard, if you have more than 1 installed

      • Re:Good point! (Score:5, Informative)

        by Dominic_Mazzoni ( 125164 ) * on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @12:14PM (#8441796) Homepage
        For me, Audacity 1.0 is just fine for what I do - digitizing tapes and records, simple home-studio recordings. What I always missed:
        -fade in and out tools

        Either use fade in/out effects or plug-ins, or use the built-in amplitude envelope editor - just click on the tool that looks like two triangles surrounding a control point.

        -what you said

        Audacity 1.2 displays the line showing the current playback/recording position

        -and to be able to chose the soundcard, if you have more than 1 installed

        That's always been there, in the preferences dialog.

  • !Cool! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tcdk ( 173945 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:24AM (#8439173) Homepage Journal
    And I was looking around for a new sound edit program. I've been using CoolEdit for a long time but Audacity seems to do everything I need.

    Just took it for a spin and it looks good. It even have a noise reduction function...

    Hey, just checked the undo feature and you can even undo the mp3 import.

    The mp3 export function seems a bit lacking, but thats what programs like CDex is for (on windows).

    • Re:!Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by carpe_noctem ( 457178 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @08:52AM (#8439657) Homepage Journal
      I use cooledit for most of my audio editing, and your post blows me away. My first thought using the program was "wow, they finally made it run on my mac. Badass!". However, my second thought was, "hrm, it's -like- cooledit, but without any of the effects or features".

      This program looks like it's off to a good start, but it's not gonna replace cooledit for me. Namely, it lacks a lot of basic plugins (ADSR, amplification envelopes, fade ins/outs that don't suck, spectrum analysis, etc). Hopefully, the VST enabler project will take care of most of this.

      • Re:!Cool! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by einer ( 459199 )
        No VST is a real killer. I was told that, even as flawed, ugly, hacked, and putrid as VST is, it's the only real name in the game right now. My DJ friends won't move to a platform without VST. No matter how enthused they are about free software or the ideas of open source, no matter how much the ideals of the open source community ring true to them, if it doesn't work, they're not going to switch.

      • Re:!Cool! (Score:3, Informative)

        by CoughDropAddict ( 40792 )
        This program looks like it's off to a good start, but it's not gonna replace cooledit for me. Namely, it lacks a lot of basic plugins (ADSR, amplification envelopes, fade ins/outs that don't suck, spectrum analysis, etc). Hopefully, the VST enabler project will take care of most of this.

        For spectrum analysis, go View->Plot Spectrum. There's also spectrum view mode, which you can select from any track's menu. Envelope editing is built in to the interface; just choose the envelope tool and start draggi

        • Re:!Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by carpe_noctem ( 457178 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @11:55AM (#8441584) Homepage Journal
          Like many plugins for audacity, the tool exists, but it is either non-functional or useless. The main reason I use cooledit's frequency analysis is for resampling instrumunts, a task at which audacity cannot currently do.

          Say you resample someone's bassline, and you want to use this sample within another program such as reason or buzz as a machine. So you grab your sample from a file, isolate it, etc. After clipping the wav, you're good to go.

          However, when you take this note into reason, you can't just go off and start programming notes into it... even though reason will happily make a melody for you, the notes that you program into the machine are only relative to the sample that you give it. That is, they do not actually reflect the sample you put in.

          For instance, say the bass note you grab is an F#. However, when you feed this into another machine, it will assume it is tuned to a C. So when you tell it to play something like "C, C#, D", you would actually be hearing "F# G G#". So, everything is off-tune and sounds like ass.

          In cooledit (I'm on a mac atm, so sadly, I cannot tell you specifically where to find this tool), you can whip out ce's analysis program, which will tell you the exact tuning of a given sound. So, you can figure out that the note is actually an F# rather than a C, and either work around it in buzz or reason, or you could change the pitch of the sample to adjust it to a C. In case you're curious, audacity's analysis doesn't support this. It'll run a freq analysis, but not actually tell you anything useful out of it.

