Audacity, the popular free open-source audio editor, release version 3.5.0 (then 3.5.1 with quick-fixes) few days ago.
Audacity 3.5.0 is a major release with new features. They include a new cloud-saving feature. By going to menu ‘File -> Save To Cloud …’, user can save Audacity project to audio.com via a free account. So, user can access the project from any other devices, and/or share and collaborate with others.
NOTE: this feature does NOT work in my PPA package, since it’s built with Debian upstream rule that disables network access! If you do prefer this feature, please leave comment below, or use the official AppImage package instead.
Audacity can now automatically detect the tempo of imported loops, and adjust them to be in tempo.
Tempo detection is done via both audio analysis and metadata checking. If you want to prepare your loop for automatic tempo detection without relying on audio analysis, both acidizer tempo tags or simply writing “123 bpm” anywhere into the filename work.
And, the automatic tempo detection feature can be turned off via “Preferences -> Import/Export”.
The new release also introduced pitch shifting. Users can now non-destructively change the pitch of a clip by holding Alt and pressing Up/Down arrow keys, though there’s also a corresponding option in the right corner overflow menu (…), or by pressing Ctrl+Shif+P.
Other changes in Audacity 3.5.0 include:
- New option to skip plugin scanning.
- New overflow menu, as well as speed and pitch indicators to clips.
- Add subtitle formats for labels.
- Export to WebVTT and SubRip and import of SubRip files
- Rework the plugin manager, and improve accessibility.
- And various bug-fixes.
The release also REMOVED some features! They include:
- Printing options.
- Screenshot tool
- Karaoke view.
- The read-only mouse preferences page,the “solo=none”, timeline tooltips, “dragging selection edges” “scrolling left of zero” preference.
- Replace “Advanced Vertical Zooming” with new always-on behavior.
- Remove some vertical zoom presets.
- Remove EQ XML to TXT converter, and the “Vocal reduction and isolation” effect
For more changes, see the Github releases page.
How to Get Audacity 3.5.1
Audacity provides official AppImage for Linux (add executable permission in file “Properties”, then run to launch the app), Windows EXE, and macOS DMG available to download via the link above.
For Ubuntu on both amd64 (modern Intel/AMD CPUs) and arm64/armhf (Raspberry Pi, etc) platforms, there’s also an unofficial PPA contains the package for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.10, and Ubuntu 24.04. The PPA package however disabled internet access for Audacity. See this step by step tutorial in case you don’t know how to use it.
Regarding enabling the cloud stuff: I’d say that the update checking and error reporting which initially got introduced can remain disabled as they’re just system conveniences which the PPA takes care of anyway. However, the audio sharing and cloud saving are real features which users might want and therefore they should be enabled.
Should be reasonably easy to configure, too: I believe you’d just need to pass the following into CMake: audacity_has_networking=on, audacity_has_updates_check=off, audacity_has_audiocom_upload=on, audacity_has_url_schemes_support=on, audacity_has_sentry_reporting=off
@LWinterberg, thanks for the tips. I’ll try it later.
UPDATE: Sadly failed to build with networking support! Don’t know why, but Audacity tries to look for this 10 years old ThreadPool library rather than uses the one in system repository. The team member recommends to built with conan, to get the library automatically, however launchpad PPA farm does NOT have internet connection while building process…