Pending Feature Requests

This locked page is for the use of sysops to transfer feature requests from the 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.

Not yet reviewed

• Default recording scale: When I start recording a new waveform, I'd prefer for it to default to the dB scale instead of 0 to 1.0 display. Also, I notice that in the dB scale, the increments are linear, the spacing between 0, -10, -20, -30 and -40 are evenly spaced. Any other dB or VU meter I've ever seen have a more logarithmic spacing. (Plus 3 votes)
  • Koz comments: I would like to set the defaults, too. I'll see if maybe one of the advanced Alpha pre-1.4 versions has that. Nobody is going to change version 1.2. The spacing is linear, but the numbers are in dB which is logarithmic. -20 dB is ten times less. -40dB is one hundred times less. -60dB is one thousand times less. You're right. The zero to one scale will only take you down to about ten to one (0.1) before you can't read it any more. That's only 20dB.
  • Koz notes: "default to the dB scale instead of 0 to 1.0" - I can set that in the pre-release 1.3.7, so it's possible it's already available in the earlier versions like 1.3.5 or 1.3.6 which you can download now. You can install 1.2 and 1.3 at the same time, but you can't use both at once.
  • WC comments: And I add my vote for this too - the dB scale is a much better option for default IMHO.
  • Original poster adds: In Cool Edit 2000 (and I assume CE Pro and Audition), the waveforms displayed in dB run from -oo (how do you type the infinity symbol?) to 0. A -30dB signal barely shows, but so does a -40. In Audacity, if you set the scale to -36, a -30dB signal looks fairly significant while even -36 looks like dead silence. At -96 and higher scales, the same signal looks like it would be quite loud, while it's actually very quiet (I don't run my speakers at max volume). What I'm saying is that I'd like the option at least for the scale to have a log taper like what I'm used to in CE2k and most other audio devices' meters. Whether tied to waveform display or separate, the same goes for the input/output meters at the top.
  • SteveTF comments: I like my sine waves to look like sine waves and I like my measurements to be in dB (though I'm getting more used to -1.0 to +1.0, and that scale is very useful when developing plug-ins). Add my vote.

• Under Edit > Select, I would like to see more choices than just 'All' or everything fore or aft of the cursor. It would be neat if in that same area a list of all my markers came up so I could also choose something like 'Cursor to Markername'. And/or select Cursor to ... then flyouts to Label Track(s) > Markername(s). This would really help when recording albums and you now want to split the songs quickly. Other selection features maybe cursor to allow more than one cursor? Or something like 'splices'. Splices could be set in just like markers? Then a script could run for batch exports. I'm just thinking I could set all these splice markers, then click Export > Splices, then either one dialogue for batch naming the files (I would edit the tags later individually later) or the dialogue comes up with each splice and I edit all names and tags as processes.

• PulseAudio: Is there any plans for native supporting of PulseAudio in Audacity? I can't work without PulseAudio, because I use remote (via LAN) small computer with good audio card, due to noise in main PC. Now i run 'padsp audacity' but get strange results in 'Audio device info', etc., and not sure about true 24bit 96kHz really recorded. My OS on both computers is Ubuntu/Linux. My goal is to have sound card on remote computer, so it is works as external DAC/ADC and I get some benefits from this, like low noise and short analog audio cables. PulseAudio is latest and user-friendly system for audio transfer via LAN, so it built-in in Ubuntu and work out-of-box. Fortunately it all is already works, no fail, no lags etc., all fine, except one thing. My experiments shows only 16-bit recording due to not glueless connect from Audacity to driver, as I described here http://www.pulseaudio.org/ticket/443. So I search for native support for PulseAudio in Audacity, PA devices need to be shown in list of available choices, like OSS and ALSA sources (in Ctrl+P -> Audio I/O).
  • SteveTF comments: You could perhaps create virtual device in Alsa to allow Audacity to work with Pulseaudio. This is not something that I know much about, but there is some information on the subject here: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... pulseaudio - If you get it working, it would be interesting to hear how you did it

• Audio Vectorscope: We keep dancing around this, and yes, there are really painful ways to derive this information, but I would kill for an audio vectorscope. Either version; left is vertical and right is horizontal, or the (I think) CCIR/EBU version where In-Phase is vertical and Out-Of-Phase is horizontal. Failing that, a Phase Meter. Bouncing lights to the right are in phase and bouncing lights to the left are out. It's something you can turn on if you need it, like the monitor mode for the record meters. 1.4 will tell you somehow graphically when you're in monitor mode, right? 1.3.5 and earlier doesn't tell you a thing...I didn't check the other two higher versions.
  • Koz adds to his original post: Typically, it would be... View > Show Vectorscope. I was going to put it under Analyze, but a simple version of this can be left running all the time, not launched once for a simple test and then put away.

• Default Sample Rate: At present, if Audacity opens or imports, into a new project, an audio file that is at a different sample rate to the default (as set in Preferences), then the project rate will change to that of the imported audio. However, this is only true for the first file that is opened or imported. All subsequent files will leave the project rate unchanged. I find this behaviour to be both confusing and inconvenient. If I have the default sample rate set to 44100, that is because I want my project to use 44100. On more than one occasion I have opened a bunch of files, and only after noticing that the sound quality of the whole project was rubbish, realised that the project rate was set to an unacceptably low rate simply because the first audio clip that I imported was at a low rate. This behaviour can also cause problems for users that have sound cards that only support, or only play back at the correct speed, projects at specific sample rate settings. I would like Audacity to use the default sample rate for projects unless I explicitly change the project rate to another value (for example by using the "project rate" setting in the lower left corner of the main Audacity window).stevethefiddle
  • Gale Andrews responds: The switching of project rate to that of the first imported file (if different from the current rate) wasn't actually working on Mac/Linux if the rate of the file was unsupported, and one of the "fixes" in 1.3.7 is to make that switch always happen. The rationale is that there would have to be resampling if the project rate differed from the rate of the file; but that subsequent files should not change the rate again so that there would be a mix of rates. As you know, all resampling is lossy, and resampling has to be done somewhere if files at different rates are involved, in spite of the general recommendation to keep the project rate at a rate supported by the device. It was the best compromise we could come up with. Audacity (Beta) should if necessary always resample playback from the project rate to the next highest supported rate, so that the sound card is sent a *supported* rate. You can see the rate it's actually playing (or recording) at in the far right of the Status Bar. The Vista Default Format Issue using MME is the exception that proves the rule, where the system is resampling (badly), instead of Audacity doing it. I can't help thinking If the (Windows) world had better device drivers we wouldn't get half the reported problems with speed difference when recording and playing at the same time, and devices that cannot cope with resampling. I agree there is a weak case for not changing the project rate upon file import given how a minority of devices behave in the real world, and your point about project playback quality being destroyed by import of a low rate file is valid. I think a much stronger use case for not changing the rate is presented by people who want a fixed rate for export to CD or DVD. Anyway, the plan is to leave default rate behaviour when importing files as it is, but add a preference (probably after 1.4) to let the project rate remain fixed until the user changes it.
  • STF replies: That would solve the issue nicely, but I think that the default should be to not change the project rate.

Looking at the pros and cons:

Reasons why the project rate should change if the first (and only the first) file loaded is at a different sample rate:

1. There would have to be resampling if the project rate differed from the rate of the file.
2. .... I can't think of another.

Reasons why the project rate should remain at the default project rate setting, unless changed by the user:

1. Changing the rate on account of the first, and only the first file opened is inconsistent with all other situations.
2. Audacity is designed for high quality audio production and is, in the vast majority of situations, set to a default of 44100Hz (CD standard) or 48000Hz (DVD standard). Up-sampling a file from a low sample rate to either of these rates incurs negligible losses, but down-sampling a project to a low sample rate produces significant losses. Failure to notice that the import of one low quality audio clip has changed the sample rate for the entire project will result in the Exported audio all being resampled to the low rate, causing significant damage to the sound quality, whereas up-sampling a low bit rate sample into a higher bit rate project will result in a larger file size and insignificant loss in sound quality.
3. A file that has been imported, then exported at a higher bit rate may later be down-sampled to a lower bit rate. Up-sampling a low quality audio clip, and then down-sampling it again will produce a very small degrading of the sound quality. The reverse of this (down-sampling a file then up-sampling it) will produce a large and irreversible degrading of the sound quality.
4. Many users use Audacity for CD or DVD production, in which case it is an unnecessary inconvenience for Audacity to change the project rate from the default values, forcing the user to manually change it back again. This is also a behaviour that users need to be aware of (and they only become aware of it when they get caught out and ruin a project).
5. Some sound cards do not handle re-sampling properly, and in these cases the project rate needs to be set and stay set. This may be the "fault" of the manufacturer, but this situation exists for a significant proportion of users.
6. Vista (sometimes?) has problems resampling audio. Does this issue disappear if the project rate is set to a "compatible" setting?
7. Since the sample rate switching was not previously working on Mac/Linux, I guess that it would be no great challenge to make it "not work" by design.
8. The argument regarding "avoiding resampling" does not hold very well, since most/all of the processing in Audacity is done in 32bit, thus necessitating resampling (and dither) for any audio that is at a lower bit depth.
9. In an open project that has, for example, one track with a sample rate of 44.1 and the project rate is 44.1, if a second track with a sample rate of 16kHz is imported, then the original track is deleted, the project rate will remain at 44.1 (and so when Exported will be at 44.1). However, if the original track is deleted and then the second track imported, the project rate will change to 16kHz. It does not seem logical that in this case the outcome should vary according to the sequential order, since in both cases we are just replacing one track with another.
10. The bit depth of imported audio is always changed to the default project setting, whether it is the first file to be opened or not.

I agree that some (all) Save Sound File As, of the arguments lack much weight, but on balance I would find the arguments for not changing the project rate to be more persuasive.

• Ability to use Audacity as a simple WAV editor, or other imported format: Given that 4 out of the 5 primary features of audacity[1] involve editing a single file, would it not be worth making that process easier? e.g. if you load a file, modify something, and press control-S, it should save the file, instead of prompting you to create a project?
  • PS notes: this led to a discussion between Kozikowski and the original poster - and largely revolves round the previously much-discussed issue of Save versus Export. For more details see this thread in the forum: http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=7816&p=34759#p31137

• Auto Complete Equalizer Graph: I created a simple equalizer graph to get somebody out of trouble recently. I think it was a lot more bother than it needed to be. Here's an illustration of an Adobe Photoshop tool. See: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Image:Curves2.jpg Note that there's only one new data point on the right-hand brightness curve, and yet Photoshop automatically produced a graceful, gentle, useful curve typical of a picture whose natural lighting had actually changed. It did not produce two straight lines and depend on me to painstakingly calculate the new points and put the rest of the curve in by hand. I want the equalizer work window to run like that.
  • SteveTF responds: Since Audacity does not currently support graphical interfaces for effects (which rules out the "CoolEdit Pro FFT filter" type GUI), could this be done using a bunch of sliders?
  • Koz responds: It could, but to figure out where the sliders go, I'd be curled up on the living room floor with my Toshiba adding machine, my Terman's book of six place log tables, number two lead pencil, and nice legal pad. If only we could make a machine to do these laborious calculations for us....

• More transparent "Sample format" display to left of track: This might be implicit in some questions I've asked before, but I thought I'd say it explicitly: I think it would be helpful if the "Sample format" displayed at the left of each track reflected the actual current bit depth of the audio in that track. What it displays now seems to have some obscure relation to either one's default settings or to the type of audio imported.
  • SteveTF comments: In most situations the "Sample format" displayed at the left of each track does reflect the actual sample format. However, you have noticed that when opening an Audacity project, the bit depth of existing tracks is (incorrectly) displayed as the default bit depth and not the actual bit depth of the track. You suggested previously that you thought this was a bug, and Gale agreed with you. For what it's worth, I also agree. At present, the developers are looking into another issue concerning bit depth and I would hope that when they have fixed that, this issue will also be addressed.
  • Allen McBride responds: You're right... I only decided to make a formal suggestion when I discovered that the actual behavior was more complex still when it comes to imports (the other thread I linked to). I know it's not the biggest deal.

• Frequency values without selection: I am now developing a plug-in for Audacity. My problem now is on how to automatically get the values on the input or recorded medium without highlighting a portion of it. I mean...is it possible to get the frequency values even if the user will not be able to highlight a portion of the wave?

• Equalizer Accuracy/Readouts: Where is the readout in the graphic equalizer tool to tell me exactly where I am in both dB and Frequency? If I launch the Spectrum Analyzer tool, I can find an offending frequency to surgical accuracy by moving my cursor over the culprit. 3129 Hz. Then when I launch the graphic equalizer to rid myself of the offending frequency, the best I can do is guess at a point somewhere between 2000 and 5000. I used to be able to get better with China marker/grease pencil and a ruler, but that only works with glass monitors. The China marker will not come off flat panels. I'm using that as an example. I know there are notch tools and I can write my own equalizer, etc.
  • SteveTF comments: The Equalizer does have a grid now (Audacity 1.3.8 alpha), which is a big improvement.
  • Koz responds: Much better than a plain white frame, yes.

• Long duration recording and auto saving: I need to record audio for days for a project I am working on. I would like to be able to save the audio automatically every hour to WAV file. Is it possible to make Audacity do this???
  • Koz comments: Audacity is a pretty simple program so Exporting and Capturing at the same time can't happen. It's already writing to the hard drive during Capture, so it would have to suspend that process in order to write the Project.
  • Plus one vote from Jaws78: I would like to second this. I want to record long sessions 6hours + and would like to break them up automatically in to smaller segments, so I can just press record and forget about it until i am done.
  • SteveTF comments: I doubt that Audacity would be able to continue recording smoothly while simultaneously writing a 600MB file to disk. Would it be acceptable for the recording to be automatically paused while the file was being saved?

1. Alternatively:

How about if Audacity just started a new project file each hour, so that when you have "Split long recording projects" selected, it will create a new .aup file each hour? (myshow001.aup, myshow002.aup. myshow003.aup ...) I don't know if this is technically possible either, but it seems more likely than trying to dump 600MB of data to disk at the same time as recording.

1. Another alternative:

After completing a long recording, how about an option to "Split project to multiple projects"? So you start with a 3 hour recording and instead of: "Save As..." > myproject.aup you select: "Split Save As..." > "Options = split after 60 minutes" > myproject001.aup, myproject002.aup, myproject003.aup Where "myproject001.aup" contains the first hour, "myproject002.aup" contains the second hour, and so on.