          I only bring this lengthy example up because it is one of the things that really pisses me off about the open source community. It's as if everyone is really excited about this program just because it's finally -somewhat- useable, and it's OSS. It's kind of like praising the retarded kid in elementary school when he spells "dog" correctly in the spelling bee. =) My point is, I'm optimistic for audacity, but it lacks a lot of -basic- functionality for composing or editing music.

          • Re:!Cool! (Score:5, Informative)

            by CoughDropAddict ( 40792 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @12:19PM (#8441846) Homepage
            In cooledit (I'm on a mac atm, so sadly, I cannot tell you specifically where to find this tool), you can whip out ce's analysis program, which will tell you the exact tuning of a given sound. So, you can figure out that the note is actually an F# rather than a C, and either work around it in buzz or reason, or you could change the pitch of the sample to adjust it to a C. In case you're curious, audacity's analysis doesn't support this. It'll run a freq analysis, but not actually tell you anything useful out of it.

            That's simply not true. Open View->Plot Spectrum. You will see the spectrum, and it should peak at the pitch of the fundamental note. Now move the cursor over that peak. Now you see a display of the form "Cursor: 3239 Hz (G#7) = -41 dB."

            Of course Audacity doesn't have everything, and we would love to have time to develop more features. But at least give us credit for the features we do have.

      • Re:!Cool! (Score:3, Informative)

        by Dominic_Mazzoni ( 125164 ) *
        This program looks like it's off to a good start, but it's not gonna replace cooledit for me. Namely, it lacks a lot of basic plugins (ADSR, amplification envelopes, fade ins/outs that don't suck, spectrum analysis, etc). Hopefully, the VST enabler project will take care of most of this.

        Audacity has built-in amplification envelopes with linear-dB interpolation - i.e. fades that don't suck. You can also use built-in or plug-in effects for other types of fades. It has lots of spectrum analysis, including

  • Rock on Linux!!! (Score:5, Informative)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisum&gmail,com> on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:27AM (#8439184) Homepage Journal
    There's some great audio stuff happening in linux land lately. I'll give you the two examples I've been playing with today alone, for example:

    GALAN - Graphical Audio Language [sourceforge.net]

    and

    Specimen, MIDI sampler for Linux [gazuga.net]

    These two apps alone prove that Linux is as ready for Audio applications development as any other, and Audacity proves that its possible to do it in a way that caters to -all- platforms.

    Gonna be an interesting year for Audio apps in Linux land this year, I think ... Very interesting.

    • Re:Rock on Linux!!! (Score:5, Informative)

      by LizardKing ( 5245 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:45AM (#8439259)

      Another "killer app" is Rosegarden [all-day-breakfast.com], which is rapidly becoming a suitable replacement for Steinberg Cubase. The Hydrogen [sf.net] sample based drum machine is also worth a mention. The exciting thing is that JACK [sourceforge.net] allows easy multiplexing of things like Rosegarden and Hydrogen, and has kickstarted a whole load of audio and MIDI projects.

      My only regret is that my preferred operating system lacks an ALSA compatability layer, so things like JACK and Rosegarden are Linux only at the moment.

      Chris

    • The state of Linux content production software (Score:5, Informative)

      by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @08:10AM (#8439361) Journal
      It's not all rosy:
      Smurf, the Linux soundfont editor/creator, seems to have fallen behind the times, and hasn't been updated to GTK2.

      XMMS, the Linux WinAMP clone, seems to be primarily static -- I don't see a lot of development on it these days.

      Sound servers are still par for the course -- current sound driver systems like OSS and ALSA cannot fall back to software mixing when all hardware channels have been exhausted. Frequently, general audio use is through asound or aRts, which add latency and make it easier for audio to stutter.

