View source for Pending Feature Requests

{{deprecated}}
{{Intro|This locked page is for the use of sysops to transfer feature requests from the [http://audacityteam.org/forum/ Audacity Forum] and other sources. They will be reviewed and where appropriate transferred to the Wiki [[Feature Requests]] page.|For this page, it is best not to summarise, but paste in verbatim, so the context of the suggestion can be understood.}}


__TOC__


== Not yet reviewed ==


*'''Feature requests for Mixer Board:''' Currently, if a track has a gain envelope, the meters on the Mixer Board (View->Mixer Board) show the amplitude without the envelope applied. The meters would, to me at least, be more useful if they represented the actual contribution of their tracks to the mix. Also - Is there a way to individually reset the peak-hold indicators on the Mixer Board during playback? Actually, it would be useful just to be able to reset all of them without clicking anywhere in the main panel, because that brings the main panel to focus and hides the mixer board unless I slide the main panel mostly off the screen. It would also be very useful to have the keyboard shortcuts for transport control functional while the Mixer Board has focus.
**Steve: I don't know how difficult it would be to implement this feature, but I suspect it is not easy. I can see the usefulness of what you suggest - perhaps an option (check box on the mixer board interface) to select between pre / post envelope level?

*'''psychoacoustic weighting:''' It'd be nifty if the Plot Spectrum tool had an option for psychoacoustically weighting the frequencies (ITU-R 468, inverse ISO 226, even just A-weighting) so as to make it easy to find which frequencies are perceived as loudest or as similarly loud. 
**Steve: I do see some problems with the suggestion, namely that psychoacoustic weightings assume a specific "loudness" but that depends on how high you have your amp/speakers turned up.

*'''Notch Filter q:'''  For the notch filter, q=20 is a ridiculously low upper limit. if you're filtering out a constant high-frequency sound that's going to affect way too broad a frequency range. For instance, I had a recording with a 6200 Hz hum and the peak was only 8Hz wide. using a Q factor less than several hundred would have been unnecessarily eating away at the signal. You can actually enter whatever Q you want to run the filter with (and the slider will be "stuck" at the right) but it won't remember your setting, resetting to 20 instead. 
**Steve:  That one is my "fault".  As you have discovered you can set the Q as high as you like (by keyboard entry).  Yes, in absolute "Hz" the notch may look quite wide, but in terms of octaves a Q of 20 really is pretty narrow.

*'''Notch filter logarithmic slider:'''  Setting the notch filter's Q factor with a linear slider doesn't really make sense. A logarithmic slider would be better (the actual effect of doubling Q is similar whether you're going from 1 to 2 or 100 to 200). Having a width control instead would be more intuitive. Giving users the option whether to specify the width or the Q factor might be best.
**Steve: I agree that an option for logarithmic sliders would often be useful, but unfortunately that is not currently available for Nyquist plug-ins. This feature request goes beyond "Notch Filter", it is a limitation for all Nyquist plug-in effects. I suggest that you make a separate feature request for this (and it gets my vote).


*'''Enhancements to the mixer board:''' 
#A mix level (master) meter.
#Play controls for the mixer view.
#Fast switching between the main window and the Mixer Board window.
#Fader automation. (Plus 1 vote)
**Steve (OP): Of these features I'd prioritise the first two, but I agree that fader automation would be a great enhancement.
**Peter:  see [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=65416 this thread] in the forum

*'''Using Hertz in "Sliding Time Scale/Pitch Shift":'''  During the last centuries the pitch standard of today 440Hz for "middle A" varied between 415Hz (baroque wind instruments) up to 466Hz (church chorton). See e.g. Wikipedia History of pitch standards in Western music for more details.  In the "Change Pitch" also changes tempo? discussion we found that the Audacity "Change Pitch" effect is not precise enough to change the pitch of an audio track recorded from a traditionally tuned instrument to modern 440Hz standard tuning without bringing the track out of sync with the other audio tracks, but the Audacity "Sliding Time Scale/Pitch Shift" effect (with a "Tempo Change" of zero percent) can be used for this with good results.  In order to adjust a recording played with traditional instruments or sung in a traditional tuning to the 440Hz standard of modern instruments it would be useful to have the possibilty to define the "Pitch Change" in the Audacity "Sliding Time Scale/Pitch Shift" effect not only in semitones or percent, but also in Hertz, mainly because the "middle A" standard tuning is defined in Hertz and not in semitones or percent.  Adding Hertz input would greatly simplify using the "Sliding Time Scale/Pitch Shift" effect as a "tunig correction" effect for recordings of traditional music. (plus 1 vote)
**Steve: I'd also like sliders for the pitch shift as these are a lot easier when using as an "effect" rather than precise "musical" use. Most of all I'd like a Preview button.

*'''Batch Export naming options:''' Can the option to add Filename Prefix be added to the Label/Track option too, please? I'm missing it, although I can do it manually in the OS. In fact, thinking about it, perhaps a pre- and/or post- text field independent of the option chosen would be most flexible.
**Gale: I assume you are talking about Export Multiple. Do you mean that you want an option for a prefix where that prefix is followed by the text in the label or track name, instead of replacing that text with a sequential number?
**OP: Yes, but as an additional option, I don't suggest getting rid of sequential numbering! I'd like to be able to multi-export "[prefix][label]", where [prefix] needs to include trailing spaces. It then occurred to me that in the past I have also done it the other way round: "[label][postfix]", where the [postfix] would need to contain leading spaces. This why I ended up suggesting "[prefix][label][postfix]". [prefix] and [postfix] would typically be the file name.  A thought has just occured. Have you seen how WinAmp configure naming options for CD Ripping by allowing users to string together various tags in a text field? Pre-determined tags (e.g. in our case: file name, label, track, seq no) can be interspersed with text, such as " - ". I have two versions stored in Notepad which I paste in as necessary - very handy. This would allow users maximum flexibility in their use of minimal options.


*'''Extend "Play one second":''' I find the "1" shortcut to "Play one second" very useful, but not quite long enough. Is there a way to extend it to, say, two seconds? "Play cut preview" would work even better for me if it would work for a zero length selection. I'd like to place the cursor on a short event I'd like to label, listen to a second before and after it, then control+B to label it if I decide it's necessary. If I extend the selection slightly as necessary for "Play cut preview" to work, I naturally hear a tiny click in the middle, and the label becomes a range rather than a point. I'm having to select around the location, press Space to play, click the point then control+B to label. I've got hundreds of these to do and I'd like to save a couple of clicks per label.
**Gale: Not without recompiling Audacity. Do you want to vote for this to be configurable in Playback preferences? The obvious problem of course is that the "1" shortcut is then misleading. Or, should we add a "2" shortcut to play one second either side? I agree 1 second may be a little short.


*'''Only apply dither on export:''' When processing integer audio, do not convert back to integer format and do not apply dither. Only apply dither when converting to an integer format is necessary and appropriate (for example on Export). (plus 1 vote)


*'''Selectively "lock" markers/cue points and regions:''' i.e. to lock some of them but not all (+1 vote)

*'''An easy way of getting regions in Label Tracks to "butt up" against each other:''' (plus 1 vote)



*'''Spectrogram caching:''' I've recently started experimenting with using large window sizes for the spectrogram parameters in order to examine events in the low frequencies, e.g. size=32768, max freq=200. This works nicely, but of course it's very slow to refresh the display, e.g. several seconds when displaying 3 seconds at a time. That's not so bad when viewing a "page" at a time, but it's annoying when playing the track because you can't see the new display for several seconds each time the cursor reaches the end of the window. It seems like the spectrogram is cached - I can change to Waveform display, then back to Spectrogram instantly. Would it be practical to retain that cache after moving to the next page? Then I could PageUp for several pages, then return to the original page and play through without the display delays. Even better, calculate the next page's cache in the background while this one is playing. The cache would of course become useless and should be flushed if the spectrogram parameters get changed, or perhaps even if one changes the zoom level.
**Steve: As an "And/Or" feature, how about if Audacity dropped down to a lower window size during playback to allow better real-time performance, then when playback stops (or is paused) the screen gets drawn at full resolution? This would be similar to the "Real Time" and "High Quality" conversion settings for resampling ("Quality" settings).
**OP: I don't think it would help me. Low frequency features turn into a blurred jumble at low window sizes, so it's not much use displaying them (see sample). The idea is to play the track, then pause when I see something interesting to label it, perhaps even label it without pausing.
**Steve: What I had in mind was for a preference setting. In your case, you would set the "Real Time" settings high enough to see the detail, but for users that want real time rendering, and may be on low powered computers, a lower setting could be used for smooth playback.
**OP: Another idea is an option to automatically pause till the display is ready, then resume. It could even kick in only if the display takes more than a second to prepare. That ought to be far simpler to implement, but doesn't fix the problem of the slowness of paging back and forth. Caching would make that really snappy.
**Steve: Caching sounds like a good idea, though there would probably need to be a preference for how much to cache. You would probably want a large cache, but if not limited there could be hundreds of "screens" cached. Currently Audacity appears to cache just the one current screen.
**OP: Given that the current page is already cached, it oughtn't be technically difficult to retain the cache. It needs a tag to say what its time limits are, and a way of checking if it's already cached before recalculating it. But how much space would it use? Would it have to be cached on disk? How quickly could it be retrieved? If it was saved on disk then it could probably be retained for reuse even after parameter changes, and between sessions, but there should probably be some sort of limit imposed on the total size the cache uses. Perhaps I've overestimating the space required. Does it save the actual values, or just the graphics? I see that I can still zoom out if I specify a low max frequency, so if space is an issue, it could lose the data for the higher frequencies. I assume it has to calculate them in the first place? I don't know much about FFT. Could the calculations be sped up by not calculating values outside the min and max frequencies?
**Steve: I'd imagine that it would need to be cached in RAM for fast access and so as not to require extra hard drive read/writes while recording/playing.
**OP: If that's the case then if the RAM usage is excessive, perhaps only retain in cache a couple of pages either side of the current position. The actual audio is stored on disk in sections, isn't it? Does it read and write that during playback/recording, or is that only for faster Save operations? I've noticed that for long tracks, even redisplaying the waveform of the full track can take a little while, so perhaps it could benefit from some caching too.
**Steve: Yes. That is where "as fast as possible" read/write access is required. Other disk activity should be kept to a minimum.