• Need longer filenames: I would like for Audacity to be able to use long (up to 255 characters) filenames

without adding in its own arbitrary codes. I also checked it on a filename that doesn't contain parenthesis, and the same problem still occurs. I start up Audacity and it has a blank project window. Then I import my first audio. file. The name of the input file is "RAH 08 Out On the Edge (itunes)". However, once it's done importing, both the project window and the tracks within it are named something like "RAH 08 Out On the Ed#4330D7". Currently using Audacity 1.2.5 on Mac OS X (10.4), with Intel processor. Update: In a previous session of Audacity, I had saved the project. Then after quitting Audacity, I had renamed both the .aup file and the _data directory to be my "correct" filenames (and matching each other). Today I tried to reopen that project, and it was unable to. Then I renamed the _data directory back to its old name, and the project opened OK.

• Rename-able and movable projects:It should be possible for Audacity to find the _data directory based on the current name of the .aup file. It should be possible for people to rename both of these and have the project still usable.

• Several ideas for navigation features: Currently using Audacity 1.2.5 on Mac OS X. I've only been using it a short while, so my experience with it is pretty limited so far. The other audio editor that I've been using is Sound Studio, and some of the navigation features in that program would be nice to also have in Audacity. The following would be nice additions:

1. Need better control over the vertical zooming of each track. Need it to be easy to keep the zero line centered within the track. Need it to be easy to set several tracks to the exact same zoom amount
2. For listening to a single track(-pair) at a time, there should be a way to select which track(-pair) to listen to, with a single button press. Currently, doing this by either the "mute" or the "solo" buttons requires two button presses (turn off that button for one track, and turn it on for the other). Two button presses is too much to require for such a common operation. Perhaps the "solo" buttons could be made smarter so that pressing the "solo" button on one track automatically releases the "solo" setting that might already be on for any of the other tracks.

• Media INFO I imported a clip into Audacity. What was it? What was the format? Filesize? Where is File > Media INFO? (plus 1 vote)

• Frequency band splitter: I find this feature in Fscape (an xplatform app similar to Soundhack) http://www.sciss.de/fscape/ - to be very useful and would like to see it or a Nyquist script written to do something similar: a panel would appear when Band Splitting function is selected and would allow the user to

1. define bands as freq/bandwidth -or- crossover freqs
2. add new bands/crossovers as needed
3. processes the bands or crossover parameters on a soundfile or a selection of a soundfile
4. output these as separate files into a selected directory -- similar to splitting soundfiles according to label regions

• • STEVETF comments: Unfortunately this is not possible with Nyquist in Audacity, at least not a one-click automated method, because Nyquist in Audacity can only access one track at a time. It is however possible to make multiple copies of a track (Ctrl+D) and then apply band-pass filters to each track.
  • Anechoic responds: you only need to access one track. How it could work: create a multi bandpass run the track thru it and split out the results (ind bands) into n-number of separate tracks.
  • SteveTF adds: That's the bit Nyquist in Audacity can not do - it can only access (reading or writing) one track. If you process multiple tracks (select several tracks and apply a Nyquist effect), each track is processed in Nyquist independently of other tracks. The audio data is passed to Nyquist in a single variable ("s") and the result that is returned by Nyquist is written back to that track. Audacity currently supports single channel (mono) and 2 channel (stereo) tracks. In the case of multi-channel sounds, the "s" parameter is a vector with two elements (aref s 0) and (aref s 1) which contain the data from left and right channels respectively. You could write a Nyquist script that would split a track into 2 frequency bands by processing a stereo track and returning one band to the left channel and the other band to the right channel. If Audacity supported tracks with more than 2 channels then you would be able to write each frequency band to an available channel, but currently Audacity only supports mono and stereo tracks. Creating multiple duplicates of a track and then extracting a frequency band from each track is a bit tedious to do, but it does work.
  • Anechoic responds: sorry I meant that it created 'n' number of FILES not tracks so it would behave much like how split function works
  • SteveTF adds later: However, due to Nyquist being upgraded, it is now possible.(I have tested this and it does work).

• Track hover help hovering the mouse over a track should give the filename (going to Track | Name... is less convenient) (Plus 1 Vote)

• It would be nice if scaling multiple tracks vertically could be achieved without the need for additional controls. Perhaps one way this could be done would be if manual vertical size adjustment affected all selected tracks. This way, if you want to zoom vertically on tracks 1,2 and 4, you just need to select those tracks and as you adjust the vertical height of one, the vertical height of the other selected tracks would follow suit. What do you think - would that do it? (perhaps with an option in Preferences to switch this behaviour on or off).
  • Peter notes: this and the above request for Track hover help are boiled down from a longer thrad discussing track viewing. I transferred the thread to Audio Processing - see here http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=11098&start=0

• Embedding controls in a (any) presentation document: I made a PDF of a song book with Acrobat and added a play button to one of the songs which played a recording of that song on my default player (Media Player). I thought how cool would it be if I could add bars that ran the length of the piece of music to pause, stop and play. Then I thought about how if Audacity could be embedded, the tempo of the song could be changed which would really be helpful in trying learn music. Is there any chance of Audacity teaming up with Open Office to provide something like this? Perhaps with Open Office PDF Editor which I hear is in the works?

• Online (web-based) Audacity: Is there any way that someone can make a version of Audacity that can be used on my website (or here). You see last year my phyics teacher had my class do podcasts (fun right). Of course we had to edit it so we all got audacity. Most of the class had no idea how to install a program onto a computer much less how to use it. I think I can teach them how to use it because I am doing a few demonstrations on how to use forums, wikis, etc. and one more couldn't hurt. I think the problem was that people did not want to install a program that they would use once (or twice) at most. So I think having the program on a website would be more efficient. I think it could work with licencing because you could make people accept a terms of service before loading the program. If someone could make this, give me a link if its already made, how to do it myself, or tell me why this can't be done that would be awesome (well not all the options).
  • SteveTF comments: Audacity is a Desktop application and will not run on a web server. However, you can run it fromm a USB stick

• Noise Renoval UI" when I want to do noise removal, the window asks me to select the section of noise. when I click on get noise profile, the window closes and then I have to open the noise removal window again. Is that the way it is supposed to work?
  • Koz comments: Yes, but that doesn't mean it's desirable.
  • SteveTF comments: Adobe Audition has a nice feature in their Noise reduction effect - after grabbing the noise profile the window stays open and you can click on a button to "Select all of track". This allows both stages of Noise Reduction to be performed without having to close/reopen the effect. Audacity has the ability to "Repeat Last Effect", but I would like the facility to "Recall Last Effect". (Perhaps Ctrl+SHIFT+R). When using Noise reduction, one could then recall the Noise reduction effect in order to apply it without having to go through the full list of effects to find it. "Recall Last Effect" would also be useful in many other situations - for example, you apply Equalization, but on listening back you decide that it is not quite right, so you Ctrl+Z to undo then "Recall Last Effect" and make a slight change to the setting and apply again. I think this would be really useful for many effects where it is not always easy to get the optimum settings just from the "Preview" (and "Preview" is not available for Nyquist effects).

• real time loop editing: the fact that Audacity has partial functionality in making loops i.e. allow you to select and play a loop but NOT adjust the loop points in real time seems to me a half baked implementation of loop editing. Please - if you are going to allow someone to select and play a loop then go ALL the way and also allow them to edit it in real time?
  • SteveTF comments: but that would still be a half baked loop editor wouldn't it? Would you not then want forward/backward looping, Acidized loop support, Sound Designer, Apple Loop, and CAF loop position marking, simultaneous viewing of start and end points, mouse drag time stretching, auto zero crossing adjustment, real-time editing, beat slicing.....
  • OP replies: YES! Mouse drag time stretching is essential. The rest of that isn't, but mouse drag stretching is an obvious feature that is sorely needed.
  • SteveTF replies: It depend what you are doing. If you want seamless loops for creating continuous pad sounds, then simultaneous viewing of start and end points, and auto zero crossing adjustment are pretty essential. For editing drum loops then beat slicing is pretty important. For exporting into many samplers, Acidized loop support, (or some other format) can be essential.

• Mouse Drag Time Stretching: Right now my procedure for resampling a particular guitar sample is:

1. Cut it into little bite size pieces in Audacity, where pretty much each and every strum has it's own file
2. Make each piece into a track in FL Studio, and use the mouse to stretch/shrink these pieces until they fit the BPM / rhythm I'm lookin for
3. Drag these samples back out of rhythm so that there is silence at any place where they overlap, keeping the newly stretched tempo of each individual piece
4. Bring the resulting wave back into Audacity, where I again separate all these into separate tracks, and shift and trim until they match up with a click track in my new desired BPM.

• • OP adds: It's really annoying to have to go out of Audacity to complete steps 2 and 3 ... it would be nice if I could do all this in Audacity because then FL Studio would become just a source of synth sounds rather than an audio editor, and I could do sampling in all Free Software. Also, this takes hours when it should take minutes. So I want Mouse Drag Time Stretching, like Adobe Audition has, in Audacity. There should be two varieties - one that simply stretches the waveform and another that, like "Change Tempo", stays in the same pitch. (The same pitch one is the most important one) Could someone give me a basic idea (since I don't know much about the programming involved) how hard this would be to implement? What are the challenges preventing this from being done?
  • SteveTF responds: The "time stretch" in Audition is excellent. The algorithm was developed by a couple of very clever chaps that created the company "Syntrillium" (the company that made "Cool Edit"). The code that they used is a closely guarded secret that was sold along with the rest of Cool Edit Pro to Adobe. Time stretch in Audacity uses "soundtouch" which is an open source library that is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux (Audition is Windows only). There is an excellent program that automates most of what you are doing called "ReCycle". Unfortunately it is not freeware. There is an open source clone of ReCycle called "FreeCycle" http://freecycle.redsteamrecords.com/ but it is only available for Linux. However, if you are looking for a free and open source solution, the FreeCycle is the one to go for as it does not require a non-free operating system.
  • OP responds: This isn't a request for a new algorithm though (I don't think) but just mouse control for the existing algorithm. (which currently only accepts control via numbers entered in a text box) As I can figure, this would just be an alternative method of generating the input for the algorithm we've already got.
  • SteveTF replies: It may end up as a request for a new algorithm. I don't know if you have noticed yet, but time stretching in Audacity is not exact. Try time stretching ("Change Tempo" or "Change Pitch") on some very short samples (less than one second). You should notice that the length of the processed audio is often slightly out, or may have a bit of silence on the end. There have been a few requests for various improvements to these features in Audacity, which IMHO would best be served by the developers looking at this from scratch. I'm not a programmer myself, and I think it is extremely unlikely that there will be any significant changes before Audacity 2.0 is released. While I agree that "Mouse Drag Time Stretching" would be a useful feature for many users (+1 from me) I think it will be a while before we see any progress in that direction. While we are waiting - if you know the BPM then you should be able to work out the desired length. For example, at 120 bpm, there are 120/60 beats per second and each beat is 60/120 seconds duration. So if you have a sample that needs to last for 4 beats, the length needs to be 4 x 60/120 = 2 seconds. You can use the "Change Tempo" in Audacity 1.3 to set the target length to 2 seconds and the job is done.
  • OP replies: Oh drat. It's pretty much the short samples that I wanna drag around.

• Audacity for speech recognition and assimilated: I'm working on semantical tagging of non-words in speech. I did a laugh detector and now I'm on to semantical tagging of hums. I do not mean artificial humming noises, I mean people saying "hum" or "hum hum" either as a way as saying "Wait, I'm searching in my mind for the next word" (fillers) or to express agreement, disagreement, and the neutral "I'm listening, go on". I already have a tool to record, visualise and analyse sound files (coded for the laugh detector) but I'm using Audacity to pre-process audio files so I was wondering about using it for the analysis and displaying the results. This would mean - changing the display mode so that it doesn't jump when the cursor reaches the end of the currently displayed audio section. Instead the cursor would stop in the middle and the audio wave starts scrolling underneath it. - having a new window scrolling in synchronicity where tags could be displayed on demand in text mode. These tags would include the output of speech recognition and additional tags such as "h+" to indicate a agreeing hum. Tongue clicking, lip smacking, laughter, change of speaker, stutter, etc. could also have their tags. This would make it easy for me to check the sound file and see where the tags are correct and where they are not. It could then lead to a tool to clean speech audio files, for example before releasing an interview on the radio. From an AI perspective these tags give indications regarding the mood of the speakers. I work in CADIA (cadia.ru.is), this is part of my work. I'm a researcher there (who else would write a work-related post on a Sunday night?). See this trhread moved to Audio Processing: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=13233&p=50654#p50654

• Error Opening Sound Device - a tool to help resove it: Given that this will never actually get resolved internally, how about A Tool to help resolve it? There are very nice tools to help you piece your show back together after your Project explodes in a plume of sparkling fragments, how about A Tool that does the same thing you would be doing to resolve a capture problem? Stand behind somebody as they crank through all the variations of all the settings to find one that works. Write down what they did. I like to refer to this as "Work The Computer Should Be Doing While I Make A Nice Cuppa." You can use my silly USB microphone as an example. It runs perfectly and correctly at 44100, 16-bit, Mono. Given that Audacity does not wake up with those settings, how many iterations would you need to try to find that one. That one's simple, but it took me a long time to resolve partly because I wasn't sure what I was doing. Like most of our befuddled posters.

• Reverse Noise Reduction: I think it was SoundSoap that had an interesting tool. It would let you hear what it took out. If you listen to the reject signal and you heard just the air conditioner rumble, then you did a good job. If you hear the performer's voice in there, you certainly did a bad job. (Plus 2 votes)
  • Waxcylinder comments: Brian Davies' ClickRepair tool lets you do that (and I think his De-Noise has the have the same/similar UI) - It lets you select between raw (noisy) signal, the cleaned up signal without noise, or just the noise. The "noise" option is very useful as it enables you know if you have set the paramemetrs too aggressivley and are taking out too much of the genuine signal.
  • Billw58 adds: Try this:

1. Duplicate the bit you want to process, to a new track (maybe start with a small selection to experiment)
2. Apply the noise reduction or de-clicking to one track
3. Invert the other track
4. Play the two tracks back together

• • OP - Koz comments: Yes, I could do that, but I can't see trying to explain that to Mrs. Dougherty from the verger's office in Midleton, County Cork while she's trying to get the noise reduction to work, especially since it needs to happen multiple times.