      On the up side, the 2.6 kernel brings everyone the low-latency and preempt patches, nice for pro audio work. ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, a new set of sound drivers) is standard in 2.6, and the aging OSS/Free is finally deprecated as the official Linux sound API. Hardware mixing, wavetable sample loading, and other things not in OSS/Free are now generally available. JACK, the Linux pro audio server, is mature and being used in a ton of projects.

      PlanetCCRMA [stanford.edu], an *excellent* source of packaged software for anyone using a Red Hat distro and interested in audio work, has been maintained and has become a good resource.

      The Rosegarden [all-day-breakfast.com] MIDI sequencer is now a complete, pro-class set of composition software.

      The main content creation areas:

      * Page Layout - Scribus is supposed to fill this gap. I really have no idea how it compares to current pro-class page layout software.

      * 3D Modeling - I'm personally not a huge Blender fan (not really comfortable with the interface), but it apparently does a good job. I was always kind of sad that front ends for POVRay never really took off, as that's a renderer with a lot of hours put into it. Not sure what the state of CAD is.

      * Vector graphics: Sodipodi is slowly getting there, but there's nothing that I can currently think of that's really on par with Illustrator. For the special case of diagrams, Dia does a pretty good job -- as a matter of fact, I find it to be much faster to enter data into Dia than Visio.

      * Natural media raster graphics -- Like Painter, software for producing natural-looking artwork on a computer. Essentially nonexistent in the OSS world -- apparently nobody wants to do a thesis on modelling natural media effects mathematically.

      * Video Editing -- not sure what the best of breed is here. I'd be interested in hearing from people about what there is.

      * Spreadsheet -- from what I've heard, unless perfect Office compatibility is a primary goal, Gnumeric can pretty much handle anything that Excel can.

      * Presentation -- Not sure about how current software adds up. Last time I tried OO.org's presentation module, it was too buggy for day-to-day use and inverted a number of elements of an imported Powerpoint presentation.

      * Word Processor -- unless Office compatibility is a primary issue, Open Office seems to be acceptable. I used to run into a number of cosmetic bugs, but it seems to have been cleaned up a lot, even if it is still a bit slow and has a widget set that works differently from native sets.

      There are a lot of projects out there, and even a lot of promising ones, but there are few areas that open source content creation apps are on par with their commercial counterparts today, unfortunately (well, as I see it).

      • Re:Videoediting (Score:3, Interesting)

        by madsdyd ( 228464 )
        I like Kino [schirmacher.de] - so much that I actually contributed to it. Lots of people seem to like Cinerella [heroinewarrior.com] There are a lot of other projects.

        • Re:Videoediting (Score:3, Interesting)

          by TuxBeej ( 75679 )
          I used Cinelerra for a project in my Japanese theatre class and it was a *very* steep learning curve. Of course, it was also the first time I had done any sort of non-linear video editing, so that is probably paritally to blame.

          After I got used to the interface and the specific methods of inserting transitions and whatnot, I found it pretty simple to add in voice-over tracks and sound/video effects. I was also using it on a Duron 933 w/ 512 MB RAM - not at all a powerhouse video-editing workstation by an

    • Re:Rock on Linux!!! (Score:3, Informative)

      by JayJay.br ( 206867 )
      And don't forget Ardour [ardour.org], an excellent project for a Linux DAW. They're releasing new betas every other week and coming close to the 1.0 release. A great substitute for Cakewalk/Sonar.

  • Sweet!!! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bill Kendrick ( 19287 ) <bill@newbreedsoftware.com> on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:28AM (#8439189) Homepage
    As a game developer, I need tools like Audacity to make and tweak the lame little sfx in my games. ;)
    Congrats guys and gals!!!

  • maybe... (Score:5, Funny)

    by beware1000 ( 678753 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:29AM (#8439198)
    wow! maybe Australian local television networks can actually afford to make their advertisments sound decent now!

  • Most important questions... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Does it support recording to hdd and does it declick recordings from phono?