*'''More options in the TimeTextControl:''' I could use one or two additions to the TimeTextControl. The most useful would be "seconds + hundredths" and/or "seconds + milliseconds".
**Steve: The menu is already pretty long with lots of options that I will never use, but the option that I would really like is not available - bars and beats,
Is there any really clever way that the options could be customisable without a complex set-up in preferences?


*'''An "audition" effect:''' Elsewhere, Steve and I (Ed) were talking about how to determine if a portion of the signal/audio is just noise or also has some "music" (information that we want to keep). He and I both use a similar technique – select a small piece, amplify it as much as possible, play it, undo the amplification then use it if we determine that the selection contains only noise. I would like to suggest an effect which automates much of this. After selecting some audio, the user would choose the effect which would then amplify the selection, play it, then undo that amplification keeping the selection. This effect would be useful in other situations other than Noise Removal.
***Steve: Could this be a "Playback" option?  Currently we have "Play", "Loop Play" and "Play at Speed" (Transcription).  Would a "Play Normalized" fit the bill?


*'''Screenshot Tool enhancement:''' To be able to take a screenshot of Audacity without reverting to standard toolbars and Selection Tool.  In particular there have been a few occasions when I have wanted to make a quick screenshot showing envelope points. On other occasions I've wanted to take screenshots with toolbars disabled or not docked.  
**Koz: on Windows or Linux.
**Steve: Preferably cross platform. Do you have the Screenshot tools (Help menu) on Mac?


*'''Better integration with DAWs:''' As Gale wrote: "Audacity often does not work well as an external editor because it does not open audio files directly but makes a copy of them (which you then have to export)."  It would be very useful for many users (including myself) if Audacity had some way / mode that allowed it to be used as an external editor with real-time DAW applications (such as Reaper, Ardour, ProTools,....)  I seem to remember there was a discussion about this with regard to Ardour several years ago. One of the Ardour developers wrote about it on this forum (sorry I can't find it now) and may have discussed it with the Audacity developers. From my recollection I think that the outcome was that such a feature was possible, but nothing came of it.  This feature request probably comes up more often on the Ardour forum than it does here - there is definitely a user demand. (plus 1 vote)
**Peter: see the arcive thread with links to other relevant threads:  https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=69085


*'''Bigger fonts:'''For myself, I am tired of not being able to read the little teeny letters! Make sure you scroll down to the bottom of the image and look at the Selection toolbar. 
**Gale: I would like to see the Spinboxes the same height as the project rate text box bottom left, and the font scaled accordingly. I don't think the size you suggest would ever be accepted. I think the blue on dark grey for the digits is the main problem. I would propose blue or black on white background for the unselected digits. Use the OS "selected text" foreground and background colors for the selected digit, or some other idea. I think it might even look OK if the selected and unselected background colors were exchanged. 
**Peter: I've got ageing eyes with ever-hardening lenses - I now need +2 reading glasses - but I find the current font-size perfectly acceptable. If we ever did it I would want font-size stting to be a parametizable option somehow (as many browsers do) with the default being as-now.
**OP Ed: Has anyone considered what the default looks like on a high resolution (2560 x 1440 ) or 4K monitor? The image I posted is a result of increasing the size*by 50%. If I were doing this for production code instead of personal use I would add a user preference. I did not mess with the dropdown arrow sizes here but they should also be enlarged to match.  Font size is determined as the largest font (-1) which will fit in the defined control box. It is more typical to specify the size of the font and then make the box fit, but either way works.
**pshute: Does that mean all the text is smaller? There are labels with much smaller text than the selection toolbar, e.g. The track control panel. And wouldn't this be affecting all your applications?
**Gale: Windows can adjust the DPI for text and thus in many case the items that contain the text. However Audacity isn't fully DPI compliant. The spinboxes (TimeTextControls) are one of the elements that don't scale up when DPI is increased. So maybe a first step is fixing that, but I agree with Ed in so far as the spinboxes are a bit smaller than ideal given the questionable color choice. The other question is like Peter raised - do we want all font types, colors and sizes to be individually controlled, or just have some kind of global font type and size choice? The only configurable font I can recall at the moment is in the dropdown menu for the label track.
**pshute: I don't know whether it's worth putting too much effort into making Audacity dpi compliant. If I was to increase the dpi to fix this problem, I'd be likely to find it messed up some other application, forcing me to set it back to normal again. Better to have an internal setting? Surely a global one - would many people want to increase individual objects's fonts? Is a screen magnifier an option?
**Ed: Audacity should be DPI compliant – it is just good manners on an application's part. As you point out changing the system's DPI affects every application including the desktop. Audacity (as well as, IMHO, all applications) should have a much richer interface allowing the user control of most GUI aspects. In re fonts, at a bare minimum, the user should have control of a global font setting although, I think there should be some independent settings for fonts in things like tooltips, the timeline, the wave track etc.
**Peter - fuller thread (with images) on forum: https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=69471


*'''"Save Project As..." interchange format(s):''' This might be a big ask but here goes, would it be possible to add an option to save projects as one or more of the following.  I like the fact that .aup files - like (e.g.) Reaper Project files - can be opened in a text editor if necessary. But the option to save projects in some kind of widely supported interchange format would be really useful.
#OMF (Open Media Framework)
#AAF (Advanced Authoring Format)
#MXF (Materials eXchange Format)?
**Steve: Audacity project files are (basically) XML, which is a very common and widely supported format. This does not mean that Audacity projects are easily transportable between other application, because although XML is widely supported, the data structure is specific to Audacity. Even if the .AUP file were converted to OMF or some other format, the audio data would still only be accessible to Audacity because other applications would not know what to do with the .AU and .AUF files.
**OP: ...which is why I said "a big ask". It would mean not just an alternative project file format, but actually an alternative project format: saving project data in a non-application specific format and saving content ("essence data" in AAF-speak) in a non-application specific format. (I think I'm right in saying that the .au filetype used by Audacity has little connection with the NeXT/Sun .au filetype). I'm guessing this would be a fairly major undertaking that would require a big chunk of development time. Plus it's probably irrelevant for the majority of users. So it would be unrealistic to suggest that it should be a short-term priority. But IMO - for what that's worth - it would be a big step forward for Audacity, and something that's definitely worth serious consideration as a long-term goal.
**Steve: I can see your point to an extent, but what other applications are you seeking compatibility with? The "other" application would have to be able to support multiple audio tracks, but when I think of other multi-track editors, (Reaper, Ardour, Cubase, Sonar, ProTools....) they all use their own project formats. What is the purpose of developing a "compatible" format if no other multi--track audio editors support the "compatible" format? What is the incentive for other manufacturers to add support for "competitor" applications? Just taking the example of OMF, this format has been developed for media playback - is it suitable as an editing format? Can it support label tracks and track envelopes? Can it support "data block files" (required for editing in Audacity because Audacity needs to be able to access, process and make copies of arbitrary sections of the audio).
**OP: Yes, many audio applications use their own project formats. But many of them also support other formats: Reaper, for instance, can import Samp EDL (.edl) and Vegas EDL (.txt) out of the box, and it can import OMF using an extension. (By the way, I'm surprised that you describe all those applications as “audio editors”. when I think of an audio editor I think of Audition, Wavelab, Soundforge etc). The main reason I chose OMF is because it's so widely supported: Avid (Media Composer, PT10 & PT10HD), Logic, Cubendo, Pyramix, Samp/Sequoia, Sadie, Soundscape, Sonar, DP, Audition (etc.) I chose AAF & MXF because they're closely related...though having experimented for myself it seems AAF doesn't translate particularly well between some applications If you know of an alternative format which would be more suitable, by all means suggest it.  Are you implying that the applications you mentioned (Reaper, Ardour, Cubase, Sonar, ProTools) are Audacity's competitors? In what sense? I wouldn't have said Reaper (for instance) and Audacity were really comparable, to be honest: the former is a commercial digital audio workstation that's available for Windows and Mac. the latter is a free, open source audio editor that's available for Windows, Mac and Linux(?).  “The Open Media Framework (OMF) Interchange format is a standard format for the interchange of digital media data among heterogeneous platforms”.  
**OP: Perhaps I didn't express myself very well in my initial post. If so then I'm sorry. Perhaps I should have said: Would it be possible at some point to add an option to export projects in some kind of common, widely-supported interchange project format (e.g. OMF), to aid the transfer of Audacity projects to other applications?  Without standardisation it is all too easy to end up with a mess of competing systems. Witness the current profusion of plug-in formats: VST, DX, AU, MAS, TDM, RTAS, LADSPA, DSSI, LV2, now AAX and RE...the list is long and getting longer. Wrappers make it possible to use (some) plug-ins in incompatible environments, but life would be a lot easier for a lot of people if there was a generally-agreed open plug-in standard (whither GMPI...?) (Apologies for preaching to the converted. I appreciate that it was the Audacity team who ported a large collection of LADSPA plug-ins to Windows and Mac!) Where useful, widely-supported standards exist, is it not good practice to work towards their adoption...?  Your post here suggests a desire to work towards closer integration between Audacity and other applications. surely what I'm proposing is just an extension of that, a logical progression?
**''Steve: Thanks for the clarification. I was initially thinking that you were looking for full compatibility with other DAW applications, which I doubt would be possible due to the very different capabilities and project structures. As a more limited data interchange format then I can see what you mean. Even basic support that allows audio clips to be exchanged in a multi-track structure would be useful.