• Chains enhancement: a shut down program and computer option from chain would be nice for long chains

it would be nice to be able to call another program like a cd burn program and it would also be great if you could Separately pick the mp3 settings in the chain feature

• Make Plot Spectrum "WINDOW" a real window: The problem:

Got a multi-track project open.

Wanting to compare the spectra of different tracks

Using the Mixer Board to switch between tracks (it can show more tracks at one time than the track window)

Switching between one screen and another is a pain because:

The Spectrum Window is always on top of the main window

The Spectrum window can not be minimised

It can not be reduced in size below a fairly large size

The Spectrum Window does not appear on the Desktop Task Bar

Ideally I would like;

The Spectrum window to be a real window (with a minimise button)

To be able to resize the window like other windows (with scroll bars when reduced below the minimum size)

To see the Spectrum Window on the Desktop Task Bar

A tick box on the Spectrum Window for "always on top"

• Reduced height meter tool bar: I find it useful to have a long scale on the meter toolbar, but because it is so wide it uses too much screen space. Several options here:

1. Half width meter toolbar (only need to see the numbers an a thin line for each channel)
2. Vertical meter tool bar that can be docked on left or right edge of main window *(see note below)
3. Toolbars that can be "collapsed".
4. A global "hide/show toolbar" switch (that retains the same toolbar positions - preferably accessible through the keyboard).
5. Make the Mixer Board dockable at the side of the main window.
6. Option to show Record/Playback meters independently
7. Any combination of the above

• • Re item 2) The meters CAN be made vertical, but can not be docked and they are ridiculously wide.
  • Plus 2 votes
  • Irish adds: A nice narrow vertical meter that you can shove to one side of the screen.

• Float control toolbar to be set on top of other apps: This feature was available in 1.2.xx and now is dropped on 1.3.xx . When floating the control tool bar (or any tool bar) it is not on top of other applications. Making it on top of other applications makes it possible to record while Audacity is in the background. That was possible in 1.2.
  • SteveTF comments: You can still record with Audacity in the background - the only difference is that Audacity will come to the foreground when you press record. You can still pull another window in front of it while it is recording. However, if another program grabs exclusive access to the sound card while Audacity is in the background, then the recording will stop (this is the same for any version of Audacity) so you need to be a bit careful running Audacity in the background. There are also performance considerations - if you are running another program in the foreground and it robs Audacity of the necessary resources or disk access (even for a moment) then it will mess up your recording.

• Music analyzing features: Have you considered adding musical analyzing features (also useful for speech analysis) like in the following program? Transcribe! http://www.seventhstring.com/ The underlying capacity might by now already be there in Audacity, there would be a difference in acting on and presenting the data. In Audacity, actions are considered for editing and stacked. In musical analyzing, one mostly chooses a different presentation. Also, there are some musically oriented actions, such marking up the piece into sections, measures, and beats, and then one can compute the frequency in beats per minute (for metronome settings). There is a promitive keyboard, for playing pitches. Also, there is this program, which not only presents the spectrum, but one can change it, and listen to it. In a music setting, one would like to be able to compare it against a tuning system. http://www.klingbeil.com/spear/ This program is for no charge, but it does not say if the sources are open.
  • SteveTF responds: Audacity already contains several tools including Spectrum Analyasis, Beatfinder, and support for VAMP plug-ins: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php? ... p_Plug-ins Plug-in developers are welcome to make new plug-ins for Audacity, and it is also possible to create add-on "modules" for Audacity, though I believe this is still in its early days. I doubt that Transcribe! will ever be supported as it is a standalone commercial program, so unless the author is prepared to release the source code under a GPL compatible open source license, or create a plug-in for Audacity, then it cannot be used in Audacity. Their software licence does not allow anyone else to modify the program to allow it to work with Audacity, so it's stand-alone or not at all.
  • SteveTF adds further: <there are some musically oriented actions, such marking up the piece into sections, measures, and beats> I would LOVE to see that feature. It would open up the power of Audacity to a whole different type of music production. There are already these features on the "Feature Request" page of the wiki
  • Peter: see the full discussion thread in the forum/Audio Processing: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=15608

Floating toolbars lose focus so need side-docking

• SteveTF responds: I don't find the vertical meters to be a useful feature, much less so due to the current minimum width, but even with narrow meters I think I would find it rather cumbersome unless it was dockable at the edge of the Audacity window. With floating toolbars, either the fight is to keep the appropriate window on top (if Audacity is maximised), or manually adjusting the Audacity window so that there is room for the floating toolbar at the side. In either case you lose the Audacity keyboard shortcuts when focus moves to the meters, so, for example:

With a docked meter toolbar:

Click on recording meter to test recording level.

"R" start recording.

With a floating meter toolbar:

Click on recording meter to test recording level.

Either, Alt+TAb, Alt+TAb, Alt+TAb,....

or Click on Audacity main window,

"R" start recording.

Either way it is an unnecessary disruption to the work flow. Also, with a floating toolbar, if you move either the toolbar, or the Audacity window so that you can see what you want to see, it is very easy to inadvertently dock the meter toolbar and it snaps back to a not-so-useful minimum size. I guess floating toolbars are more useful on multi-monitor set-ups, but like most users I'm on one monitor. On a single monitor, vertical docking on the side could be useful on wide screen monitors.

• Recording single channels: It would be great if Audacity could record single channels. Right now, if one records in mono, it is the sum of two channels at half volume instead of being real individual channels.
  • SteveTF responds: I can see good reasons for why that would be a nice feature, but also see a lot of users getting upset that they have no input when set to mono (because Audacity is recording the other channel). The simple workaround is to record 2 channels, then use "Split to Mono" and delete the unused channel. (I'm not sure if the behaviour of "1 channel mono = mix of left + right" is actually an Audacity feature, or a sound card / driver issue)
  • Gale writes: What happens when Audacity requests mono from a stereo source on the sound device depends on the sound device. Using cheap USB sound cards or the inbuilt sound device on a large number of Windows machines over the years, I've never got anything other than a mono mix when Audacity requests mono from a stereo source. I think that higher end sound cards would more typically give you just the left-channel in that scenario, which is what happens on a friend's computer using a PCI sound card. So it isn't anything that Audacity can control.
  • OP Kizzume responds: I'm simply asking for an option, not a default behavior. Have it default to recording both channels like it normally does, but give an option to record single channels (left OR right) if one wishes. It's still a workaround that wouldn't be necessary if there was an option to record single channels. I don't know either. If Audacity can support VST's, something generally limited to high-end audio programs, it should be able to handle high-end audio devices more appropriately as well.
  • Kizzume adds: Is this card you speak of one that has EAX effects or other options that are solely designed around gaming? If the card in question is a Creative Labs card (no matter how expensive or how "professional" it claims to be) or another card that has EAX and a number of other options related to gaming, those cards may have something built into them that may actually do what you're claiming *because* of their focus on gaming (so a mic in for in-game chat will always be the right volume), but Creative Labs, no matter how expensive the audio device, does NOT make professional high-end audio devices. For anyone to attempt to claim otherwise is like saying that a Crate solid-state amp and cab gives a great, very professional warm and smooth sound for electric guitars. M-Audio and PreSonus audio devices are *not* designed in ANY way around gaming whatsoever, and there are some games in which their devices actually cause a number of issues.
  • SteveTF responds: Most high end audio programs are not open source and so have the luxury of not having to use Windows drivers. Because Audacity is open source it is not able to ship with ASIO support (though if you build Audacity from the source code it is possible to build in ASIO support for your own use. Another alternative is to use Jack http://jackaudio.org/ which is a high performance, low latency audio system. (I don't know how easy/hard it is to get it running on Windows - I use it on Linux). I've heard talk from the developers about looking at channel mapping in the future - primarily for multi-channel support - so the issue is not completely outside the frame. The current priority is the release of Audacity 2.0 and no new features are being added until 2.0 is out.
  • Gale writes: My friend's card is a rather old Turtle Beach - certainly a company that is now gaming oriented. By "higher-end" I'm thinking of anything over say $80 and not commenting on quality - I think not everyone would call m-audio "higher-end". I was only talking about the case where the application asks for a single unspecified mono track when the sound device is sending stereo, where AFAIK Audacity can't control whether the card sends a mono mix, just the left, or is clever enough to send just the right if only the right is connected. Whichever, only the left-channel of the Audacity recording meter will illuminate. This isn't to say at all that some future Audacity can't do what you want, but like Steve suggests I think the first priority will be to get this working in the case where you actually have a multi-channel sound card in the first place (that the drivers present to Audacity as such). Being able to choose the channels you want from those presented, and being able to allocate them to the channels you want are things Audacity multi-channel support doesn't do yet. Do the applications that do what you want already offer multi-channel support under ASIO? Equally obviously the workarounds for recording a single channel in stereo and deleting the empty track (your case) and recording both channels and splitting them to mono (which others want to do) are purely mechanistic and could be done after the recording if there are reasons why we couldn't do channel mapping with a stereo only device. I'll certainly note this as a Feature Request. But even improving multi-channel recording isn't likely to happen very soon, in my estimation, even though a couple of developers are known to be interested in it. BTW I don't think Jack works well from casual reports I've seen and isn't being actively developed AFAIK.
  • SteveTF responds: Just to clarify: Jack is being actively developed for Linux (http://jackaudio.org/node/28 ) but it looks like development on Windows is currently at a standstill.

• small adjustment to Tracks menu: In the Track drop-down menu we have a section that includes:

1. Mono
2. Left Channel
3. Right Channel
4. Make Stereo Track
5. Split Stereo Track
6. Split Stereo to Mono

From a user perspective there is one missing - "Stereo Track to Mono"

This option is up in the main menu bar ("Tracks").

I can see a logic to this from a technical point of view (it is a type of "mixing" function, and is in the same section as "Mix and Render"), but from a user point of view it would seem more logical IMHO to have it with the rest of the track channel functions - in the drop-down track menu, instead of up in the main menu all by its lonesome.

Anything look out of place here?

1. Mono
2. Left Channel
3. Right Channel
4. Make Stereo Track
5. Split Stereo Track
6. Split Stereo to Mono
7. Mix Stereo to Mono

Plus 1 vote

• • whomper responds: if there is a big "tracks" at the top then everything related to tracks should be found there even if you duplicate some of them elsewhere else rename that thing at the top to something else.
  • SteveTF responds: The "Tracks" menu (in the main menu bar) is for items concerning "tracks" in a general way, whereas the drop-down menu on a track relates to that specific track. In the drop down menu it could be read as "split me", "change my sample format", "change my sample rate", "change my name".... These operations refer specifically to the track to which the menu is attached, so in my opinion they belong in the menu that is attached to the track. Putting "Mix Stereo to Mono" in the track drop-down menu is consistent with this logic. Personally I'm not keen on duplication. It would make the "Tracks" menu very long (30 items would require scrolling on computers with small screens) and some of the items would be awkward to implement - for example, naming the track is a "track" operation, but how would it be handled if multiple tracks were selected? Would all selected tracks be given the same name, or would you enter a list of names for each of the selected tracks? How would "Split Stereo Track" be implemented if a mixture of mono and stereo tracks were selected? What would happen if "Move Track Up" were used while tracks 1,3 and 4 were selected? These actions are not at all problematic while they are in a drop down menu for the actual track to which they relate.
  • Whomper adds: name the top : global tracks general - name the left : these specific tracks
  • SteveTF replies: That works for me as a description, but the actual main menu items should ideally be single words. When describing procedures that require the track drop down menu (these specific tracks), we usually say "click on the track name and select ....", which I think is more clear than saying "select from the track drop down menu ....." or "select from the 'these specific tracks' menu ....."

• control all settings one desparately needed feature is a plug in or stand alone app that will hunt down *all* the places where somebody is diddling the various audio options and allow them to be seen on one screen at the same time so they can be easily aligned for the job to be done. Ideally it would also save the settings under a name in a drop down menu so they can be rest instantly. Once a working combination is stumbled upon Audacity appears to have at least one if not more settings to fix before things can work - windows has at least 7 that i have found:

1. two under control panels and two under the sound recording ap ---
2. the sound card has at least one more control panel
3. and system hardware devices audio video games has another one
4. plus at least 2 volume control pages that can reduce/mute sound
5. i fear that there may be more lurking around

anything to automate and simplify all these choices so they play nice together is a vital feature imho

• stopping idiots from losing their data: there seems to be an epidemic of people who insist on renaming the data files and or moving them which causes them problems and creates lots of requests for help. Change the name of the data folder to this, or whatever conveys the same idea:

1. do_NOT_move_this_folder_or_rename_it_or_the_files_in_it
2. WARNING_leave_this_folder_and_data_untouched
3. DANGER_do_not_do_anything_to_this_folder_and_files

• Single-ended Trim functions: I'm currently working my way through ripping a lot of vinyl and would really appreciate some single-ended Trim functions e.g Trim Start and Trim End. For example when cleaning up a vinyl rip you need to trim the lead-in, intermediate track gaps and the lead-out sections (or just the lead in and out if editing individual tracks). Currently you have to select the entire track section(s) i.e. so you have to accurately position both the start and end cursors before you can Trim. This is unwieldy (especially as it usually requires several zooms and track scrolling operations) and so introduces more potential for errors. It would be much easier if you could trim one end at a time up to (or from) the cursor without having to select sections. Thus you could have Trim Start, Trim End and Trim All buttons.
  • STF responds: How about selecting the lead in and deleting it (DEL key), then go to the end and do the same for the lead out? (the keyboard short-cuts for the beginning and the end are the HOME and END keys)
  • OP mr-b responds: Yes this is what I now do currently, but as I mentioned before, having to select a bunch of stuff is something that I want to get away from. Also I prefer not use use keyboard shortcuts as it's just more stuff to remember (or with me, forget)! With a simple Trim Start function, it would just be - position cursor, trim start, and the job is done.
  • STF adds: rather than - position cursor - swipe to the left - delete, and the job is done? Even with a "trim start" function, you'd either have to either navigate to "Edit menu > Trim Start", or remember the shortcut key
  • mr-b adds: Swiping involves having to hold down the mouse button and then possibly scrolling and swiping for a time back to the start (or else remember to use shift |<< ) and then delete. I find it's really much easier to use a single button that is visible on the GUI or browsable in the menu to accomplish all of that. Currently you have to learn all of the steps. It's such a common edit operation, why not make it simple as possible (but no simpler!)
  • STF adds: My concern is not that it would not be convenient, but an equally persuasive case could be made for many other function buttons and soon it would be impossible to find the button you want among a sea of buttons. Personally I'm happy with:

1. Click > Shift + Home > DEL
2. Click > Shift + END > DEL

• • mr-b responds: However my point is that for the new user,these operations are more complex, and then finding out these keyboard shortcuts is difficult (e.g. I didn't know about the shift-home etc. one, even after reading thru the docs), and then after all that you have to remember them. It's much better for new users to have the most common tasks presented as simple buttons or menu option than are visible. And as for plethoras for buttons, well there are UI sol'ns to that as well. I feel like like I'm explaining how Windows apps work to someone who's a lifelong vi user! Both have their place of course, but I feel that Audacity doesn't cater well enough for the new or occasional user (as borne out in some reviews).
  • STF adds: "SHIFT+HOME" and "SHIFT+END" should be pretty easy to remember even for Audacity novices - they are really common short cuts on Windows programs (same short cut for selecting to the end of the line in Microsoft Word, NotePad, and hundreds of other common programs).