  • this is good for OSS (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:31AM (#8439203)
    GIMP 2(third release) - 2D almost ready to topple paintshoppro and then on to the long road to victory over photoshop http://www.gimp.org/

    SODIPODI - vector 2D maturing nicely http://www.sodipodi.com/

    Blender 2.32- 3D models already quite powerful http://www.blender3d.com/

    Audacity 1.2.0 - very nice http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

    Now all we need is some developers to get into gear helping out with Jahshaka so that it can compete on that "entry level" ticket that will allow it to really take off. But until that time, it hasn't got what it takes. Linux needs a non-linear editor pretty bad these days, so come help out.
    http://www.jahshaka.com/

    And then maybe an OSS game engine that can keep improving. Many games these days come from the brains of a few mod creators (counter-strike, day of defeat, natural selection) and as proven by counter-strike it isn't graphics, but gameplay (and in the case of single-player, storyline) which matter most. So a good engine that accepts and interfaces well with blender would make OSS quite simply rule.

    We have won (there is never total victory) the server market, and the corporate desktop (mozilla+openoffice) is about to crumble - now onto the home desktop! Freesoftware and beyond!

    • Well, just had a look at the "new" audacity. I don't find it so innovative ; indeed, I was expecting for many features which were not included here. Some are pretty simple ; for example, I would like the FFT filter to have a "log scale" option, which would make it much more interesting and usable.
      Anyway, Audacity is an interesting project. I will keep suggesting it to people wanting a simple and quite powerful audio editor on Linux. But the time we get something like Protools or Adube Audition seems quite
      • Well, just had a look at the "new" audacity. I don't find it so innovative ; indeed, I was expecting for many features which were not included here. Some are pretty simple ; for example, I would like the FFT filter to have a "log scale" option, which would make it much more interesting and usable.

        This is available with the Equalizer effect. I agree, it's a little confusing. These effects will be merged in a future version.

        Please add your other ideas to the Audacity Feature Requests [audacityteam.org] page!

        Dominic
        Audacit

    • Re:this is good for OSS (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Quarters ( 18322 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @08:25AM (#8439466)
      GIMP 2(third release) - 2D almost ready to topple paintshoppro and then on to the long road to victory over photoshop http://www.gimp.org/

      Hyperbole like this only helps to underscore either a)the closed mindedness of OSS developers or b)the ignorance of the person who said it.

      Software development is not a war or a contest. A rival piece of software rarely (EXTREMELY RARELY) ever obliterates the market for its competitors. Most of the time, though, the decline/loss of a viable program is due to the developer being lost in a merger or acquisition or by the advertising money spent by a rival to achieve massive market penetration. Mergers, buyouts, and marketing blitzes aren't something for which most OSS projects have the $, time, or inclination.

      The GIMP is not going to "topple" PaintShop Pro. Most people aren't OSS savvy but they can buy PSPro off of the shelf at BestBuy--so they'll get what they can acquire. If GIMP shows any detectable difference to Photoshop it will probably only be in the lessening of Photoshop piracy since there is an adequate free tool some people to use. Even then, though, the warez-monkeys will still download Photoshop because it's available to them.

    • Not even close (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Dog and Pony ( 521538 )
      Funny, we as Game developers recently evaluated three of those tools you are mentioning: GIMP, Blender and Sodipodi - none of them are close to being usable. Actually, most of the time it isn't that they can't do the work - it's the fact that NOONE ever puts any thought into the interfaces. And there are no, or bad, docs on the subject either. Sure, they lack features too, but no showstopping ones.

      Sodipodi might come out being usable someday, but our GFX artists probably never will try Blender or GIMP agai

  • Mandrake package available (Score:5, Informative)

    by Götz ( 18854 ) <waschk@nosPAm.gmx.net> on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:34AM (#8439213) Homepage
    I've uploaded the Mandrake package of audacity 1.2.0 to the contribs, it's available from any cooker mirror.