*'''Implement a shortcut for putting start and end point on time track:'''  Can't you implement a shortcut for putting start and end point on time track? For example I set cursor position, hit key to drop starting point, then I move the cursor and i hit the key to drop ending point and... ready. is it, in programmer's view, that very difficult to write?
**Steve: I'm not a developer and I have only very rudimentary knowledge of C/C++ so I have no idea how hard that would be to implement.
It would help if we can clearly define what the feature request is. When you move the cursor, how would you know when you have moved it far enough and not too far?
**OP: While playing, if you press shift plus a in position when the cursor has to be stopped, it stopps there. Alternatively you can move the cursor by defined steps e.g. by left and right arrow. Moving steps can be defined in preferences (as explained in manual) so I can precisely move cursor when I want and I could set points when I want if it would be implemented.
**Peter:  fuller and broader discussion archived on forum: https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=69522


*'''Digital Recording Button:''' I use Audacity to record from a USB audio source. So my input is digital, at a sample rate and bit depth that could be known to Audacity (but not easily to the user). To make an example, people who archive their old records or tapes via turntables and tape recorders with USB output have the same need. What I would love to be able to set is a big red button just like the current Record button, but which instead automatically creates a project with the exact parameters of the input source. When recording from USB, what's the purpose of recording anything other than the exact digital data as it comes in?  Right now users need to learn that there is an "Actual Rate" indication at the lower right of the window, and manually match that. But even that is not enough, because it's not obvious how the sample format should be set. For example, is "32-bit float" good, or is it bad (loss of integer data), or is it overkill? I am quite technical, but it's not easy even for me to tell the output of my USB device, it's nowhere in their specs or in an Windows properties. So, my proposal is that Audacity be able to automatically set the project sample rate (44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, etc.) and format (16-bit, 24-bit, 32-bit integer, etc.) when a new recording is started. There could be an option under Devices/Recording or Recording or Quality. Actually maybe it should be under Quality/Sampling, named "[x] Auto-set rate and format on digital input"? This would help with the workflow for both novice and experienced users, and it would help the effort of data preservation.
**Koz: Audacity doesn't have a "Clip INFO" like video editors. Once a clip is imported into Audacity, it loses it's original digital identity because Audacity always edits at 32-floating. Import Format = Export Format. I can't think of a worse tool for most users. Every third posting is from someone who imports an MP3, edits it and then tries to export another, similar MP3. That doesn't work. The export MP3 has double the compression damage, bubbling and gargling that the original had and you can't stop it. I put a ratty MP3 and a locally recorded, high quality wav on the same timeline. Now what? Everything is a digital bitstream to Audacity and it doesn't matter if the sound arrived as USB, YouTube capture, download, FireWire or soundcard. Audacity isn't a WAV editor. It's a sound editor and digital formats are incidental to the show sound. We generally recommend other editors if you literally want an "MP3 Editor" or a "WAV Editor."

*'''Frequency limits for labels:''' I see in the Wiki that there's a proposal called "Markers on Waveform" which would allow one to place a mark on the actual waveform. My idea is instead about allowing one to place marks on spectrograms. This could be achieved by adding a frequency range to the information stored for labels. At the moment, each label is associated with a label track, a start time and an end time. If we could also specify an upper and lower frequency limit for each label then it would be possible to use the limits to display a rectangle around some feature one is attempting to identify on a spectrogram. In Waveform view these limits wouldn't mean anything, so labels would work the normal way in that view. There would be an option to turn frequency range entry/display on and off so that one could ignore this new feature if desired. When off, labels would be entered and displayed as normal. Labels created in this mode would have, say 0 to 0 as the range stored in the aup file. When on, the vertical position of the mouse would define the upper and lower frequencies when dragging to mark a selection before creating a label. Labels visible on screen would have a rectangle drawn in the spectrogram of the audio track above them. I'm not envisaging this as having any effect on any kind of cut and paste operation, or on any plug-ins that work with labels, e.g. export Multiple. It's just for display purposes. (Plus 1 vote)
**Steve: I think that a feature of this kind would need to consider a much broader application. The ability to not only mark bus also perform actions on specific frequency regions (in time and frequency) could have great applications in such things as isolating/removing specific sounds from a mix (such as vocal isolation) and audio restoration as well as analysis.
**Trebor: It is possible to select a portion of the track on the spectrogram, then return to a waveform display with the same selected portion still shown. Alternatively create a (muted) duplicate track ("ctrl"+"d") with a spectrogram display while the original shows waveform display, so you can see the waveform and spectrogram displays of the sound simultaneously.
**OP pshute: I actually meant to be able to select part of a spectrogram, with vertical as well as horizontal limits. The idea is that it shows which part of the frequency range the associated label refers to. I.e. which squiggle? This is of course meaningless for anything but a spectrogram view. I suppose you could also have labels with upper and lower level limits that could be displayed on a waveform, but would anyone want to? I've shown three on my mockup, but forgot to add the associated labels. In this particular case, they would say, from left to right, "Little Buttonquail", "White-eared Honeyeater" and "Southern Scrub-robin". I had proposed that these vertical limits be cosmetic only, and that the functional behaviour of the labels not change from their current behaviours, but Steve's idea of using them to perform operations on the selected regions is interesting. I'm proposing that, unlike now, the limits of all the visible region labels always be displayed, rather than only when a particular label is selected. This behaviour would be optional, as it would probably annoy many users. I'm also playing with Acousmographe, which lets you place text and shapes on the spectrogram, e.g. rectangles and circles, but the text has aspect ratio problems at the particular scales I'm using, and isn't readable.
**Peter: thread (with graphic images) archived on forum: https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=69532


*'''Draw Tool Additional Function:''' As a voice actor and editor, I use the draw tool and repair effect constantly. Although I've gotten pretty good at spotting where the noises I want to get rid of are/what they look like in the waveform, sometimes I just can't find them unless I go through a long section of audio and manually correct everything that looks jaggedy or out of place. Generally I use the repair tool first, but if it keeps getting me weird results, I try smoothing out a bunch with the "pencil" tool. When those both are still giving me odd sounds, I manually go through--click-crazy--with the "brush" tool all along a section, and this takes quite a long time, but usually ends up clearing the out of place sound (usually mouth clicks or tongue/saliva/throat sounds). I propose adding a third feature to the draw tool that would be a blend of the "pencil" and "brush" feature. Basically, (maybe holding down Alt and Ctrl at the same time), you get a tool that you click and drag, and it will keep smoothing out the waveforms as you drag along, but will smooth according to the original contours like the "brush" currently does. I guess more specifically, it is just the "brush" tool that you can keep dragging around instead of only being able to change the waveform once per click. This would save me a lot of time, and I think a lot of other people would find great use from this as well.
**Koz: he smoothing/blurring tool in Photoshop?
**OP torikamal: Exactly!