• blank label at the front of any recording: Default to one blank label at the front of any recording

• Play/Stop And set cursor" needs to be in GUI: I've just discovered the apparently new Shift-A set cursor function (via the forum) and it looks very useful. However it really needs to be visible in the GUI (e.g. under the Edit Move Cursor menu, a button or right-click option on the 'playback pause' inverted triangle marker).
  • Peter 16Jul10: note that there was a second part of this FR regarding the accuracy - Gale has logged that part as a bug rather than a FR

• Export quality settings should be more visible: I've just discovered that all of my supposed 32-bit 96KHz recordings have been exported in 16 bit i.e. I've been caught out by the fact that export quality settings are buried under the Options button and not configurable under Preferences. (See more details at viewtopic.php?f=15&t=34072&start=0) I think that the export quality settings (bit depth, sample rate etc.) should be at least one of:

1. Globally set under Preferences (like many other apps)
2. The export dialogue Options button should be removed and the export settings made part of the export dialogue box

• • Gale replies: You're entitled to your vote but few people want to go back to 1). I think 2) is a possible way to go. But until then will calling the button "Settings" instead of "Options" help? is there a better word? "Quality" looks a bit odd to me.
  • Mr-b responds: So back to some suggestions:

1. The File types should be consistently named i.e. with everything having format + bit rate + other characteristics, or else just the basic format type.
2. All file types should be in the drop-down list with none buried under options.
3. A warning whenever down-sampling (data loss) is about to take place, since once that data is gone it's gone. There should be an option to disable it of course for ppl that are frequently down-sampling and understand what they are doing.
4. My previous suggestions for making the file format resolution config obvious.
5. (I agree that "Quality" probably isn't ideal terminology, although Prefs does make use of this term. Also bit rate is not really an 'option', it's a fundamental setting, so it needs to be clearly displayed wherever a config change could change it.

• • mr-b adds further: IMO there still needs to be much clearer labelling of file import, workspace and export of resolution, bit depth etc. This basics of this kind of thing e.g. WAV files needs to be obvious and not require looking in a manual! I think that changing GUI options things may make sense for quite a few folks given historical app memory, but the impression may be completely different for someone who's using 1.3 for the first time. IMO the resolution settings should be set globally with an additional opportunity to clearly review and change them at export time.
  • Peter 3Aug10: full thread retained on forum - see: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=34101

• Simple extension of Export Multiple: I would like to propose a simple extension to "Export Multiple..." function and dialog box. The problem I'm trying to solve is described here, http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=35281. Presently the functionality to support this use case is provided by the "Export Multiple..." dialog, but is not automated. I would think that for someone familiar with the code this would be a very simple coding exercise. Being a former programmer I'm tempted to do this myself but am not keen to deal with the overhead in setting up a working development environment from scratch. I'm hoping that someone reading this who is familiar with the code and is set up to build from source will find the time to add this simple extension of existing code to automate a needlessly tedious task.

• Add 'silence allowed' interval to Sound Activated Recording: This would make it possible to record whole tape sides without it pausing between tracks and more importantly, prevent cutting off the start of the next track (due to the delay in starting recording again).
  • WC comments: Why not just turn off the SAR when you are recording tapes - or am I missing the point?
  • OP mr-b responds: SAR is very useful for archiving tapes since it means that I can just leave the recording to complete by itself. (I didn't use it with my records as they tend to have more transient noise levels than tape, plus I didn't want to leave my record playing at the end.)
  • STF comments: I'm not disagreeing with the idea of "Silence allowed" (I think that it could be useful, especially if combined with a feature to start recording before the sound level reaches the threshold), but in the archiving tapes example, couldn't the desired result be achieved by setting the "Sound Activation Level" lower so that it only registers when the tape stops altogether and not the gaps between songs?
  • mr-b responds: Maybe, but that means fiddling about with settings and trying to determine the fine differences between Dolbyised tape hiss and a stopped tape. Plus that would also mean that the tape run-out would be recorded. It really would be much simpler to a have an "ignore silences of (say) < 5s" type setting and this would make the sound trigger level much easier to set. Also the feature of having a recording buffer active while paused so that the beginning of a recording would not be truncated would be very handy - I've added my vote (plus added the ignore silences suggestion to http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/VoiceActivated).
  • STF respomds: Perhaps I'm being a bit thick, but could you explain how "ignore silence" is different from the other suggestion: "the user can define a duration to be recorded before the threshold-level sound occurs, and similarly a duration to be recorded after the input falls back below the threshold"
  • mr-b: TBH I didn't really understand what that meant - I thought it was to do with the request for a recording paused buffer which would allow the beginning of recordings to be reinstated. If it would achieve preserving silent intervals then I certainly didn't get that. It would really help if some typical scenarios (use cases) were added to the new feature request lists.
  • STF suggests: The way that I read it was that it would work like this:

1. Put Audacity in Record mode. While the input level is low Audacity is monitoring the input but nothing happens on the track)
2. When the input level exceeds the "threshold" level Audacity starts recording but also copies the last "n" seconds (according to the "pre-roll" setting) of audio that were input prior to the threshold being exceeded. The current input is recorded, continuing directly from the "pre-roll" recording.
3. While the input is over the threshold level Audacity continues to record.
4. When the input drops below the threshold level, Audacity continues to record for a further "n" seconds.
5. If the input level remains continuously below the "threshold" level, then Audacity will pause. If not, recording will continue as in (2).

I think that provides the same functionality that you are requesting?

• • mr-b:OK that makes some more sense - so in other words would that mean that inter track gaps of 2n seconds (post-roll plus pre-roll buffers) would be preserved as well as the leading and trailing n seconds of any recording? (I tend to find engineering description of features difficult to follow since they often describe the mechanics of the feature rather than a typical application of the feature.)

• Multiple windows for spectrum: Is there a way to compare two (or more) spectrum windows ? Audigaty won't let me start a second copy, and when showing the spectrum in 2 projects, I still get one single spectrum window and then it is not clear to which project the data belongs. I am checking the effect of a few hardware setups for recording vinyl LP's (measuring silent areas of the the LP, the system without LP playing, open- and shorted input leads and my laptop on battery or net). The only way I found to compare the spectra of the several recordings was to comparing screen dumps of the spectrum window.
  • Koz responds: I think that's the only way we've ever found to do it.
  • StF adds: Audacity 1.3.9 and later now support one Spectrum window for each open Audacity project. It is still easy to get confused which analysis window belongs to which project, but selecting "Plot Spectrum" again will bring the correct spectrum window to the front. To start a second project while you already have one open, select "New" from the File menu.
  • pranavj suggests: Since new project opens in new window, I can't compare waveforms AND spectra at a time. It would be nice to have different spectrum window for different tiers in a single project.
  • STF responds: Perhaps a Tabbed window for Plot Spectrum so that multiple spectrum plots can be drawn? Or perhaps multiple line plots in different colours?
  • xonox adds: It's very useful to have multiple windows for spectrum. One thing i would wish is to have the file name added to the title bar of the spectrum windows. Otherwise when i compare 3 files i get lost on what spectrum window is for what file.

• Generate follows Preferences: Generate should give me stereo tone if I'm in a stereo show. All Generates should follow Preferences.
  • Gale responds: What do you mean by a "stereo show"? If you have a stereo track selected, Generate will generate stereo in it. If you already have a track on screen, then to generate a new stereo track you have to Tracks > Add New > Stereo Track anyway. Is this then for generating into an empty project, and the preference you want to follow is Recording Channels?
  • Koz clarifies: <<<the preference you want to follow is Recording Channels?>>> Yes. Mono generation in an empty timeline seems to me a holdover from the old Audacity mono default installation. It could be argued that you could easily select Tracks > Mono Track To Stereo, but that doesn't exist except as a work-around, either. Ideally, stereo tone generation (if that's the show default) should default to dual identical tones with a control panel to change relative sizes and phase.

• MyValuableProject.bak.aup: Create or provide the option to create an independent workable backup of a Project on Save -- effectively one level of UNDO divorced from management of the current Project. Like the one Audacity 1.3.7 tried to make (with varying degrees of success).
  • Gale responds: The old .aup.bak (a backup of the previous state of the project, with no reference at all to the state of the _data folder at time of save) broke far more projects than it ever saved. We won't go back to that. Users can make a proper backup anytime with File > Save Project as... is more needed except education? Will users be glad of all that extra space used for the backup _data folder?
  • Koz responds: Experienced users who select that option in preferences will be glad to sacrifice the drive space the first time it saves their valuable bacon from a damaged or overwritten show. Newbies need never use that option or even know it's there. Some Macs have the unfortunate problem of a super sensitive touch pad. I've taken steps to correct mine, but it used to select things by hovering a finger. No actual touch needed. Many things got unintentionally selected before I fixed it. That's not what happened in my case. In a rapid-fire recording session I pressed Save by accident.
  • Gale responds: It wasn't saving a copy of the project, but the project state, as an "autosave" file. It was a back-up .aup file in effect, but linked to the correct data in the temp or _data folder. It was a flawed implementation designed to "not lose more than the auto-save interval's length of work". The Nightly Builds (and 1.3.13 when it comes) have dispensed with that preference. Every change in project state is saved to the autosave folder (except recordings made with audio cache on, meaning there is no disk-written data to recover from if there is a crash wile recording). We're hoping writing every state of change will make project recovery after a crash more reliable.
  • Koz reponds: So there were several attempts to save the user from naughty computer behavior. None of them appear to have faired all that well so far. I'm after the tool to save the user from the nutso behavior of the user. Apple introduced Time Machine on modern Macs that does auto backups at intervals, the shortest being once an hour. Unfortunately, the glossy advert and reality are at significant variance. The promotion assures us that the Mac will do these backups whether or not the external backup drive is connected. When you do connect, the Mac will catch up. The opinion of our support people -- several of which used to be Mac support staff -- is "In your dreams." So that was the last hope of recovering the over-written Project. I wonder about the idea of saving hard drive space at all costs. My laptop has a 120GB solid state drive and the only reason I didn't go much larger is I ran out of nickles and dimes to pay for it. The default laptop comes with a much larger spinning platter drive. I've been using this machine for six years and I still have a quarter of the drive untouched. Are we tuning Audacity tools and services based on fifteen year old drive technology? Can you even buy a 20GB drive any more? [X] Make Backup Project at each Save (Safer. Uses extra drive space).

• faster PlayAtSpeed: Currently the transcription toolbar function PlayAtSpeed has a maximum value of 3X. My editing deck allows much higher multiples, I am used to searching raw data for "non-music" (speech etc.) and can recognize the difference at speeds between 7X and 10X.
  • Peter 7Sep10: full posting retained on Forum with Ed's code - see: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=37541&p=101921#p101921

• Loop Detection: When you tell the program the a sound recorded is actually a loop, have it detect where the loop begins and ends, letting you trim off the repetitions. For example, I use a Korg Kaossilator pad to make beats, and I record them into Audacity. The Kaossilator makes 2-16 measure beats at tempos from 20-300bpm. I can record these into Audacity, but then, since it's near impossible to time the start of recording to the start of the loop, I have to trim off the beginning and part of the end to get at the loop itself. If it's trimmed incorrectly, when I set it to repeat, it can mess up the tempo of any additional tracks I want to record (if you clip a portion of a second off of the last measure, then the beat gets further and further off with each repetition). But, if I could have Audacity analyze the shape for a repeated wave form, then it should be able to detect the beginning and ending much more accurately than I can.

• Option to select/de-select dither on export: Usually it is best to have dither enabled for high quality resampling, but in some situations it is preferable to disable dither. Having to go into Preferences to disable dither, and then go back into Preferences again to re-enable it (and remembering to do so as there is no visual indication in Audacity other than in Preferences whether dither is enabled or not) is very inconvenient.
  • USE CASE 1: User is digitizing vinyl albums and wants to archive the original "raw" data from the transfer as a (sensible) backup. Most consumer grade devices for digitizing vinyl are 16 bit stereo. The default format for recording in Audacity is 32 bit stereo. The default format for exporting WAV files from Audacity is 16 bit stereo - and the 32 bit raw data has dither noise added. As the original recording uses exact 16 bit values, if the recording is exported immediately (before any processing), adding dither during the Export is both unnecessary and undesirable. Alternative methods for archiving the raw recording are:

1. Export as 32 WAV (inconveniently tucked away in "other formats" options, and double the file size of 16 bit)
2. Save the Audacity project (again unnecessarily large file size and notoriously easy to break).
3. Exporting as 16 bit WAV with dither temporarily switched off would be a much better solution if it were not so inconvenient to change, and not so easy to forget that you've switched it off.