    If you have Mandrake 9.2, it should be possible to install it there as well.

  • Still no support for plugins on Linux. What's with that?

  • A question for Audacity users.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Mr Smidge ( 668120 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:39AM (#8439234) Homepage
    Perhaps I can take advantage of this discussion to ask a quick question..

    How might I record from the line in port of my sound card? I generally record vinyls that I own to a digital format to listen to more conveniently, and audacity's GUI option dialog only allows me to record from /dev/dsp, which records everything, i.e. "What U Hear".

    I tried changing it to /dev/mixer in the config file, but the effect was the same.

    This is annoying, if I'm recording and GAIM happens to make a noise, or something else does. I know I could just kill every other sound-producing process, but I'd rather work out how to record directly from line-in.

    Any clues? Thank you, knowledgeable /. crowd.

    Before you ask, I have STFW somewhat on this..
    • Side question: are you recording straight from the turntable or going through an amp first?

      If straight from the turntable, how are you correcting the sound? Does Audacity have that option? (I have it installed but haven't look for that feature.) That'd be cool if it did.

      --RJ

    • Re:A question for Audacity users.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by imroy ( 755 ) <imroykun@gmail.com> on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:58AM (#8439310) Homepage Journal
      It sounds like a fairly simple issue. Just get into a mixer program and set it to "record" or "capture" from line instead of mix/master or whatever it's currently using. If you're using ALSA then I'd recommend gamix. Sorry I can't recommend what to use with the older OSS drivers, I've been using ALSA for so many years. On my SB! Live!! gamix has a seperate "capture" section where I can select from quite a few sources. Console mixers like alsamixer or aumix (which uses OSS not ALSA) just show the capture source as some button or option next to each slider.

  • Debian Woody packages? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bill Kendrick ( 19287 ) <bill@newbreedsoftware.com> on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @07:48AM (#8439268) Homepage
    I was so excited when I saw "Debian" listed on the download page, til I discovered it was about some _POTATO_ packages! :^(

    I tried replacing "potato" with "woody" in the apt source URL, but to no avail. :^( Anyone built Audacity 1.2.0 for Woody yet? C'mon! Backports! Backports! I LIVE off 'em! ;^)

    -bill!
    (yes, yes, I know about apt-pinning :^P )
  • For suckage-free OSS audio editing!
    Audio Editors don't get much attention. But when you need one it's so important to have one that does the basic stuff without a hinch and doesn't suck like the usual non-mainstream experimental OSS stuff that to often doesn't/didn't work as their teams like(d) to advertise.
    Audacity was the first one to work as advertised for me. It's one I gladly take to replace the usual suspects like cool edit. It was the first usable audio editor under Linux aswell.
    Thanks to the Audaci

  • incredibly useful (Score:2, Informative)

    by breakinbearx ( 672220 )
    This software is a must for ANYBODY who has recording and editing needs, especially if they need it on the cheap. My neighbors and i have a band, which has been just playing around for a year. Being just a lowly garage band, we have no cash for studio time. However, Audacity, a sound card, and a mic have allowed us to record a semi-decent demo! I've even experimented with some friends' tools i.e. ProTools and Acid, and i still haven't found something as productive and useful as this. I'm so glad to hear thi

  • Good, but not good enough (Score:5, Insightful)

    by djtrialprice ( 602555 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @08:02AM (#8439328)
    I know that it depends on what you want to use it for, but I don't think Audacity is actually useful for "live recording" i.e. listening to something and concurrently recording alongside it.

    I do have to admit that it is a great piece of software with loads of features but when I do some multitrack recording with my full duplex, 24-bit, DMX 6Fire soundcard: I expect good results. I don't expect a latency of about half a second. That's the bottom line - until that problem is addressed I can't swap Audacity for CoolEdit Pro, or Cakewalk. As a user and supporter of GPL stuff, that's what I really want to do.