*'''Vista-style folder picker for Export Multiple:''' For those of us on Windows Vista or newer we have new file and folder pickers. I have already replaced all Audacity's file pickers, so it was time to add a folder picker – the only place I know of at the moment where it would be used as in Export Multiple but there may be some places in Preferences. As with all the new style pickers the Windows UI design goal is to have the picker open automatically in the folder the user previously viewed. Audacity likes to open pickers based on entries in the CFG file. The code I am using will do it either way – the behavior is set in Preferences.
**Peter: full thread with images archived on the forum: https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=69852

*'''One-click noise removal:''' Something I have found incredibly timesaving in my personal workflow of cleaning up noisy recordings is a one click Noise Removal solution. It works by taking the current selection as the noise sample, selecting all the video then applying Noise Removal. My proposal is adding another button to the current dialog. when the user clicks the "One-click" button the behind-the-scenes result is as if the user had set the variables in the effect as desired (or was willing to accept the defaults), clicked the "Get Noise Profile" button, selected all the audio, started the Noise removal" effect again and clicked the "OK" button.
**Gale:I don't think we should necessarily throw the idea of one-click noise removal out, but perhaps it should be recast in terms of "keeping Noise Removal open and modeless after grabbing the profile, while you select the audio from which to remove noise"? 
**Ed OP: About the only thing that this topic has proved is that there is no "one-size-fits-all" one-click noise removal solution. If the Developers were ever to address this topic that would be a major concern. Since there is no way (in this decade) that the Developers will address this, unless we can address it ourselves in a plug-in, I suggest that we move this to the feature request wiki.
**Peter: fuller discussion on the archive on the forum:  https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=69791&start=20

*'''Link Envelopes:''' ink envelopes so you can easily slosh between two different versions of the same song or alternately, with the Time Shift Tool, create a dance mix without painstakingly creating two identical but opposite envelopes. It's the software version of the crossfade slider on dance mixers. Stop in the middle, it's half of each.


*'''More info when Repair fails:''' When Repair fails the warning dialog simply tells me that I have selected too much – not how much. It is very easy to add "how much" to the dialog, this save the hassle of changing the Time Text Controls' format to Samples and then back to whatever you're working in.
**Peter: It is for this reason that I normally leave my TTCs set to "hh:mm:ss+samples" and selection set to "length" rather than "end".

*'''Region save/restore stack would remember multiple positions:''' For now, region save can remember only one region. I'd like repeated uses of the command to remember a sequence of regions, and repeated region restore to go back to saved positions LIFO fashion. Perhaps a third "region redo" command (or other name) would push back any popped positions, if there has not been a region save intervening. I do not specify what should happen if the track contents have changed between commands. It appears region save/restore now dumbly remembers times only, with no attempt to adjust the region if there is insertion or deletion before or within it: let that behavior remain.
**Steve: Could you use Labels instead?
**OP (Paul L): I could make lots of temporary labels, but I find them mildly inconvenient. Is there any other way to delete them than pick them and delete text? Maybe I'm just ignorant. I have wished I could select a range of a label track and just hit delete to delete all labels. I'm sure someone else must have thought of this, but questions arise as to what to do with a label not entirely in the region, and whether one might intend instead to delete a portion of the track, moving leftward all labels to the right, and deleting corresponding parts of sync locked tracks. It might argue for a "delete labels" command distinct from the usual delete. Now I am proposing other enhancements...
**Steve: You can use "Edit Labels" (Tracks menu). I'd like a way to just select and delete labels (similar to deleting audio) but that's a feature request. Coming back to your proposed "Saved Region stack", are you proposing an "unlimited" number of regions on the stack? Would there need to be a way to delete/clear the stack? I can imagine that it could become quite confusing if there are a lot of saved regions on the stack and the user has stepped back part way through the stack.
**OP: I imagine even a shallow stack limited to ten or twenty would be a useful improvement over what exists. I don't suppose it needs to be "unlimited." All that needs be remembered for each is a track time.
*'''Improving "Clip Fix":''' When I use the "Effects"->"Repair" feature to manually fix clipping, the result is immensely better than what is achieved with "Effects"->"Clip Fix." The only problem is that, when dealing with a heavily clipped audio track, it takes an inordinate amount of time to manually select hundreds or thousands of clipped regions. I would therefore like to suggest that the interpolation used in "Effects"->"Clip Fix" be replaced with the interpolation used in "Effects"->"Repair."
**Gale: Personally I find Repair inferior to ClipFix if you were trying to repair by dragging adjacent sections of 128 samples back on each other. Clip Fix seems to me to give a much more musical result and the waveform retains its original shape and dynamics below the peaks to a greater extent. Are you de-amplifying by a sufficient amount before using Clip Fix?
**Steve: For ClipFix there is the additional problem that it has to accurately detect where the clipping occurs as well as fixing it. "Repair" does not need to do that because it assumes that you have selected the damage. For "digital" clipping where peaks are cut off absolutely flat Clipfix can detect the clipping quite well. If the clipping is due to overloading of analogue components, or if the audio has been saved in MP3 format, or if for any other reason the clipping is not simple "digital" clipping, then detecting is very much harder and ClipFix will probably fail. 
**OP: ... exactly why I find Repair to be superior. For complex signals, like music, the result of Clip Fix does not sound very different from the clipped version because the vast majority (almost all) of the frequencies that were missing (due to clipping) are still missing after Clip Fix. With Repair, there is at least an attempt made to fill in the missing frequencies with something plausible, and this is why, in every case I've encountered, Repair does a better job than Clip Fix with music.
**Gale: OK so is the feature request as you see it to add detection back to Repair (if necessary using the Clip Fix detection) and then Repair uses its current algorithm (or Clip Fix's if that is detected as better in a given case) to work through the detected sections? 
**'''Peter 22Aug13:''' full discussion archived on the forum: https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=72712

*'''Track Grouping:''' Steve: I think would be useful for both this and other tasks, would be a way to group/un-group multiple tracks so that they can be edited, cut, pasted, trimmed and processed as one track. This would need to be done in Audacity itself, not a plug-in.
**'''Peter 22Aug13:''' This idea came from a discussion on a related thread on the Forum: https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=72513
**'''Gale in PM to Steve 24Aug13:'''
::The distinction between this and [https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Space_Savers#Track_Groups Track Groups] is a little unclear so I have not added it to FR's yet. Is the difference that you want the waveforms of each track in the group to remain visible (so still editable as a group) - that is, have no collapsed state for the group where editing the group would be impossible?<p>And in your scheme can each track in the group be separately expanded/collapsed? Would each member track have its own gain/pan/mute/solo, or only one set of those controls for the group (as seems to be the case in Track Groups)?  </p><p>It is not totally clear to me if Track Groups (when expanded) retain the ability to edit track members as individual tracks or not. Does your scheme retain that ability?  In your scheme, how do you add or remove tracks from the group?</p><p>Perhaps your scheme is better but should have the added ability to collapse to "uneditable" state where you can see nothing but the group name? </p>
**'''Steve in PM to Gale 24Aug13:'''<p>
::When I created that image I'd not thought through all of the questions that you raise, rather I was visualising what a grouped track might look like with the aim of promoting questions and discussion about how "group tracks" or "grouped tracks" could best be implemented. Features that I think would be useful</p> <p>
:::<ul>
:::<li> Add / remove any one audio track from the group.
:::<li> Add all selected audio tracks to a group.
:::<li> Explode a group into individual tracks.
:::<li> Cut / Copy / Paste / Delete / Trim / Silence the group without the need to "explode" into individual tracks. (Q. How to handle pasting to a group with a different number of tracks or non-matching mono/stereo tracks.)
:::<li> A Selection on a group selects all tracks that are in that group, so effects will be applied as if being applied to a :selection across multiple tracks.
:::<li>  At least one "collapse / expand level" in which the individual waveforms are visible (as shown in the mock-up).
:::<li> Tracks within a group can have different pan / gain settings. Ideally the group would also have pan/gain sliders that act on the mix of all tracks within the group (not shown in picture).
:::<li> Nyquist should be aware of the number of tracks in the group.
:::<li> Tracks may be moved up/down within the group.
:::<li> I envisaged that group/ungroup commands would be in the track drop down menu.<p>The image as shown is the "expanded" view of a group, and that can be collapsed to a "minimum view" in which only one waveform is visible.The tracks within the group are minimised.In effect there are three levels of collapse/expand. From the "expanded group" view, individual tracks within the group can be expanded / minimised to show / hide their pan and gain sliders. When the group is minimised, the individual track sliders are not available.</ul></p>

*'''editing: extending a cut out segment:''' I've a quite basic question on editing. After isolating a particular segment, and deleting the audio around it, how can I in a later stage extend that track again? ie get back audio that comes before and after in the original recording. 
This is a common task in all other sound editors I've used and is usually done by dragging the edges of the segment, but I can't find out how it works in Audacity. NB "undo" won't help, because commonly I will have carried out several actions in between that I do not want to undo.
My apologies if this question has been answered before. All I can say is that I've searched HARD, and I couldn't find it.
thanks so much for your help.
**Koz: Audacity doesn't have Edit Points like other editors, so there's nothing to move. The closest we get is Labels and those don't have the same juju that Edit Points do. UNDO is the only way and remember Audacity Projects do not retain UNDO. This is also a good place to urge you to save your work periodically under different file names so you have something to go back to.
**OP joost: Thanks, not the answer I was hoping for, but at least it's clear. If some day you could include this feature it would definitely make Audacity my favourite application. It's the only thing left on my wishlist.  Maybe this is also the place to share another alternative for people who are struggling with the same issue: Don't cut a segment, but mute the audio before and after the selection using the volume editor. That way you can always extend your selection later. The main drawback is that it wastes a lot of space on your track, but i definitely prefer it to keeping a number of alternative versions of an edit.
**Gale: I know the feature you mean. Audacity has an "Enable Cut Lines" Preference https://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tracks_preferences.html#behaviors but it can only restore the audio you actually cut, so a two step process for you. "Enable Cut Lines" also doesn't work if you do CTRL + I to "split" the region that you are cutting either side of to a separate clip. If you drag up to the split point and cut, no cut line appears.