• • USE CASE 2: User is making simple edits to a 16 bit file (Cut, Paste, Trim, ...) Dither noise is needlessly added to the Exported 16 bit WAV file (even if the file is created or imported as a 16 bit Audacity track). (this may be classed as a bug?) User is then surprised that working with uncompressed WAV files is NOT lossless.
  • USE CASE 3: User exports as a 16 bit "lossless" FLAC file. Exporting to 16 bit FLAC is NOT lossless in Audacity as dither noise is automatically added by default.
  • Suggested solution: Add a simple check box [x] (selected by default) in the Export and Export Multiple dialogue screens.
  • Additional benefits: Many (most?) users are blissfully unaware of these issues, but if discovered are likely to be confused, and probably jump to the incorrect conclusion that Audacity produces lower audio quality than other audio editors. Making the issue visible will clear up such misconceptions for such users. Users that do not understand or are not bothered about such details can simple ignore the option and leave it at the default (recommended and selected) setting.
  • Plus 2 votes

• Save Gain Profile: I don't use this tool much, but after a hard day of enveloping (to coin a verb) woudn't it be nice to be able to save not only the audio material -- but the curve itself similar to the recent ability to save an equalizer profile? (Plus 1 vote)
  • STF comments: Hasn't this been suggested before? (There is a "bodge" way round this if you fancy manually editing your AUP files )
  • Koz responds: Do you have to do it too both left and right? I suspect by the time you finished the show, it's so late the last thing you want is to sit down with a nice text editor and not make any mistakes for the next two or three hours.
  • STF asks: Are we talking about the same thing? << woudn't it be nice to be able to save not only the audio material -- but the curve itself >> what "curve" do you mean?
  • Koz replies: I have new audio material on the timeline. Apply that envelope profile I saved last week.

• Export Current Format: Export WAV (Current). I want that. I do not want to convert my 32 bit timeline to 16 bit like the default export wants to do, I do not want to have to dig through the Audacity schizophrenic standards architecture to figure out what my current format is, and I do not want to have to dig through "Other" in the export dialog and risk yet another standards conversion by accident. Whatever it is right now, Export it.
  • STF responds: Do you mean - 1) "Export it as a WAV file with the current sample rate and bit depth", or 2) "Export it as exactly the same format as the file that I imported"? If (1), what if the project contains 2 tracks with different bit depths? If (1), should this also apply for other uncompressed file formats such as AIFF (and FLAC)? If (2), what happens if there have been multiple files imported, or if it is a recording? If the File Export option for WAV was "WAV (Microsoft)" rather than "WAV (Microsoft) signed 16 bit PCM", and selecting 16, 24, 32 ... were available under the "Options" button, would that be less schizophrenic?
  • Koz replies: <<<1) "Export it as a WAV file with the current sample rate and bit depth" >>> Yes. <<<2) "Export it as exactly the same format as the file that I imported"?>>> No, because chances are really good that Audacity changed it. <<... what happens if there have been multiple files imported, or if it is a recording?>>> What has Audacity done to them? They will either cause the show to fail, or they will be a new format. The live recording is exactly where I got burned. <<<If the File Export option for WAV was "WAV (Microsoft)" rather than "WAV (Microsoft) signed 16 bit PCM", and selecting 16, 24, 32 ... were available under the "Options" button, would that be less schizophrenic?>>> It would, but it may not be useful. I was very careful to set up Audacity to my exact specifications before the actor got there. During the performance is a bad time to need to stop and think.
  • STF responds: When you import files the bit depth of the new track is set to the default bit depth as set in "Preferences > Quality" The sample rate (bit rate) remains the same as the original file. So, if you have two tracks, and say one track has a sample rate of 44100 Hz and the other has a sample rate of 48000 Hz, what "should" the sample rate of the exported file be? I think that the most sensible answer would be that the sample rate should be the same as the Audacity Project Rate. Do we agree on that part? (this is what actually happens in Audacity). If you bypass the step of Saving the Audacity, then you have taken away your safety net. Any type of backup is a waste of time and effort - unless you need it. Wake up tomorrow to find that you have Exported as 16 bit WAV instead of 32 bit WAV - no problem - open up the Saved Audacity Project and Export it in the correct format.
  • Koz responds: <<<Wake up tomorrow to find that you have Exported as 16 bit WAV instead of 32 bit WAV - no problem - open up the Saved Audacity Project and Export it in the correct format.>>> I woke up sooner than that. This was the show that I Saved Project twice by accident and destroyed the first half hour of the performance. Nooooooooooooo! See: Auto Project Backup [X] and Mac Time Machine settings. This was the perfect storm performance. Every One of these problems lined up to kick me in the same show. I violated a deity somewhere. So what about the bit depth. Your suggestion is that the default WAV export format should be the same bit depth as the Audacity Project?

• Consistent label cursor: I would like to propose that all manipulations of a label draw a temporary cursor. Consider the following use cases:

1. When editing label text, I click in the text region of the label, the "real" cursor has been hijacked and moved to coincide with the label.
2. When sizing a label, I drag one of those (absurdly tiny) crescent moon shaped handles; the "real" cursor remains unaffected but there is no visual representation in the wave track of the current (as you are dragging) label position.
3. When moving a label, I grab the (again, absurdly tiny) circular handle; again the "real" cursor remains unaffected and there is no visual representation in the wave track of the location of the label.

• • Edgar(OP) adds: First, I propose that clicking in the text region of the label NOT hijack the "real" cursor. Second, I propose that (at least while manipulating the location of a label) a "temporary" cursor be drawn so that the location of the label (portion that is being moved) in relationship to the audio is easily visualized.
  • BillW responds: I don't mind the current behaviour in case #1. How would you propose the user know where the label-text-editing point is? As for cases 2 and 3, I am in favour of the audio cursor moving to track the movement of the label boundaries - either a temporary or permanent cursor.
  • SteveTF comments: Any thoughts about moving a region label? Perhaps a "temporary cursor" on the waveform at each end of the label?
  • Edgar responds to Bill: User Case: user is working on a section of audio and notices a typo in a nearby label; currently, to keep track of the working position of the cursor the user must add a temporary label. Otherwise, when user opens the misspelled label the cursor is hijacked away from the working location and placed at the leading edge of the label. Not knowing the most common usages for editing the text in an already existing label, I believe that most often the user does not care what the exact position is in the wave track, the user is just changing the text, the label track cursor would still be there. I suppose if we are creating temporary label cursors for the other cases we could create one for this case as well, that would answer both our concerns.
  • Edgar adds further: After seeing that the cursor is hijacked by clicking in the text editing area of the label, today I clicked in that text editing area and then grabbed to the "move label" knob. Lo and behold while I move to label the text editor remained to (at least visually) active and ready to receive input but what was more helpful was that as I moved the label the cursor moved along. So it is obvious that it is possible to do this. As a workaround for the time being I will activate the text editing area before trying to move a label what I want to watch the cursor move as label moves.

• Add Select All to label text context menu:Since ctrl+a does not work to select all the text in a label (it selects everything in the project) and since we are ready have Cut, Copy and Paste in the context menu, is there any reason not to also have Select All?
  • Gale responds: I can't think of any reason not to, since it looks like a purpose-built context menu. I think a patch for that would be uncontroversial. I would prefer double-click in label text selected all the label text as it does in all other text boxes I can think of, not close the label for editing then select all the labels in the label track. That change might be more controversial. Thoughts? (Plus 1 vote)
  • Ed replies: I got very close but got stumped because these do not appear to be "text boxes" but are drawing areas and the text is just painted not real selectable text. IMHO these should (somehow-- probably would involve an inordinate amount of work) be real text boxes which are editable with normal text editing gestures like ctrl+left to move left one word, pressing the home key to move to the beginning of the text etc.
  • Billw respomds to Gale: That drives me crazy! But I'd prefer (asking for the moon, here?) double-click selects a word and triple-click selects all. Try it in the metadata editor. There's another anomaly in label editing (at least on Mac). Create a label with text, e.g. "This is a longish label". Click out of the label to close it for editing. Now click in the label between the "g" and "i" of "longish". Say you intention was to delete the word "longish". So, click to the left of the "l" in "longish" and start dragging, thinking this will allow you to select the word - as soon as you start to drag, "long" is selected, and as you drag right the selection gets smaller. As you continue to drag, the selection "flips" and eventually "ish" is selected.
  • Bill adds: You were posting while I was composing so I didn't see your comment about "painted text". Now it all makes sense. That is, it makes sense why all the standard editing gestures don't work. Sounds like a lot of work, as you point out. Either start over, creating them as editable text boxes, or write a whole lot of code to make them act like text boxes.
  • Ed replies: I am about 10% finished on a big editing project. I have about 900 Audacity projects which have been processed automatically to get them ready for human intervention. The human intervention is to look at "unusual" segments of audio which are very short (less than 30 seconds) and set off by silences. Some of these projects are as long as 10 hours of audio most are about two hours long. It takes me about five minutes to do the "human intervention" part on a project with three hours of audio. The project is then ready to "export multiple" as anywhere from 40 to 50 individual tracks. During the time that Audacity is exporting the audio I hack on the Audacity code adding features that make the "human intervention" quicker or easier. I have also been monitoring the forum and posting code snippets, questions and feature suggestions. Anyway, right now there are lots of little tiny functions in the code to make them act like text boxes--"export multiple" is done.
  • Gale responds to Ed: Ed, the texts for the label text context menu are translatable strings e.g. "Paste" = "Pegar" here:http://code.google.com/p/audacity/source/browse/audacity-src/trunk/locale/es.po so the menu must be constructed somehow (by calling Menus.cpp)?
  • Gale responds to Bill: Yes you're right. I should have remembered how it frustrates me in text boxes in other programs that I cannot select all words with some kind of click (triple-click doesn't work for me on Windows or Linux).
  • Ed adds: I have no problem adding to the menu and I have code which pops up a messagebox when you exercise the context menu item but now I have to write the code to re-paint the text as "selected" and break out the "highlighted" member (which is hidden behind a constant accessor--I know too much C++). All this is doable and most of the code can be copied from other similar functions but I think it is strange that this is not a text box! As to why no text box, this may be a cross-platform problem.
• Missing Error Message: When somebody moves a music file referenced by a Project, that portion of the show drops dead. Why don't you get an error message? <<<Music/Wherever/Someplace/Sympathy For The Devil could not be found. >>> That in one sentence would solve a great many forum postings -- or at least help with the cloud of question marks over the poster's head.
  • Gale responds: We already have a bug for this. Meantime the warning is given when they save the project or click File > Check Dependencies.
  • Koz responds: Why would you ever click that? If you don't know dependencies exist, that will be a foreign language to you and if you do know they exist, you know not to move the music.
  • Koz adds: The original bug statement is not correct. It's irrelevant whether you closed the project or not. You may not be opening up your own damaged project.
  • Gale responds: The title of Bug 26 says if the project is open and you delete the aliasfile then play the track, Audacity should tell you rather than just play the track silently with the waveform visible. If you already saved and closed the project (and opted not to copy in the WAV) then move/rename/delete the WAV and re-open the project, Audacity won't be able to work with that track. There is no error for that on opening the project in any released version of Audacity, but in 1.3.13 you will be warned of the missing aliasfile when you open the project (Vaughan's been working on this as part of the work on Bug 113). If there is some other scenario where you want a warning, please try it out first in the latest Nightly Build and then make clear with steps to reproduce what the scenario is. By "drop dead" are you saying you want a warning when user deletes the WAV while the project is open, then edits a section and finds the waveform changes to flat line? If we fix Bug 26 user will still get the warning when they play that section, which they are likely to do given the appearance.
  • Koz responds: No, nothing so fancy. I'm happy with a message when the blank portion rolls by during playback. I would change the message on further consideration. <<</MyMusic/Wherever/Someplace/Sympathy For The Devil ...must be present to complete this part of the show.>>> ging from a third person "throwing up your hands" statement to a straightforward statement of fact. Much easier to decide what to do before you post on the forum. I don't know what I would do if a great many sound clips were damaged or missing. Do we ever use first person error messages? "I need that sound file to complete..." A note: Shouldn't the operating system complain if you try to destroy a sound file while Audacity has it open?
  • Gale replies: If Audacity locks the file, yes, but unlike say Goldwave and CoolEditPro, it doesn't. You could argue equally that it should lock the .aup file and _data folder too, but there isn't much you can do to stop user error once the Audacity is closed. I'll put "file-locking" to Vaughan. It has been lightly touched on before. Locking would not stop you copying the file. It might mean you could not make corrections e.g in the _data folder using a file manager, while Audacity was open.
  • Koz replies: Right. Which is why I wonder about systemic Audacity changes when a simple error message would do. If you didn't understand Projects before, you're going to be no further along now, except you have an inkling what you did wrong. And lest we forget, this is all a response to the missing Save As WAV tool. Here, let me email you the AUP sound file....

• Sync-lock as project stored state: Track linking is well developed and seems stable. Currently its menu item refers to Sync-Lock and its state is ON or OFF. This is stored as a global preference and ON/OFFness affects all projects. Thus, if you work on project A with sync ON and save it then work on project B with sync OFF (and even if you DO NOT save project B) then exit Audacity; then open project A, sync will be OFF even though the last time you worked on project A sync was ON. I propose that (at a minimum) Sync-Lock state be stored with a project; keep the global state and use it in the absence of a project's having a sync state and for new empty projects; otherwise toggle sync to match the project's stored state when a project is opened (maybe if doing so changes the application-wide sync state an info dialog could open (but that should be defeatable via prefs). In addition, currently if one has multiple projects open and toggles Sync-Lock in one project ALL project's sync is toggled. It might be a lot of work to implement, but I think it would be nice to have per-project sync. (Plus 3 votes)
  • SteveTF adds: Sync-Lock state be stored with a project; +1 - and per-project sync. +1
  • Gale: so you want to save the Sync-Lock state in the .aup project file. How does this impact storing its state in .cfg on exit? Would it then need a Preference (which devels are touchy about adding to)?
    • People who don't (usually) work with projects but want sync-lock on will I think want sync-lock to be on when they launch.
    • Even if they do work with projects, they may turn sync-lock off only for a specific purpose e.g to delete some audio in one track only; they may not expect sync-lock to be off when they re-open the project. I'd guess the Sync-Lock global state is more important than its per-project state?
    • Shouold there be a patch for flagging Sync-Lock state on opening and ignoring changes to the state that arise from opening and saving projects?
  • Bill: I see no problem with storing sync-lock on a per project basis, and opening new projects according to the state of the last-saved project. Re: Gale's point number two - we can't read the user's mind and thus if they save and close the project with sync-lock off the best we can do (and they should expect) is for sync-lock to be off when they re-open the project. The sync-lock state would be written to .cfg whenever a project is saved/closed, so that new projects would open in that state.
  • Bill: Change the sync-lock state in one project - the sync-lock state changes in the other project,.... Having seen this, I am now more in favour of having sync-lock set on a per-project basis.
  • Steve: I agree that this is an unfortunate and potentially confusing issue, so I agree with "per-project Sync-lock" in the sense that changing the Sync-lock status in one project should not change the Sync-lock status in other open projects. However I do not think it is beneficial to store that status in the project and would prefer a predictable (off) state when opening a project (regardless of whether other projects are open).