    I guess sometimes there really is a reason why software *can* rightly cost hundreds of thousands of $$$s.

  • Windows, too (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Evil Grinn ( 223934 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @09:21AM (#8439892)
    Audacity is also pretty darn useful on Windows. It fills a niche between Windows' built-in sound recorder program (that will only record one minute) and more advanced non-free (in any sense of the word) apps. I am not aware of another free sound editor for Windows with the features of Audacity.

  • Minor nit - stops audio when launched in OS X (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sjonke ( 457707 ) * on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @09:58AM (#8440221) Journal
    A minor nit - when I launch Audacity in OS X it kills sound from other applications, particularly iTunes. I have to stop and start playback in iTunes to get the sound back. Not a big deal, but slightly annoying. It seems like a pretty nice audio editor albeit with a somewhat clunky user interface. I really want to drag that little playback triangle around, but can't! The change tempo and change pitch effects are highly amusing. I just wish it could directly input and output AAC format, but I suppose that's unlikely.

  • Rezound (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @10:11AM (#8440332)
    http://rezound.sourceforge.net
    I think this is better...

  • For Windows Users Only (Score:3, Interesting)

    by blackmonday ( 607916 ) * on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @11:01AM (#8440912) Homepage
    If you're running windows, check out this [kreatives.org] software. Closed source but free. 16 tracks, and supports VST. Looks nice.

  • Nightmare for equipment brokers, wet dream for us (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dr. Zowie ( 109983 ) <slashdot&deforest,org> on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @12:26PM (#8441932)
    One of my friends' dad works in the studio-equipment business. As he pointed out, almost the only thing left for them to "sell" is the nice look-and-feel of a full sound board with thousands of manual controls on it. Even traditional-looking soundboards these days are mostly front ends for digital mixers.

    Audacity is a case in point -- a small workstation with a few SoundBlaster cards can handle as many tracks as you like and produce sound at least as good as was used to make all that old vinyl, and costs under $1,000. Ultimately, that means anyone who can afford an instrument can probably afford to play at being a sound engineer, with really good postprocessing equipment.

    I've been using Audacity for about a year and a half to work my way through my record collection, mp3ifying it. It's great -- I record the records with a SoundBlaster card, depop the recording with some shareware, and noise-gate, adjust levels, and chop up the tracks with Audacity. The results sound better than the original vinyl, since the noise gating gets rid of the surface noise.

    My rip of "Layla" off the original Derek and the Dominos vinyl is clear enough that you can hear the master's tape hiss change as each of those famously many mixing tracks gets switched in and out by the recording engineer. I never noticed that when I used to just play the record -- but once the the vinyl surface noise is gated out, it's obvious.

    Audacity is good enough that I was able to digitize a friend's old clay '45 of the Clouds singing "Wyatt Earp" in the late 1950s -- even after the record had broken in half! I superglued it back together and played it at 33rpm. Of course, there were two loud "pops" for each revolution of the record, since there's no way I could line the grooves up perfectly. In fact, it wouldn't play at 45 -- the bumps would throw the needle out of the groove. But I was able to go in with Audacity and clip out all the pops, then resample to get a full-speed recording. The resulting MP3 accurately reproduces the sound-and-feel of a 1960s era jukebox :-)

  • Audacity uses the wxWidgets toolkit (Score:3, Informative)

    by motown ( 178312 ) on Wednesday March 03, 2004 @08:55AM (#8451174)
    For the interested folks who are impressed by the quality of its GUI under various Operating Systems: Audacity makes use of the wxWind...Oops, wxWidgets-toolkit. AFAIK, this is one of the most prominent applications based on this toolkit. It really shows off the quality of wxWidgets as a cross-platform GUI toolkit.

    wxWidgets is released under the LGPL-license, making it suitable for both open- and closed-source application development.

    Audacity is such a cool and useful tool. Linux NEEDS more quality applications like this. Excellent work, Audacity developers! Keep up the good work! :-)

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