*'''Export markers for soundforge:''' SoundForge markers is simple xml format. PLS implement this feature (plus 1 vote)

*''' Suggestion: Repair Limits :''' It would really be helpful if the repair function would have an "automatic selection cursor" if you will to auto select a range of 128 samples if you'd like, so that I can take the guess work out of how much more I can grab to fix at a time. (Plus 1 vote)
**Steve: How about a slight variation on that.... To use the repair function, you don't select anything, you just click in the centre of the part that you want to repair and the effect acts on 64 samples either side of the cursor position
**Gale: Repair would still have to do "something" with a selection. All users who read the fine Manual will know they must select audio to edit it, so would probably still select audio for Repair. Might the subject idea encourage sloppy editing unless it retained the requirement to be zoomed in? If you were allowed to place the cursor or selection while zoomed out you will likely not have the selection starting at or centred on the "correct" 128 samples. I don't think it's a bad idea but IMO the better aim is to have Repair working on longer selections and detecting and repairing the clipped samples as it goes along. There was a useful thread about that: https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=72712 . 
**Steve: While "Repair" can only act on up to 128 samples I think it should retain that requirement ''(for zooming in close}''. I don't see any way that a user could select accurately enough without being zoomed in very close.
**Steve: Detecting clicks that should not be present without falsely detecting clicks that should be present is very difficult. I hear that Brian Davies' Click Repair does this very well, but even that cannot hope to be 100% accurate. A click that needs to be repaired can be identical to a click that should not be there, with only the musical context differentiating between them. There is demand for a good "detect and repair" effect, (like "Click Removal" but better), but I think there is also a need for a "dumb effect" that "repairs" the selection regardless of the content of the selection.
**Peter: I would NOT want Repair to always use 128 samples, or to auto select. I think (from experience) that you need to be well zoomed in to make effective repairs. There are times when I want the full 128 sample range and others when a much shorter selection will give a more "accurate" repair.
**Steve: I don't often use "Repair" but I can well imagine that could be the case, for example if there is a click very close to a transient peak. So how about:
**#If there is no selection: 64 samples either side of the cursor will be processed. If the selection is within 64 samples of the start or end of the audio clip (so that there are not 64 samples available), then as many samples as are available will be used.
**#If there is a selection and it is no more than 128 samples: the selection will be processed (as now).
**#If there is a selection > 128 samples: An error message is shown (as now).
***The only problem that I see with this is that there is a potential conflict with the preference option to "Select all if no audio selected". Since, with "Repair", it is very likely that selecting all audio will result in an error, I don't think that it is unreasonable for "Repair" to be a special case.
**Peter: If all audio is selected and the selection is greater than 128 samples then the repair should not take place.
**Gale: I agree there is no reason to withdraw the ability to manually repair selections of a few hundred samples or less, since that would give optimal results given a skilled user. 
**OP: The most intuitive way would probably be to have a "Repair Tool", i.e. a brush with the 128 sample-width. You simply click where the audio should be repaired. Making "Repair" as special case, would become a little problematic if Repair was extended to be able to handle long selections. In this case there would be no need for an easy way to act on 128 samples and the Repair effect could behave in the same way as all other effects.
**Peter: see this forum thread for further details: https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=75036

*''' Play at Speed" to retain its playback speed:''' I may have overlooked something, but I can't find a way for the "Transcription Toolbar > Play at Speed" to retain its playback speed. I'd like it to retain the previous usage until I change it, even if I open a new file. If I play a file at 1.5x or 1.8x (which I do regularly) it's always reset to 1x each time a file is opened. That doesn't make sense to me because the only real use for that alternate playback is to play at a non-standard speed. 1x for that playback is always NOT what I want IF I select that playback mode. (If I want 1x playback, I use the standard transport controls, usually spacebar.)
**'''Peter 18Feb:''' See archived thread on Forum for more detailed discussion: https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=76660

*'''Plot Spectrum Magnifier:''' Vertical and Horizontal zoom and scroll in Plot Spectrum. (Votes=2)

*'''Plot Spectrum - log axis default:''' Virtually every time "Plot Spectrum" comes up on the forum it is necessary to tell the user to change the Axis to "Log frequency". Cases where "Linear frequency" is required are rare, so it would be much more convenient for "Log frequency" to be the default. (Plus 1 vote)

*'''Deverb:''' plug-ins effect i dream of ! to be abble to REMOVE reverb on a AIff - Wav track !  i do not know if is it possible or else let me know 
**Gale: Deverb is a feature request, and it's hard. Only Postfish has it at the moment, which is a geek's tool that has to be compiled from source code - but as it's open source we could reuse the code, I guess


*'''repair in spectral windows:'''  can audacity or exist some vst plug-in for repair visual tool in spectral windows like audiodirector or audition http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZyjaShGzJA or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCb1xofQ18E
**Steve wrote: No, Audacity does not have anything like that.  I'll move this to the "feature request" board.  I think this would be a terrific feature, though I suspect that it would be difficult to implement.

*'''Auto generate track names in Project:'''  Is there any way to have Audacity automatically generate the track names as new tracks are created? Similar to how the Export Multiple naming process works (really nice).
**'''Peter 13Jun14:  see [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=77895 this forum thread] for details.


*'''Support for "Jack Transport":''' Jack Transport (http://jackaudio.org/files/docs/html/transport-design.html) allows applications using Jack to be synchronised. For example, a user could synchronise Audacity recording and/or playback with a MIDI sequencer.
**Schmide:  I'm down for it.  I reviewed the docs and looked at a few other projects that use it. While not trivial, it is a relatively straight forward interface.  
The harder part of all this will be determining to what scope this goes. Input/output/pass-through/effects?
OP (Steve): There is certainly a great deal that could be done (though way beyond my programming ability).
I think a good first step would be "go / stop" (un-pause / pause). Press Pause + Record buttons in Audacity so that Audacity is metering but paused, then press "Start transport rolling" in QjackCtl and Audacity starts record. Press "Stop transport rolling" in QjackCtl and Audacity pauses.


*'''A more accessible way to set up latency correction:'''  
#Polishing and Wiki-publishing Robert's plug-in to measure time difference between clicks in two selected tracks (I think there are still some confusions in that plug-in that users could trip over, but it would be much better than not having the tool published). 
#A built-in tool that can adjust the latency correction setting according to clicks being recorded from a track that is playing.
#"Automatic" correction that takes into account latency variability. 
##This could be an "improved" version of the disabled PortAudio correction that tries to detect the current round trip latency then corrects for it. 
##It could alternatively try to time-shift the recorded audio "intelligently" by looking for the first "audio" in the recording and aligning the point where that audio starts with the position of the cursor or selection start. So it would be looking for and pushing preceding recorded noise behind the align point. I think it if could be done it could be useful in some scenarios and could be an alternative "option" to the latency detection method.
**'''Peter 13Jun14:''' See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=75902&start=30 this archived forum thread] for details.


*'''Snap Labels:''' I would like to have a snap feature of the label tracks to make sure that they do not overlap or have space between them.
Is there such a feature or is there a possibility to have it developed?
**Gale: No such feature yet but I agree It would be useful to have yellow snap guides when dragging labels to each other.


*'''user definable spectrum plot of frequency bands:''' user definable spectrum plot of frequency bands, for example, 1, 1/2, 1/3 octave per band.  See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=77836&start=20 this archived Forum thread] for details.


*'''Mouse-controlled time shifting:''' The Envelope tool offers great control over volume amplitude in the waveform, letting the user quickly edit parts that would otherwise be labor intensive. Creating crescendos and diminuendos is a breeze. I'm hoping in a future edition, Audacity will have a similar feature for stretching and truncating timing. For example, say, a vertical yellow "start" and red "end" line might be inserted with mouse clicks, after which the lines could be dragged left or right to stretch or shorten the waveform between the two colored lines. Presently I use the Sliding Time Scale/Pitch Shift tool to correct a vocalist's poor timing or to perfectly synchronize harmony lines, which takes up to two hours per track to complete. I use this tool also to create a hook of pronunciation on occasion. and there are other uses but all very time-consuming. Hope you kind folks find the idea of mouse-dragging selected time sections worthy of consideration for the next edition.
**Gale: It would be a nice feature indeed but this would probably be a major development investment. We do have a "time envelope" in Time Tracks ( https://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/time_tracks.html ) however that feature changes pitch with speed. It could be that a quicker route to what you want would lay with Time Tracks rather than stretching/narrowing the waveform in situ. 
**Gale: I will count your vote for the waveform clip time shifting in any case. Others have asked for it.