• Label options in View menu: View menu > •Label > ◦Next Label ◦Previous Label ◦Next *Marker ◦Previous *Marker - where Marker refers to either a point label, or the start of a region label, or the end of a region label. Perhaps some other term could be used instead of "marker". These command move the track display to show the appropriate part of the track. They do not change the selection or change the audio/labels in any way - it only affects the view (which part of the track is displayed when the track length is greater than the current window size). "View > Label > Next/Previous Label" would provide the same functionality as using TAB/SHIFT+TAB within a label track except that it would not select the region. "View > Label > Next/Previous *Marker" moves the track view so that the next/previous point label or start or end of a region label is centred in the track window.

1. Use Case 1: You want to check that you have marked (labelled) the same number of beats as are marked by another label. Zoom out to show current marked area , then "View > Labels > Next/Previous" to view the other label. Advantage - it does not deselect the original selection (which may not a labelled region).
2. Use Case 2: Creating Loops requires precise positioning of the loop points (usually zero crossing points). "View > Label > Next/Previous *Marker" allows the user to quickly move from one end of a labelled selection to the other.
3. Use Case 3: Precise marking of long label regions. Currently this requires repeated zoom in/out. With this additional menu item the procedure would be substantially simplified to: 1) Drag select the approximate region. 2) Ctrl+B (label it) 3) Zoom in close on the beginning of the labelled region and adjust as necessary 4) "View > Label > Next *Marker" and adjust the end marker.

• • Edgar respomds: This should be fairly simple to do as far as the code goes but getting the Development Team to add new menu items is not easy. Personally, I do not understand this resistance to extending the menus. It might be a lot easier to encourage the Development Team to add new menu items if we had user editable menus and toolbars -- probably not going to happen in my lifetime!
  • SteveTF responds: More menu items = more complicated (at least it can look that way to new users). However, the ability to move easily from one end of a selection to another without destroying the selection has come up either directly or indirectly very many times. Adding this one ("Label") item to the view menu (which is also one of the shorter menus) would be an economical way to provide that much sought after functionality. The same functionality could perhaps be achieved with key binding and no menu item, though I can't think of any obvious or easily discoverable keyboard combinations for the task. Multiple zoom in/out operations provides a cumbersome workaround, as does selecting the appropriate label with TAB/Shift Tab, then using "Edit > Move Cursor > Selection Start/End". In my opinion the ability to easily move the view from one end of a label to the other would be a significant improvement in usability for many users and well worth the extra menu option.

• ASIO installation script: Would it be possible (theoretically/practically/legally) for there to be a script that automated the process of building Audacity with ASIO support, thus requiring users to (only) register with Steinberg, download the ASIO SDK, put it in the same folder as the Audacity source code and run the script. As I understand it this would only be for Windows as ASIO is not required on other platforms.
  • Gale responds: Probably there isn't a legal objection because we already publish a brief about how to compile Audacity with ASIO support in win/compile.txt and we will help people if they ask for help. However I think the stumbling block/leap of mindset needed is not the trivial extra steps of installing the ASIO SDK and setting one extra environment variable, but obtaining/installing the correct Windows SDK and MSVC and then compiling Widgets and Audacity itself. That process is largely automated once you choose which version of Audacity (and therefore which version of Widgets) you want to build. I doubt the developers would want to invest any time in this suggestion really. It would be better spent investigating if reverse-engineered open source ASIO headers could be legally produced so enabling ASIO support to be distributed with Audacity releases (that is, the same solution that was finally applied for the analogous problem of VST GUI support).
  • Gale adds: As I understand it, some sound devices only support multi-channel recording on Mac with an ASIO driver (they won't record multi-channel with Core Audio). So compiling Audacity with ASIO support on Mac could still be necessary. I don't know much about ASIO and Linux. If you run Audacity for Windows under WINE you can use an experimental ASIO driver for WINE
  • SteveTF responds: I meant automating that too. Maybe with all the talk of low latency, high performance audio in Windows 7 there will be no need for ASIO.
  • Gale responds: Without ASIO, there won't be any low(er) latency running Audacity on Vista/7 until PortAudio supports WASAPI.
  • SteveTF responds:Code for WASAPI support is in PortAudio SVN trunk. And the compile instructions include WASAPI support so does WASAPI support just require a more recent version of PortAudio than Audacity is currently using, or is WASAPI support considered too flaky and so disabled?
  • Gale comments: The latter. Richard said at the end of 2008 that the PortAudio implementation of WASAPI was incomplete. This was confirmed in the Forum topic you were involved in several months ago. So WASAPI support in PortAudio is still experimental and doesn't work properly for recording (notwithstanding the files you point out are in /lib-src in our source code).

• Export multiple additional data – number of labels: In lieu of a multi tiered progress dialog which would show us the overall progress of the entire multiple export instead of just each individual track's progress, as a bare minimum it is nice to have a count of the number of tracks (labels) which are going to get exported. For my own personal use I just stuck this number in the "Export" execute button (note circled area) but it would probably be more appropriate to stick it off to the left as static text (see arrow) – there's plenty of room. (Plus 1 vote)
  • BillW comments: But you're not exporting labels, you're exporting audio. So maybe "Export xxx files"?

• Track name with tooltip: Invariably my track names display only the least significant bits – the first few letters – usually it's the trailing letters that are unique. Wouldn't it be nice if when one hovers the mouse over the track name a tooltip bubble would open displaying the entire track name. As an added improvement one could divorce the twisty from the track name and make the track name a button that brought up the track name text editor and leave the twisty to open the context menu although right clicking on the track name button could also bring up the context menu – actually you could get rid of the twisty completely and get at least a couple more characters in the track name but then it would be hard to discover the context menu. (Plus 3 votes)
  • Edgar adds: It turns out that the track name and popup gadget are just drawn on the Track Control Panel and not really widgets so they cannot get tooltips. From what I see, Audacity never responds to a right mouse button (is this to support legacy one button mice?) so I wrote code which (when right button is clicked anywhere on a wave track & it's panel) a wxTipWindow opens up displaying the track name then auto-closes when the RMB is let up. This is a poor substitute for hover/tooltip but has the advantage of not being restricted to the mouse being over the name. I think that Audacity might someday make better use of the RMB than this so do not offer it as a solution. The optimal would be to make the name and popup into to real widgets (which can have tooltips by design). In looking at this code I see that other "clickable" things (Mute, Sole etc.) on the Track Control Panel are drawn images, not real buttons--why?
  • SteveTF comments: That's a pity, though I think it's worth treating this thread in the same way as other feature requests (eventually transferring it to the wiki. Although it may not be possible now, if the name is ever converted to a widget then a tool tip for the name would be really handy.

• Editing audacity.cfg: Proposed Feature: An "advanced" option - possibly hidden away in Preferences - providing quick access to the audacity.cfg for manual editing. Possible implementations could be: 1) to open the audacity.cfg file in the default text editor, 2) to open the audacity.cfg file with an option to "open with ...", 3) to open the containing folder in a browser window. This feature could also include "reset" and "backup" options.
  • SteveTF adds: Rationale: There is a reasonable reluctance to add too many options to Audacity Preferences. This feature would provide an easy way to access to a greater number of preference settings without the need to extend Audacity Preferences with many options that will only be of use to a limited number of users.
  • Steve adds further: Use Cases:

1. As the complexity and functionality of Audacity grows there are an increasing number of specialist user scenarios where "non-standard" default values would be beneficial to the user. These may include options that are not currently available in the Preferences GUI. For example, default settings for "Play-at-speed", or "Always Export as mono/stereo".
2. It would provide an easy escape for users that mess up their Preferences options (an invaluable tool for the support elves - massively easier than asking a user to "search for the audacity.cfg file in a hidden folder and delete everything except the line "NewPrefsInitialized=1" and save the file, ensuring that their operating system does not change the file extension")
3. Users sometimes have difficulty installing Lame and need to manually reset the location of Lame so as to allow Audacity to correctly find it. ("search for the audacity.cfg file in a hidden folder then locate and delete the lines "[MP3] MP3LibPath=/" (if they exist), then save the file, ensuring that their operating system does not change the file extension")
4. It could allow useful but rarely used options (such as "Clean Speech Mode" ?) to be moved out of the Preferences GUI, but still make them available to users that need them.
5. Manually editing the audacity.cfg file may be easier for visually impaired users with screen readers than using the Preferences GUI.
6. Advanced/Power users could quickly and easily access different "profiles" according to their needs.

• • Steve Suggests: Interface: This could be in the Preferences dialogue in one of these locations:

1. Replacing the "Clean Speech Mode" option in "Interface"
2. Added to "Directories"
3. In a new "Global" category

• • BillW adds: +1 I'd put it in the Directories tab. "Global Reset" would be the most useful feature, I think. Great for recovering from a corrupted cfg file. The others are more applicable to power users, and (possibly) VI uses as Steve points out.
  • Edgar adds: +1 -- Directories is best of available but maybe it is time to add "advanced" or other catch-all page. The categories already must be scrolled to expose them all so adding a new one is less than tragic! Of course, I think that the prefs window should size itself to expose all categories if screen resolution allows (this is easy to do--I already have code which does so)!

• More practical Play At Speed default: Currently when you start Audacity, the Play At Speed is set to 1X i.e. normal speed. Obviously, the user will never want 1X! What would be absolutely the gold standard would be to add a second Play At Speed control and call one something like "Play Fast" and the other something like "Play Slow". Additionally, have a setting in preferences for each of them (which the user can set in Preferences but which does not get written to by the program when the user changes the slider settings) which are used for the initial startup settings. On the other hand, if we cannot have two controls, give the current control the above-mentioned preferences settings. On the gripping hand, as an absolute bare minimum set the startup default to something other than 1X, personally I have changed it so it is 1.8X and find that extremely useful. I have a macro which changes it to .4X and another which changes it back to 1.8X.
  • Gale responds: If we changed the default, I would suggest 0.8x or 0.75x - something like "practice speed" for music and probably reasonable for transcribing speech. I find this a more common use case than speeding up. In the (likely) event no-one wants to add to the Interface Preferences for a customised default, how about writing "last used" to .cfg so it's available on restart?
  • SteveTF adds: But will you want faster or slower? As there is no definitive answer, the default of 1X provides a neutral starting point, which provides the (logical/intuitive?) outcome that moving the slider to the right will increase playback speed and moving it to the left will decrease playback speed.
  • STF replies to Gale: Gale Andrews wrote <<<how about writing "last used" to .cfg so it's available on restart?>>> I would find that preferable to a fixed non-unity default. For myself this is a feature that I only occasionally use. When I do use it I sometimes want it faster and sometimes slower, so the best default value for myself is 1X.
  • STF responds to Ed: Perhaps the default "play-at-speed" could be an option in the audacity.cfg file
  • Ed responds: Storing "last used" in config is better than no change.

• Modified Silent Sense: Periodically, we get a request to break up a "Books On Tape" into segments. Nobody ever asks for it but they don't really want the show chopped up into five minute segments. They really want it chopped up into five minute segments at the next silence or inter-word gap. Nothing like having the inters.......titials surgically mangled in the middle of a word.
  • Edgar comments: I am not really sure what you're asking for here. Are you asking for an "effect" which will have a time variable and will split the track at the nearest silence (just before I would guess) that duration? I suppose the "silence" would have to be defined with user specified variables as well (just as in Silence Finder).
  • Koz replies: Exactly. It's a combination of two existing tools. The 5 minute duration timer expires and turns control over to the silence finder to find a graceful place to chop. If it hasn't chopped by x seconds or x%, chop anyway and go on. The option could be Timer or Timer + Split Words. I'm making that up as I go. Timer + Separate Words? Timer...... Smart Timer? That's it. Timer or Smart Timer.
  • Edgar responds: You want this to happen in real-time as a recording is being made? It would be easier for me (if I were doing the coding) to operate on an existing file. First record and save as WAV, FLAC, M4A, MP3 or whatever works best (rip from existing CD?), then, working on a copy of the file, run the new (Nyquist?--I would have to do this in C++ but I bet stevethefiddle could write it in Nyquist) plug-in which would put labels at each spot ready for Export Multiple.
  • Steve comments: It could definitely be done as a Nyquist plug-in. Silence Finder, Sound Finder and Regular Interval Labels are all Nyquist plug-ins. The hard part is in precisely defining what you want the plug-in to do (given that it will be creating labels). Hasn't this been discussed before - or something very much like it?
  • Steve remembers: See: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=15531

• Making Play at Speed more like Play: Play has some convenience features like Loop, using the Space bar and 'B' which would be equally useful for Play at Speed. I suggest the speed modification should be retained until Stop, Play or Record is pushed, and the keyboard operate otherwise normally with the speed modification in effect.
  • Gale responds: B and Loop implicitly stop and restart playback so I think you'd either have to have separate shortcuts that performed the specific action at the Play-at-speed speed, or have some shortcut that made every playback action use the Play-at-speed speed until you used that shortcut again.

• Provide choice of audio formats for compressed projects: Audacity 1.3.6 added the ability to save compressed projects. Currently the only compressed audio format offered when saving such projects is Ogg Vorbis. It would be useful to have access to more compressed codecs here -- particularly FLAC. (Plus 1 vote)
  • Steve(TF) adds: It would also be good to be able to set the format/compression settings in the "Save Compressed Copy" dialogue screen.

• Loop Play from within selection. (SHIFT+B): When repeating a section (Edit > Repeat) the exact positions of the start and end points are often critical. For very short selections it is easy to test the "loop position" with "Loop Play" (SHIFT + Play). However, for a longer selection (for example repeating a 1 minute chorus) this is unduly time consuming (and if you've ever needed to do this you will know just how irritating it is). The "B" key allows playback within a selection, but it stops at the end of the selection. What would be really useful would be to be able to play from an arbitrary point within a selection, and for playback to loop back to the beginning. I realise that there are workarounds, but it would be so much more friendly and convenient to have this as a feature.
  • Gale responds: And I was about to suggest SHIFT + B for something there seems to be no easy workaround for - if the mouse cursor was before the midpoint in the selection, SHIFT + B would play from there to the end of selection; if the mouse cursor was after the midpoint, SHIFT + B plays from start of selection to mouse cursor. Very useful for short selections. Aren't the workarounds for your problem fairly easy - use B from hovering close to the end of the selection, then Space? With your idea, does playback stop after traversing the entire selection from the beginning, or loop play from the beginning to where your mouse cursor was, or something else?
  • Steve responds: When looping, the most critical point is when the end of one time through becomes the beginning of the next time through. "Counting the beats" and lining up the selection so that start and beginning are immediately before the onset of a beat are useful techniques to improve accuracy, but for music that either has complex rhythms or does not have a strong beat, there is no substitute for listening. The section that needs close attention is the transition as the repeat goes back to the beginning. The aim in selecting the best loop point is to create a seamless transition as the selection repeats. "B" then SPACE will not do because it does not play through the transition. The only methods currently available are:

1. Loop play the entire selection.
2. Use the "Repeat" effect, then move the cursor to play through the transition, then if it is not exactly correct, Undo, then adjust the selection and try again. (this is the workaround).

The reason that the workaround is so awkward is that you can't see exactly where the transition is, so making the necessary adjustments to the selection become very much more tricky. This feature request is for a means (and I'm not really fussy about what the means is - SHIFT+B just seems like an obvious method) to play the last part of a selection and for it to immediately (without stopping or pausing) continue playback from the beginning of the section. The feature is identical to Loop Play but with playback beginning at a point other than the start of the selection.

• • Gale adds: I'm obviously a fool when it comes to looping. Obviously I see the time saving, but what (approximate) time range is it you want to loop? If 10s to 30s, why is the end of the loop set to 20s? If 10s to 20s, why start playing outside the loop region instead of at say 15 seconds? I've seen a few requests (not on Wiki FR yet) to loop between mouse cursor and cursor (including the implied cursor at the start of the selection); and even I see one to use B in some way to loop play from mouse cursor to end of region, carrying straight through to start of region thence to end of region... but to stop at (or loop back from) the mouse cursor seems odd. On a different tack, does anyone here like the practice of loop playing the whole track when there is no selection, irrespective of the position of the cursor? There are a fair number of votes (again some not yet added) to take the cursor into account (either loop from cursor to track end, or from cursor to cursor, playing through from the track end via the start to the cursor).
  • Edgar responds: As I mentioned, I do not use looping with Audacity (I do use it a lot in an aid to memorizing but do so on my pro deck where looping works just exactly the way I need it to but with an incredibly clunky interface). As for loop behavior with no selection, I find it wrong--no selection implies no availability to loop IMHO. I think looping should be disabled when there is no selection (or--worst case, that a selection is forced between mouse and cursor before looping).
  • Steve responds: It would be far more useful if loop playback could be from the cursor or pointer position. This would not necessarily have to be the default behaviour when pressing SHIFT+Spacebar, it could be the same keyboard combination as for looping a selection from the pointer position (which I'm suggesting would be a good use of SHIFT+B).
  • Gale responds: Maybe, if there is any consensus about where SHIFT + B loops back from. But IMO that shortcut should only explicitly loop to/from the pointer, not the cursor - i.e. if pointer is at 2 mins and cursor at 2 mins 30s, SHIFT + B loops from 2 mins to 2 mins 30s; if cursor at 2 mins 30s and pointer at 3 mins, SHIFT + B loops from 2 mins 30s to 3 mins. Actually I like that, it's a loop equivalent of what B does now. But if you really wanted to loop from cursor to end of track, I don't think you should use SHIFT + B and have to move the pointer off the waveform. If the default isn't to loop from the cursor when there is no selection, then I think there should be a separate shortcut to loop from cursor. The only argument I've seen for looping the whole track when there is no selection is that this is a time saving if the track is itself the entire loop. I'm convinced loop should play from cursor if you just SHIFT + Space, and if there are complaints when that is implemented, then looping the whole track if there is no selection could be a preference. We might in any case need a preference as to what happens if you SHIFT + Space to loop from cursor. Clearly there are two camps, one of which says you loop to the end of the track, the other says you loop through from the end of the track to the cursor. I still think we need a shortcut to play from start of selection to pointer where the pointer is past midpoint, and pointer to end of selection if pointer is before midpoint. I guess ALT +B would be OK and gives an ALT + SHIFT + B way to loop that. You could also make a case for doing away with the midpoint distinction. If the pointer is after the midpoint of the selection, B still plays start of selection to pointer, so following the rule elsewhere that the cursor is deemed to be at the start of the selection. ALT + B would then play from pointer to end of selection.
  • Edgar responds: The problem I see with using the mouse pointer's position as one anchor of a loop is that even with your hand off the mouse the pointer moves constantly in tiny amounts; it is amazing how much your desk surface jiggles. On a CAD program I beta-test for we found that this was causing real accuracy issues once screen resolutions started getting over 1200x1000. It is also a problem when you want to zoom in to one anchor, set it and listen--the display scrolls and you cannot get back to the exact location accurately without a label.
  • Edgar adds: Upon reflection, I think Bill's note that some of Audacity's actions are performed using behind-the-scenes tracks has the answer. If a hidden track were created and the samples between the mouse pointer's hot spot (note--this is a very questionable "point"--it differs with the tool selected; I still think cursor is better, but as I'm not the one using it, would accept your choice) and the end of the section (selection or, again as I would use it, Label Region) were copied into the beginning of that track, then the samples from the start of the section up the last sample not included in the first chunk were added to the hidden track's end it would work.
  • Peter 25Nov10: This is the gist of the thread that I transferred here from the forum. The full thread also contains an experimental patch written by Edgar. I have moved the full thread to The General Audio Programming section of the forum – see: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=41041

• VST Instrument plugins:Just wondering if any future versions of audacity are going to support instrument plugins.
  • Steve responds: I very much doubt that VSTi support will be added in the short or medium term (if ever). Audacity is not a "real-time" processing application - the only real-time thing that it does is play and record. To support VSTi would probably require a total rewrite of the core code and a paradigm shift in the way that Audacity works. However, I'm aware that MIDI support is currently being developed, though I've no details about this. When Audacity is able to play and record MIDI data it should be possible to use Audacity in conjunction with a VSTi host application (use MIDI to play instruments in another host program).

• VST Plugin Management:I'd like to request some additional features for managing VST plugins (Plus 1 vote)

1. The ability for the user to specify multiple locations for VST plugins, with support for relative paths (for portability)
2. The ability to instruct Audacity to ignore specific VST plugins/plugin folders
3. The ability to edit how the names of individual VST plugins appear in the "Effects" dropdown
4. The ability to assign - freely and multiply* - VST plugins to user-defined categories that then appear (in an order specified by the user) in the "Effects" dropdown. * i.e. you can assign plugins to more than one category, so you can assign those compressor plugins that model saturation effects to both "compression" and "saturation/distortion" categories.
5. Preferences option: "Effects Menu: Group VST plugins using folder structure on disk" - if your VST plugins are grouped into subfolders within the VST Plugins folder, Audacity displays them accordingly in the "Effects" menu.

• Timer Record - enhancements to Waiting for Start msg: I propose that the Timer Record "Wating for Start" dialog box/information box should be upgraded to also show: a) the reqested duration of the scheduled timed recording and b) it's scheduled stop time. Currently it only shows:

1. Waiting to start at dd-mm-yy hh:mm:ss
2. a progess bar (for the wait time)
3. Elapsed Time: hh:mm:ss (countdown since the timer was set up)
4. Remaining Time: hh:mm:ss (until the recording is due to start)

While you are waiting for the scheduled start 1 and 4 are useful, 2 is ok , but 3 is largely irrelevant and I would suggest removing it. (Plus 1 vote)

• • Steve comments: If there is a count down to the start of the recording, do you really need a progress bar? If the recording is scheduled a long way in the future, the count down (in numbers) is more informative than a progress bar that is moving imperceptibly slowly.
  • waxcylinder replies: I agree absolutely - so +1 for removing the progress bar too.
  • Steve comments: I think "Remaining Time" would need renaming. Perhaps: "Recording will commence in: hh:mm:ss"
  • WC responds: +1 for <<<Recording will commence in: hh:mm:ss>>>

• Tone control plug-in:I'd like to nominate Steve's "Really simple tone control plug-in" http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=21920 for inclusion in the Audacity distribution. I think it would be a boon to those users who are intimidated by the Equalization effect.
  • Peter 26Jan11: full discussion on this forum thread which I moved to the Audio Processing section: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=45662&start=0

• Noise Reduction Change (we're all doing anyway): It's pretty common to amplify noise before making it a profile in Noise Reduction. Is it common enough to burn that permanently into the effect programming? (Plus 2 votes)
  • Steve comments: It's pretty common to amplify noise before making it a profile in Noise Reduction. Is it common enough to burn that permanently into the effect programming?

• AU File Numbering: Number .au files rationally. Creating .au files with irrational numbering makes disaster recovery confusing, difficult, or impossible. (Plus 1 vote)
  • Bruno adds: And also, if possible, add metadata to the .au files so they can be sorted in the case of hard drive failure where the files are recoverable but not their names...
  • BillW adds: I don't think "rational" numbering would help except in the case of recovering from a crash during recording. If we go back to the sequential system of 1.2.x, then files are sequentially numbered as they are recorded. But once you start editing and Audacity starts creating and deleting AU files, the file names bear less and less relation to their place in the tracks.
  • Gale comments: We may be getting a lot closer to reliable recovery in 1.3.13 than we were in previous betas. There may always be a few cases where recovery won't work despite there being blockfiles available (for example the autosave or .aup file gets wiped out or corrupted in the crash), but is it worth writing a brand new crash recovery utility to cover those cases?
  • Koz responds: I don't think anybody is expecting a rational ordering of files after several hours of editing. However, we get a number of complaints of crashes during a long recording and anyone opening up the folders would automatically conclude that the show is irreparably damaged just looking at a normal file structure.
  • Bill states: With the improved crash recovery in 1.3.13 users should never have to look inside the _data folder.
    • Peter 26Jan11: I am minded to agree with Bill and Gale here - in that we should be relying on a reliable recovery process - so I personally think this PFR is a non-starter. I only moved the gist of the discussion from the forum to here - the full thread is still available on: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=46380

• Cursor movement in Label track: I'm using 1.3.12 Beta. My apology if these have already been addressed.

1. When Label track has focus and cursor (ear or dot) is dragged to a margin, the display should scroll same as if selection start or end were being moved in an audio track.
2. When adjusting the select range and selection includes a label track, if a label was assigned to the range then move the label cursor as well. This should be done only if the label and range coincided before the mouse button, [, ], Shift or Ctrl key was pushed, since otherwise when e.g., Selection End is moved through the end of a label range it could start moving the ear. If the range is adjusted via the arrow keys and the label track has the focus, it would be implied that the user intended to adjust the label range.

If the user had a point label coincident with the cursor and wanted to make a labeled range, he could drag an ear a small distance and select the range. Then adjusting the select range by dragging or by Shift+Click (possibly in another track) would adjust the range label to the new range.

• "Motorized volume sliders" Mixing table: What I am missing is the function to adjust the volume on different tracks while listening and doing final mixing, with the program to remember these adjustments. Like a studio mixing table with motorized sliders with memory. I know the Envelope function and the Mixer Board BUT, what I would like to see is that the Mixer Board actually remembers the adjustments when adjusting in Playback mode and while listening to the various tracks. The disadvantage with the Envelope tool, is that it cannot be used during playback and a lot of 'picking' is needed. As a musician, I want to adjust when listening and not make a lot of stops to adjust what I just heard not hearing it when adjusting it.
  • Peter 27Jan11: As Greger, the original poster, and his team plan to work on this (see forum thread) I have left this thread on the forum - moved to Audio Processing section. But I have also moved the gist of Greger's request her. The full forum thread can be seen at: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=48842

• Audacity version display: It would be helpful for people seeking help if the Audacity version was displayed on the main interface, for example at the top of the main window. Currently a new project shows "Audacity".

Why not "Audacity 1.3.12"? When the current project is displayed, the program name is replaced by the name of the project. Why not prepend the program name with the project name. Example: "my_project - Audacity 1.3.12" (Plus 2 votes)

• • Gale wrote: I raised this at least once on -devel without getting anywhere. IIRC the main reason against was exactly that "Audacity <version>" would have to be dropped from the title bar when a project was saved (because it couldn't be in the file name). Actually it isn't at all uncommon to have <currently open file name> - <program name> in the Title Bar but perhaps <program name><version number> is a bit more unusual. That said, I doubt having the version in the Title Bar would help that much. It might help user to have "About Audacity" at the bottom of the Help menu - we know some users can't find it because they are looking at the bottom. I think you might have more chance of getting a consensus on that.
  • Steve responded: I don't think I understand that. I'm typing this in Firefox and the title bar says: "Audacity Forum.Post a reply-Mozilla Firefox" but if I go to "File menu > Save Page" I would not expect the saved page to be called "Audacity Forum.Post a reply-Mozilla Firefox"
  • Steve responded further: Yes, it's unusual, but when did that ever stop the developers from implementing something?

1. It's unusual to have "About Audacity" at the top of the help menu.
2. It's unusual to have a vertical track scale of +/- 1 rather than dB.
3. It's unusual to have "screenshot tools".
4. It's unusual to have an open source, cross platform, multi-channel audio editor.
5. I'm not complaining about unusual :)
6. It's not unusual for user to not know the version of Audacity that they are using, and that's where I think this proposal could help (a bit).