*'''2D Spectrogram selection for editing:''' The last image in this article probably makes clear what I'm talking about: http://www.askaudiomag.com/articles/review-izotope-rx3-and-rx3-advanced-audio-restoration-suite.  Basically, it would be good to be able to make 2 dimensional selections, in the time and frequency spectrum, and then use those selections for normal editing, e.g. running plug-ins. This would make things like manually removing background sounds, or isolating particular events within a sound file much easier. I guess the selections would best act as fairly sharp plateau-EQs, automated over time. Also, the spectrogram with overlaid waveform that izotope has is pretty cool.
**Steve: The link is not working, but I presume that you mean the same sort of thing as this: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-audition-cc/using-the-spectral-frequency-display-to-clean-up-your-audio/  A very nice feature in my opinion, though probably difficult to implement.

*'''Multiple Selection":''' Audacity is a remarkable software, and I, as a beginner, would suggest his authors create a "Multiple Selection" command for Editing, such as the ones in, for instance, Microsoft Word. In case they already exist in version 2.0.5., could anyone teach me where to find them or how to operate them? 
**Steve:  Working on multiple selections is quite tricky, but one of the developers is currently working on a solution.
In the current version of Audacity there are a few edit commands that can be applied to "labeled" sections of the audio.

*'''The Equalizer needs a gain control:'''  The EQ is cool and simple but hard to preview when I EQ a lot out because the volume drops, as it should. Which I of course fix after, but as I said, it makes it hard to Preview. One trick I accidentally learned, is doubling the track and and then highlighting both, then go to EQ and set then Preview. Save, then go back and highlight just the one track and apply the saved EQ curve. 
**Steve: +1 for a gain control on the Equalization effect. The way that I envisage this working is as a vertical slider that raises/lowers the Eq curve ("Draw Curves" mode), or all of the sliders in tandem ("Graphic EQ" mode) while retaining the current "shape".
**Peter:  see this archived Forum thread for detailed discussion:  https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=80668

* Find out the total number of tracks, muted and solo. See https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=80120 .

*'''An option to vertically merge or split clips.''' For example: I have one long track. I split it up into clips. I want to put each clip on its own track. The only way to do that (that I could find) is to manually label each clip, export multiple, and re-import. A "split clips to tracks" feature would be much simpler. I have muliple clips on multiple tracks. I want to put them all on one track, but retain the breaks between them as they are. The only way I can do that (that I could find) is to mix and render, then go back and re-create all of the break points where I had them before. A "combine tracks" feature would be much simpler. I did what I needed to do this time, but it definitely took much longer than it might have if there was a way to merge/explode tracks without making a single clip out of them or without exporting and re-importing.
*'''Clicking on the black "split line" between clips does an automatic merge of the clips. Can that feature be turned off? ''' - see [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=82590 this Forum post] for details
*'''Add a new time display format : "seconds + milliseconds":'''  See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=82163 this Forum post] for details.
*'''Export as video, mux audio to video, work like ffmpeg gui:'''   See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=81968 this Forum post] for details.
*'''Consistent interface for filter effects:''' For High and Lowpass filter dialogs, the frequency input field is not first in tab order. For notch filter, it is (which I find more convenient personally). Would it be nicer to make them consistent?  See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=80731 this Forum post] for details.
*'''Integrated Dynamic Range (DR) measurement tool:''' See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=78366 this Forum post] for details.
*'''Macros consisting of existing Audacity shortcuts:''' See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=77013 this Forum post] for details.
*'''Allow the splitting of the frequency into 2Hz buckets - SU-R-97 tonality checking:''' See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=81410 this Forum post] for details.
*'''Zooming and navigating Plot Spectrum:''' See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=81431 this Forum post] for details.

*'''Lock pan and volume sliders in Track Control Panel:''' I repeatedly bump pan or volume in my efforts to move tracks around and I usually can't figure out what is wrong for a while. Unless there is already a way to lock them, I think that would be a useful feature.  See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=81635 this Forum post] for details.  Plus 2 votes.
*'''Disable Gain and Pan sliders:''' A way to delete or disable these controls in the preferences. There has been several times when working with several audio files at once these controls get bumped, so my gain is bad or my balance is out. I will backtrack tying to figure out how I "screwed this up" usually think the filter I applied didn't work right or something. I normally NEVER use them when editing. Typically I minimize the tracks I'm not working on to maximize the workspace which will hide a tweaked gain or balance control.  (Plus 1 vote)
**'''Peter:''' See this [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=90870 archived Forum thread]

*'''"Show Clipping" Options:''' See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=81802 this Forum post] and [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=83990 this one]for details.

*'''Tools settings:''' A common feature in graphic applications (Gimp, Photoshop, Inkscape, etc.) is to have a selection of tools, and some sort of panel that has settings/options for that tool. Thus the number of tools required is reduced, while at the same time increasing the versatility of the tools. A similar approach could be applied to Audacity.
**'''Peter 17Aug15:''' See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=83898 this archived thread] on the Audacity Forum.

*'''Two analysis features I'd like to see:''' 
*#Blind Source (or Signal) Separation: Can pull apart a number of sources into discrete output signals, convolved into a single mono signal. Can be used to separate signal and noise, whether pseudo-random (pink, brown, thermal, etc.) noise, or multiple similar sources (one voice among many -- the "cocktail party effect").
*#Continuous wavelet transform: A method of spectral analysis far beyond FFT. Can develop an accurate time/frequency plot from signal for doing time selective filtering, artifact detection, all manner of signal/noise separation.
**'''Peter 17Aug15:''' See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=83790 this archived thread] on the Audacity Forum.

*'''Gang all the Gain controls together:''' When mixing many recorded tracks and I'm satisfied with the mix, but the amplitude peaks (VU) are too high, it would be nice to be able to gang all the Gain controls together - moving one moves them all. I was doing this with the Amplify feature (selecting no particular track), but too much modification can be harmful.
**'''Peter 17Aug15:''' See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=84424 this archived thread] on the Audacity Forum.

*'''Additional options for 'List of Files' import:''' There are a lot of opensource video editing software projects out there, but no opensource cross platform audio editor as good as Audacity, so for me is the question how to import audio tracks from those video editors into Audacity for superior audio editing? One way is to generate aup files, but it seems that they are too complicated for other applications to do correctly and therefore not advised. Another one is to hope of aaf or mlt(KDEnlive, Openshot, Flowblade and Shotcut) import in Audacity, but it seems that those will be a huge undertakings, and not worth waiting for. Which leaves me with the 'List of files' import option. There seems to be an offset option as it is, but in order to recreate audio clips from time lines of video editors in Audacity, I guess options to set the track number and in and out timings of each clip would also be needed? So my questions are is this at all possible? Is it meaningful enough to ask for? It it worth hoping for an implementation of in the near future? Or are there better ways to tackle this ambition by strengthen open source projects by interconnecting them?
**'''Peter 17Aug15:''' See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=81123 this archived thread] on the Audacity Forum.

*'''Please create more right-click functionality for Audacity:''' Basically, a few tips can be taken from Adobe Audition nee Cool Edit Pro. The interface is quite similar, one must admit, but ease of use is off the charts on their end. For example: one should be able to long-left-click on a single waveform within a multitrack session, and slide the waveform left or right to match up with certain cues/timestamps, or align with the beginning/end boundaries of another waveform, either below or above. Right-clicking on a waveform should give you an option to time-lock the waveform into place, or unlock it to allow sliding. Also, right-click should allow cues/timestamps to be placed within the track.  In other words, If I need to get right back to the part just before the waveform 1 bass kicks in, I should be able to place a marker there in waveform 1 as a bookmark. I grab waveform 2, unlock by right-click, slide it left to where the marker is, and switch the audio from waveform 1 to waveform 2, essentially mixing two tracks together. I don't see why this was never thought of. It's a very simple, user-friendly, and common way to move waveforms around. It seems that in 2015, these two features are long overdue.
**Steve: One major difference - Cool Edit Pro did not run on Mac OS X. Many Mac users don't have a right mouse button. How do Adobe handle that on their Mac version of Audition?
**Gale: They can though execute right-click by holding CTRL and clicking.

*'''Add up lengths of range labels:''' It would be quite useful when slicing up a live recording for CD tracks to quickly determine the total length of the labels in a label track. Presently I use an HP15-C calculator application to add up the H:M:S:F lengths, but this is tedious and error-prone. I suggest this tally would appear in the TCP of a label track just like Sample Rate and Data Format appear for audio tracks. If the tally is put here, I think it would make sense for it to reflect the total overlap of range labels and the current selection. Depending on the overhead involved, it might be appropriate to provide for turning it on and off.
**Steve: I agree that we could show some useful information in the panel of label tracks. The question is: what information to include. I recall from previous discussions that it was suggested to show the number of point labels and the number of region labels (it can be difficult to see by eye if a label really is a "point" label or just a very short "region"). Total length of labels also sounds like a good idea except that I expect that some users will want one time format, and others would want a different format, and others would want yet another format. I'd suggest that the format should either be "seconds" (to say 4 decimal places), or whatever is selected in the Selection Toolbar. The risk here is that we overload the panel with too many details and/or too many options, but I would support adding some basic information that is likely to be useful to many. I'm not keen on providing "lots" of information that will benefit only a few. I think that the processing overhead is likely to be insignificant.
**OP DickN: I'd opt for the format selected in the Selection Toolbar.
**Gale: +1 to using the Selection Toolbar format if we want to add total length of labels. I don't think a default label track should display more than three rows of info text, but how about a "Properties..." item or similar for the label track dropdown menu that let you choose what to display in the label track info. 
**OP: A Properties menu nicely accommodates future development while resolving the current issue. Already I can see a check box for applying "snap to" to labels.

*'''Link Latency preferences with Hosts:''' I use to change the audio Host between MME, Wasapi and ASIO quite often, and one thing that bothers me is that I'm always needing to adjust the Latency correction individually (since each host has a different latency when recording). I don't mind latency at all though.. the Latency correction Preference takes this problem away from me... ..but changing Hosts, always brings it back. Hosts and the Latency correction Preference seem very related to me, so maybe they could be linked together in the future? By that I mean that, Latency correction adjustments would be saved separately for each Host (they could be all the same number initially, by default.. ..but once you change it, it could consider that a change only for the host currently being used).
**Gale: I'm in favour of moving the "Latency" panel into Devices Preferences, then the two values in the Latency panel would depend on host. This would have the advantage of making clear that Audio to buffer affects playback as well as recording, which is currently a very important issue on Mac OS X (playback can crackle unless Audio to buffer is reduced to near zero). (+1 to that from Peter).
**'''Peter 17Aug15:''' See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=86282 this archived thread] on the Audacity Forum.

*'''Multitrack SETLIST feature wanted:''' I am currently using audacity to edit multitrack files that I had bought via "Karaoke Version". I am panning the click to the left, track to the right, and erasing start off count-ins from the beginnings of music tracks… sometimes also splicing out sections or transposing all tracks. I have quite a large collection of files which I use to make three different mixes… A stereo mix for a one man band, a mix minus drums and a mix minus drums and bass guitar, then saving them out as stereo files currently. I am creating files that end up being used for three different band configurations live and at the moment playing them in the "Onsong" app. Rather than doing all this work ahead of time, I'd rather just mute a certain instrument as needed as I pull up the multitrack audacity song. The FEATURE that I am asking for is basically to be able to load a lot of songs into a playlist… But the songs being the multitrack files that audacity is already capable of loading. I just wish to be able to very quickly arrange a large number and click on the appropriate song file to play back rather than have to file / open / search each song as I would be playing it live. There is not enough time to do that for every song.
**Steve: You can make a "LOF"file using a plain text editor (such as Windows "NotePad"). When you open a valid LOF file, Audacity imports the files that are listed in the LOF file. The files are loaded into Audacity so that they appear as tracks, one below the other.
**OP: Thanks for the answer. So I guess it is possible, but that far too confusing for me to use. I'll just have to hope that eventually some drag n drop style cue list or something is created.

*'''Move Selection:''' I love using the left and right arrows in combination with <shift> in order to select parts of the track. Combining the functionality with <crtl> is great in order to correct/re-adjust the boundaries. In addition, I would love to have the new functionality of <alt> + left and right arrows in order to move the selection. (I often cut parts of pre-defined length out of the tracks and I do this at different track positions. So a simple keyboard shortcut would speed-up my workflow.)
**Gale: OK. There is a quick non-keyboard method. Label the selection then drag on the white circle on either label edge to move the label.

*'''Colorblind-friendly spectrograms:''' There has been some talk about letting the user vary the palette of the spectrogram, including custom palettes and a few presets. I have suggested we devise presets that are good for colorblind users.  But I don't know any personally who could judge our color choices. Does that describe anyone reading this?  And do you know which specific type of color vision anomaly is yours?  There is more than one... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness#Epidemiology
**Steve: There is a handy on-line simulator here: http://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/
**Steve: The greyscale option works for all forms of colour blindness.

*'''"Split stereo to mono" apply to all tracks simultaneously:''' I want to split all stereo tracks into mono tracks all at the same time. I know I can do each one individually by clicking the drop-down arrow and selecting "Split stereo to mono", but how can I apply that to all stereo tracks in Audacity? Is it possible?

*'''Split stereo to mono" apply to all tracks simultaneously:''' as for now Audacity undoes layout changes when undoing an edit. E.g., it could be that a previous track height is restored. That should be changed. I would suggest to have two undo/redo lists: one for edits, one for layout.
**Gale: Thank you for your suggestion which is noted. Having more than one undo stack is a significant change, but generally I agree there are cases where undo should not change selections/track selectedness/focus or purely visual states. 
**Steve: As Gale wrote, that would be a very big change. In addition, I think that it could be highly problematic in some circumstances. The main problem that comes to mind is that the two lists could easily become desynchronised.  Perhaps an alternative approach could be for the normal Undo command (Ctrl+Z) to "undo and return to previous view/selection", and add a "modified undo" that would "undo but retain current view / selection". The user could then choose to use whichever is more appropriate for the specific situation.
**Peter 09Sep15:  See [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=86799 this archived Forum discussion]

*'''High-dpi awareness:''' I let Windows 8 scale all UI elements by 200%. As you might know, an application that doesn't support this, renders only at half the size. Then the window is shown twice the size rendered. My request is that Audacity should please render at full size, scaling its UI elements properly. It should also work with the font that is set in Windows with the correct size.
**Gale: Audacity is not yet fully DPI aware. Until it is we have had to turn off Widgets HighDPI awareness support. 
**OP h-h: Yeah, this is going to be a big issue in so many applications.  Like 6 or 7 years later we are gonna start to see 15.6" notebooks with resolutions of 8K or may be more. Then, the clever thing to do is to set Windows to scale all the UI to 300% or 400%, so we can take advantage of the huge definition we have, and watch the crispiest and nicest icons ever. But many, many applications are going to be displayed tiny due to lack of support of high resolutions. The solution is patience and wait, and don't buy too much "future" proof hardware so we can use it comfortably from the first day.  I'm so exited about future screen resolutions. I'd totally love to have a notebook with an 8K resolution screen, that's 4320x7680 in 15.6", a total beast. But the software must evolve so much more before I buy one of those.  Right now, in 2015, having a Full HD screen is the best bet. You have almost not a single problem and all UI's look fine. Still 4K screens have many problems with applications and UI's, so imagine a 8K screen.


*'''Adding menu icons to the GUI:''' menu icons would make it much easier to find the items you are looking for. It might already have been considered. Does this mean that menu icons will be there when Audacity supports themes in the future? Otherwise I would suggest that.
**Gale: Do you mean that items in menus would have an icon to left of the menu text?
**OP h-h:Yes, exactly that. It would be a real help to have clear distinctive icons in the menus.

*'''Loop Section for "x" number of times:''' I want to be able to loop a section for "x" number of times (and see a counter of "x" number of times played). similar to this youtube feature: http://www.addictivetips.com/web/loop-part-of-youtube-video-for-set-number-of-times-in-chrome/ to help with memorizing Arabic poems.

*'''Kontakt NCW File support:'''It would be nice to have support for Native Instrument's Kontakt's NCW file format. Any thoughts?
**'''Steve:''' That will probably never happen as the NCW file format is a proprietary format and probably not allowed by Kontakt's license conditions. However, Kontakt does allow you to save NCW files in WAV format.

*'''Fourier: musical spectrum:'''  I would like to propose the feature of adding a fourier analysis that shows the musical notes in the spectrum. See the attached picture as an example of another software doing that.
**'''Peter:''' for detailed discussion see this archived Forum thread:  https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=88753

*'''Lock tool bar arrangement:''' I've been looking for a way to lock the tool bar arrangement so it doesn't shift around when I change the window size. Have I missed something or can an option be included in the Preferences to allow that?  (Plus 1 vote)
**'''Peter:''' for detailed discussion see this archived Forum thread: https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=87610&start=20

*'''Record two mono channels simultaneously:'''   it occurs to me that it might be beneficial for Audacity to provide an option to record 2 mono channels. That would be ideal for those users that wish to record two mono sources at the same time (such as guitar in one channel and vocal in the other). For unattended operations this can be inconvenient. (Plus 2 votes)
**'''Peter:''' for detailed discussion see this archived Forum thread: https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=87493


*'''Protect a track from edits:''' OP: To keep track of all of these different points I create a label track. Sometimes I accidentally grab a handle on a label and move it where I didn't want to. Being able to protect the track would help to avoid those types of mistakes. I could also see where protecting a track might be handy when editing multiple tracks at once. By protecting a track that I did not want to edit, I could select all others above and below it by still clicking and dragging across the multiple tracks I want to edit. I haven't been able to find any sort of track protect option though.
**Gale:  think the Track Lock takes precedence over Sync-Lock. You could argue that you should not even be able to change the track order. If you had tracks 1 to 3 and 2 was track-locked, dragging track 1 downwards did nothing until you reached track 3. The track can be seen and heard but does not exist for purposes of any manipulation. I envisaged in that scenario that all the "Move Track" items in the second track's dropdown menu would be greyed out.
**Steve: So if there are three tracks and the top track is protected, then moving the third track to "top" will move it up one place so that it is below the protected track rather than at the top?
**Gale: Correct, if that is what we wanted to do.
**Steve: r if you want the protected track at the bottom of the track list and you "mix and render" some other track, then the protected track would / wouldn't remain at the bottom?
**Gale: the rendered track would stay put just like it would if it was the bottom track.
**Steve: What is the benefit to users of locking the track position of a protected track? Does it outweigh the inconvenience of having to work around an immovable object?
**Gale: Presumably the benefit is that no actions relating to it can be in the undo stack, unless we allow gain/pan.
**Steve: if mute / solo are disabled. then the usefulness of locked tracks is crippled (severely restricted).
**Gale: Mute/Solo is OK I think. Not sure about gain/pan.

*'''Track name edit font:''' The track name is displayed in a light yellow colour. No amount of changing my computer display contrast or brightness makes it readable (it does show ok when the track is selected).  It seems that the font colour or size cannot be changed. Is there a plugin or any other way to do this?  (Plus 1 vote)
**'''Gale replied:''' That's correct. There was a lot of discussion about font size, style and color when this feature was introduced, but no completely satisfactory solution was found. Personally I think that a small amount of customization would be useful - just a simple color picker as an option in preferences.

*'''Spectrogram analysis & export:''' ould split rendering of spectrogram into fast and slow display (similar to google maps of some online games, progressive refinement) and write a high-quality(to free memory, as scratch-file, maybe tiled format) of suitable resolution given window size to disc (avoid unnecessary zoom of blurry) and maybe high-quality image-resampling to re-fit it to view and progressive refinement of resassigned spectrogram (to avoid dotty-ness?) also cache to disc maybe joint-multi-view(vary window sizes,reassigned,multi-tapered,fan-chirp,fractional,log-chirp(for if window size based on analysis frequency) techniques somehow to optimize so that find the best(energy?) fit for all the different views given their uncertainty ellipses and so that a re-analysis from a re-constructed sound from the spectrogram is most similar to original audio.  make spectrogram suitable for harmonic (color-luminosity splits?) analysis audio/music decomposition?  if could export it to png, jpg or openexr(float data) grayscale (so could custom color-map it).
**'''OP added:''' if could have UI setting the vertical height(in pixels) of the spectrogram (maybe real-time display) for reassigned spectrograms, why is there a floor of -160db and grayscale -view does not expand to full white-black? also if could anti-aliasing for reassigned spectrograms to make the look less splotchy

*'''Default parameters for Importing Raw data:''' I work with RAW files a lot and always they are same format. Every time i import them in Audacity, i have to manually type in the params. Is there a way to automatically assign params to header less (*.raw for instance) files? 
**'''Gale:''' You cannot assign presets. Audacity makes a guess at the encoding parameters. If it guesses wrong, you have to correct it. What format are the files? VOX ADPCM? Can you attach an example of such a file?
**''OP:''' My coworker frequently opens RAW audio of a consistent format and complains about this issue.  I'm not sure what heuristics are employed to guess the parameters, but it would be simple and relatively non-intrusive to save the RAW parameters when they are used and put a "Load last used parameters" button on the RAW import dialog that simply loads those parameters from the config file. Disabled if you've never imported raw audio ( and therefore don't have those fields populated in the config file ).

*'''Move tracks by indicating the track no:''' Instead of moving a track one step at a time, if we could indicate that it will be track no x, that would be very handy. I now number my track names like 100 110 120 130 etc. If I wanted to move 130 after 100, I rename it 101, then sort by name. It is a bit easier to manage the position of a track, but it is still some work...

*'''Import of EDL:''' It would be great if Audacity would support import of EDL format, so the audio clips from video edited projects could be cleaned and finalized in Audacity.  Recently the free video editor, Shotcut, implemented export of EDL(also supported by Premiere, Sony Vegas, Lightworks, Avid etc.): https://www.shotcut.org/blog/new-release-1606/
**See this [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=91810 archived Forum thread]

*'''Multicore / 64 bit version:''' I would like to know if Audacity 2.1.2 takes advantages from multicore CPUs and , if not , if there is an existing time schedule in order to implement this feature . Also , i have Windows 10 ,64 bits installed but I don't know where to look in Audacity to check if I have the 64 bits version installed . There is no mention of this under the "About" tab.
**See this [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=91815 archived Forum thread]

*'''Region Labels:''' It would be nice to single click a label to select a region, double click a label to edit the label's text. Then to listen to a region all you would need to do is to click the label then spacebar to play rather than the current method of clicking a label, enter, spacebar - this is not intuitive. Once I have named a region it's not often that I would like to change the name it's more likely that I would want to listen to that region.
**See this [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=91782 archived Forum thread]

*'''Context Window:''' Do you know what would be a real useful feature while editing? The ability to create a display-only track that simultaneously displays the track I am editing (normally zoomed in so I can slice between syllables) but instead zoomed out so I can see the larger context of where I am in the audio stream. This would avoid the need to constantly flip back and forth.
**See this [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=91969 archived Forum thread]

*'''Playing a Spectral Selection:''' I want to play a spectral selection and cannot see any way to do this. Is this possible ? I am using Audacity 2.1.0 on a WIndows 10 64 bit system.
**'''Peter:''' for clarity the OP means JUST the spectarlly selected part to be played  - not all the frequencies in the timeline selction.
**'''Peter:''' would also be useful if you could play the inverse - i.e. all the spectrum that is NOT selected within the selected time range.
***See this [https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=92018 archived Forum thread]

*'''Loudness-conserving panner:''' Currently, the track panner sets both channels at 100% when centered, and one channel at 100% and other at 0% when hard panned. However, this does not conserve the power between the two speakers/channels. I'd like to request a fix (as it applies to mono tracks) such that the audio sums to the same power regardless of panning. That is: the signal in both channels are -3 dB when center-panned, and 100% / 0% when hard-panned to the side. Furthermore, the power of both channels must sum consistently at any location of the pan: meaning using a trigonometric function on the panning angle to get the resulting amplitudes, not a linear ra
**Steve: Thanks for your suggestion MrAnderson. Personally I think this is a good idea, and I don't think it would be difficult to program. The "difficult" part would be deciding how to fit this into the user interface ("UI"). The main downside that I see is that if a mono track has a peak level close to 0dB, then "equal power" panning will cause clipping in either left or right. Many of our users would not expect or understand why this happens, so I think we would need to retain the current (simple) pan method as the default. If we have equal-power panning as an option, then I guess that would need to be saved in the project so that when a saved project is opened it uses the correct type of panning. Would it be saved "per track" or "per project"? That is, would anyone want a "simple" panning for some tracks and equal-power panning in others? What we are really talking about here are "pan laws" (how "pan" is mapped to "channel gain"). In hardware, there is usually one, fixed pan law and no options. In software we could have any number of pan law options that vary one or both of: the amount of cut/boost, and the "shape" of the gain curve for intermediate pan positions. Perhaps you'd like to suggest, or bounce some ideas about how to integrate pan-laws into the Audacity interface.
**OP: Thanks for taking the time to read these requests, Steve, and I'm glad we're in agreement on this idea. Concerning the UI, it's been my view for a while that this pan slider needs some kind of eventual overhaul. Otherwise, maybe the term "pan" shouldn't be used to refer to what it does. What it really does is gradually mute one channel over the other. What would it mean to pan a stereo track? I personally feel something like panning one channel into the other (monofying into one channel) or rotating the signal between the channels as something that would be called panning more than just attenuating one or the other channel. If we call the slider that we have now something different ("Mute L/R"?), then we can introduce a true panner as a whole new feature to Audacity. Or we could implement panning as an effect, since it's playing at a slightly higher level than raw track manipulation, what with the sounds of each channel being made to bleed into each other. s a tangent, panning with inversion allowed can also act as a surround matrix encoder if the angle is set appropriately. These are some options I've though of.
**Steve: It would be quite easy to make this as a "[url=https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Download_Nyquist_Plug-ins#List_of_available_Plug-ins]Nyquist plug-in effect[/url]", but that has the disadvantage that it changes the track data (unlike the current "pan" which is applied in real-time on playback without changing the data until mix-down or Export).  On a related note, (this does not provide what you are asking for), you may be interested in the (optional plug-in) "Channel Mixer" effect: https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyquist_Effect_Plug-ins#Channel_Mixer. 
**Robert JH: See also: https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=73313   The panning works in the named fashion--tangent is used and the field is for 60 ° spread as usual for two speakers. Rotation is available as well.








[[Category:Feature Planning]]