• • Gale: I think it ran something like "because Audacity <version> can't be in the filename, why have it there to begin with?"
  • BillW: Photoshop CS2 puts lots of info in the window title that is not part of the file name. E.g "DSC00252.JPG @25% (<layer name> RGB/8)" Now, that's all useful information. You can immediately see the magnification, what layer is selected, and the colour space. I'm on the fence if it would be useful to have the Audacity window title be "myproject.aup (Audacity 1.3.12)". Personally I'd rather not clutter up my window title with information that doesn't change, and that I already know.
  • Irish: Does the version number need to be in the title bar all the time? Why not include it when Audacity is launched, and let it be overwritten by the project name when you open/save a project, as it is at present? For those of us who rarely, if ever, use projects, the version number would be there all the time. I often switch between 1.3.12 and 1.3.13, and occasionaly forget which version I am using.
  • Edgar: -1 Audacity already announces the version string on startup:
  • Bruno: But that disappears once you move the mouse pointer over the audacity window.
  • WC: As Bruno says - and what's more if you already happen to have your cursor over the Audacity window it doesn't show at all (and as I normally run Audacity full-screen that's normally the case for me). So until just now I've never seen that message.
  • Steve: Same here.
  • Irish: And here. The first thing someone does, when a program window opens, is to move the cursor to the menu, so it's no wonder most people haven't seen the message.
  • Edgar: I run so many different versions of Audacity I depend on this feature! It is also the first line in the About... dialog. I for one would dislike cluttering the window title with this as I consider it extraneous though I doubt I would go so far as to change it back on a personal build. Now, the option for full path might be nice.

• Range Label Time Totalizer: I'd like to see a feature that computes the total length of all range labels on a label track. This would be very handy when editing (e.g., a church service) to fit a tape or CD.

• Media Inspector:I so want to say: "Launch File > Media Inspector and Audacity will tell you the file type and other info of your clip." - see this forum thread: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=50365&p=123134#p122385
  • Koz adds: Audacity is way too cavalier with music file characteristics. You can't easily tell when it's messing with a file at either end of an edit -- in or out -- and it's a better than even chance that the music in the middle is wacky as well. It has apparently contradictory information windows and I just thought it would be a nice change -- a shock probably -- if Audacity stopped the shenanigans for a minute and told it like it was.
  • Steve: I think it would be useful to have a tool integrated in Audacity for analysing file types, but is that what you are suggesting Koz? In your example, you start with "-- Clip#1 --" so I assume that you mean the format of audio that has already been imported, in which case I'm unsure why the user would need that information as the information that is relevant to the Project is already displayed.
  • Bruno: I must agree with Steve... After importing a file to audacity, unless it's a WAV, it no longer links to the original file and the original format is "gone". I think that info would be of some interest in the import window only.

• Equalizer features:

1. Add a readout to show exact frequency and dB of point being edited, similar to the coordinate display in Spectrum Plot. OR Allow entering point coordinates as numbers rather than graphically.
2. Add a way to delete a point.
3. Provide for reading the points from a user-generated CSV file.

• • Steve responds:

1. The Equalizer in Audacity 1.3.12 has a grid background to the "Draw Curves" view that makes it easier to see the frequency/gain than was the case in earlier versions. In Audacity 1.3.13 (not yet released) the "Import" feature in "Save/Manage Curves" allows custom curves to be imported that have been created as XML files, so precise plots can be created from numerical data. I know it's not quite what you're asking for, but it does allow precise plots to be created.
2. In the "Draw Curves" screen, points may be deleted by dragging them off screen.
3. In Audacity 1.3.13 (not yet released), curves may be Exported as XML files.

• • Koz comments: Then there's the problem that a point doesn't have a frequency. Ranges of tones have frequency. That's why you can't Analyze > Plot Spectrum from a single point. There is no spectrum of a point. It's either zero or infinite depending on the philosophy you used in the tool.
  • OP responds to Koz: Are you confusing frequency with bandwidth? These are points in the frequency domain. A sinewave that persists over all time has a single point in frequency domain and certainly does have a frequency.
  • OP responds to Steve: I intended to transfer the contour points from a spreadsheet, but not sure if I can get an XML file out of a spreadsheet. Is there a format sample I could follow? Alternatively, is it possible to write a Nyquist program to supply the contour points? Might be able to do the same calculation in Nyquist if I learned the language.
  • Steve responds: See here: viewtopic.php?f=28&t=20286&p=64900#p64900 Also, if you find the default EqCurves.xml file you can open it in a text editor. The default location for EqCurves.xml is:

1. Windows 98/ME: Windows\Application Data\Audacity
2. Windows 2000/XP: Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Audacity
3. Windows Vista/7: Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Audacity\
4. OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/
5. Linux: ~/.audacity-data/

Nyquist does not have access to the settings in the Equalizer and it would probably not be the best choice of language for this job.

• • OP: Thanks! Best part is I don't have to wait for next Audacity release. I'll just write a little command-line C program to generate it rather than try to use a spreadsheet macro (ugh!). Or even a Matlab program if my old DOS edition still works under Windows. It has really nice plotting that's very easy to use. Next problem is will Vista let me write to the file if it's not in my sandbox. I'm waxing nostalgic - bad boy.
  • Steve: Best part is that for experimental work you can use the latest alpha version of Au

• Spot Healing Brush: see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKyuqnnguDk
  • Steve: I was watching that wondering if you'd linked to the right video, but then there it was, right at the end. Pretty cool feature - I guess that you'd want to do it in a similar way in Audacity using the track "Spectrum" view? I'd guess that would be a major project. I don't suppose you are both an audio and C+ programming expert are you?
  • OP: Ok for audio (reasonably) expert, unfortunately a newbie in C programming. By the way I believe it would be an extremely powerful feature.
  • Bruno: that spectral healing brush looks interesting

• Improvement of Auto Duck effect: Recently I used Audo Duck effect by Markus Meyer with a long sound track (audio track from a movie) and voice track (recorded spoken movie subtitles) to mix them both together. The effect was supposed to decrease volume of parts of sound track where voices were about to be mixed in. Most of the result was all right but some voices were not possible to understand because of the background sound still too loud.
  • Peter: see full thread on: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=52120

• rehearsal tempo: What I specifically need is a way to play a track at slower speeds without changing the pitch so I can play along while I am learning. This might be best (if doable) as a Nyquist plug-in but is beyond my Nyquist programming skills. Some discussion can be found on Audacity's Feature Requests wiki: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Feature_Requests (search for Change Speed/Tempo/Pitch). At the most simple I envision a dialog which presents the user with about 10 predefined choices: 50%, 55%, 60%...90%, 95%. When the user selects a speed percentage a new track is created based upon the original--probably best in a new project window so the original track project window is not affected.
  • Peter: see full thread on: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=52704

• Templates: It would be nice to have some templating engine that allows me to have a set amount of tracks and some keystrokes so for example for podcasting so I can just chain the intro and breaks during a podcast. Or something like a loop a beat for example. Maybe this is already available or there are extensions that I can use for that. So far the wiki hasnt really show me much.

• Metadata Editor(s): Recommendation for Audacity developers: 1) Start by changing http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Metadata_Editor For Template it says:

1. Load: Loads a previously saved list of Tag names and values into Metadata Editor.
2. Save: Saves the current list of Tag names and values to a file on your drive.
3. Set Default: Makes the current list of Tag names and values the default state when Metadata Editor opens and would otherwise contain empty values. This means that if you import a file containing metadata then open Metadata Editor, the metadata shown will be that for the MP3. If you always want a fixed set of metadata to show when importing a file, you need to save that set as a template and load it.

• • OP suggests: It should say:

1. Load: Loads a previously saved list of Tag names and values into Metadata Editor.
2. Save: Saves the current list of Tag names and values to a file on your drive makes it the Template loaded in Audacity.

• • OP adds: The functionality is and has to be different for the Metadata Editors that come up via "Open Metadata Editor" and "Export Multiple." So make two different looking and differently named windows. The first should be "Open Metadata Template Editor". The window that comes up via "Export Multiple" should not have any buttons for "Template." I might have missed something, but that doesn't matter. If I don't get it, no one will. I'm quite computer literate and have fiddled with Audacity many times over many years. Here is my experience when working with recorded data (as from an LP, tape or live performances):

1. Problem 1: The metadata editor window can be brought up three ways. Depending on which way it is brought up, it does different things.
2. Problem 2: The Template "Set Default" button does not do what the user expects. It does not make the currently displayed metadata the template for metadata. And the http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Metadata_Editor statement about "Set Default" only adds confusion.
3. Problem 3: The Template "Save" button does not do what the user expects. (It writes something to disk but doesn't keep and use it.)

• • OP adds further: My work around - To set the metadata template:

1. Use "Open Metadata Template" to enter the data you want.
2. Click Template Save.
3. Click Template Load. (this is a non-intuitive but quite necessary step.)
4. Close the editor.
5. Then Export Multiple has the entered metadata and will proceed to increment track number and use Label Names for file names (But the meta data can not be entered from the metadata editor window in Export Multiple.)

• • Bill votes: +1

• Xgrid Support: Would some dev. be able/willing to implement Xgrid support for the Mac version of Audacity? When working with long audio files, processing effects and exporting can take longer lengths of time. At present, it isn't easily possible to split a task in Audacity between two machines and cut down on the processing time. Letting Audacity take advantage of extra available hardware would be advantageous. I suggest that, if Xgrid could be implemented, Audacity identify if the computer has a controller. Then, when processing effects, exporting, or other intensive tasks, Audacity would split the selection into parts equal to the number of agents and then submit them as tasks to the controller. The agents would then process the effect/export and send it back to the client. Audacity would then stitch the information back together. I'm not sure if Xgrid features could be included with Audacity because of open source licensing. Maybe then, if someone is willing, a plug-in could be developed? It would be really great if an open source distributed computing framework could be implemented into all versions of Audacity.
  • Steve asks: Wouldn't it just be very much easier to split large projects into smaller parts?
  • OP responds: Not especially. I'm asking, because I mainly work with processing lectures that can last up to and beyond one hour. Splitting the audio, transferring it over to the other computer, and then processing, saving, and transferring it back again negates the time saved by using the other computer in some situations. In other situations, it does save time, but it is tedious. I admit that, for smaller projects, distributed computing doesn't make sense, but, when you have a longer project that can take up tons of cycles, it has potential.

• Append Record: I thought it already did this. Append Record needs to start recording wherever the cursor is like a tape machine. Roll the tape back to where the blooper was captured and press Record. It seems the tool will not record over old show -- only from the End.
  • Steve responds: That's right - "Append" - to add onto the end of something. We've got "Record" and "Append Record" and now you want "Replace Record"? How would that work? You would select the section that you want to replace, then press the magic button?
  • Koz responds: No. This may be Old Think, but Append Record drops in where the cursor is and anything already there in the track becomes written over or damaged. In audio tape land, you always got a hole in the old work when you pressed stop because of the space between the record head and the erase head, so the rest of the show is trash. The video equivalent of what you said is Insert Editing and for that you need my favorite missing keys I (in point) and O (out point). As it is with no changes, the tools acts wrong because if you don't have your cursor at the end of the show, Append Record doesn't do anything.
  • Steve responds: Sorry Koz, I don't follow. The word "Append" means "to add onto the end of". Tape recorders didn't "append", they blindly recorded over anything that was there starting from the current play position. If you wanted to "append" a tape recording, you had to fast forward to the end, wind the tape back 'till you heard the end of the recording, rock the spool to find the exact position, then rock the spool a little more to allow for the difference in position between playback and record heads, then press record, and when you had finished you'd wind back and get the razor blade out to tidy up the cludge at the join. For Insert editing in Audacity 1.3.12:

1. Split delete the section that you don't want (Alt+Ctrl+K or use the Edit menu)
2. Create a new track,
3. Place the cursor on the new track a bit before the "gap" in the track above
4. Append Record (Shift+R) - curious usage of the word "append" in this context as it "appends" to the silence before the cursor. In other words, it records from the current cursor position.
5. Stop when the first track starts playing again
6. You can then make a tasteful cross fade between the two tracks.

• • Steve adds: kozikowski wrote<<<As it is with no changes, the tools acts wrong because if you don't have your cursor at the end of the show, Append Record doesn't do anything.>>>. If the cursor is at the end, beginning, or somewhere in the middle of existing audio, "append record" will cause recording to commence from the end of the audio on that track. If the cursor is at an empty position on the track with no audio after it, then append record will pad any preceding white-space with silence and commence recording from the end of that silence - ie. it will record from the current cursor position.
  • Bruno comments: I understand Koz idea on this, but I think anything that 'overwrites' can be a bit tricky and lead into new problems... I don't want to hear about users complaining that their previously recorded material was overwritten by accident when using the append record function. As Steve said 'append' by definition should "add to the end". Sorry Koz, but this is a -1 from me on this one
  • WC comments: I'm minded to agree with Bruno here so its a -0.5 from me - the risk of accidental overwriting/erasure is to be considered. Audacity is a multitrack editor after all. Surely it is better to educate users how to move the cursor to the blooper - then press record and the recording will start on a new track - and then the user has to do a little editing to segue the tracks properly. But at least with this method the user should still have both tracks to work with. I sense a need for a new tutorial here - any offer to author it? But Koz if all you want to do is just record over the rest of the "tape" from the blooper, the all you need to is (VBut I'd still probably prefer the multitrack method for its flexibilty and precision.) :

1. Move cursor to blooper
2. Select to end of audio (SHIFT+"Skip to end")
3. CTRL+K (in MACspeak I assume that's CMD+K ?) to delete the selected audio
4. Append record ...

• • Mederi comments: Append record just adds new recording to the end of previous one in the same audio track and also adds silence between them if recording starts later and not right after previous recording (mouse left click in an empty space after last recording and then start append record). I use this function to record "spoken subtitles". I just wish a single shortcut key instead of that mouse click to move cursor to start next appended record in the same track right under the next nearest label after the end of the last recording. And also the same button that starts a function should be used to stop the started function (running process like recording). A keyboard [Space bar] could stay as a general emergency stop. There could be "record over" function to overwrite recording in the same track just like recording of old audio tapes if a user wishes so. Why not? Simply just new function or some switch button or key shortcut [Ctrl + Shift + R]. Rather this than additional cutting. There is always Undo [Ctrl + Z] function if something goes wrong. Simply more functionality to Audacity. Or to overrecord within selected part, so there is no risk of ovewritting of a record before and after selection
  • Steve responds: There is possibly a technical issue with "overrecord" in that Audacity projects, in the .AUP file, list the data blocks that make up the track. By default these data blocks are (I think) about six seconds long. What happens if you overwrite part of a data block?
  • Bill comments: steve wrote:<<<There is possibly a technical issue with "overrecord" in that Audacity projects, in the .AUP file, list the data blocks that make up the track. By default these data blocks are (I think) about six seconds long. What happens if you overwrite part of a data block?>>> No different than deleting part of a data block, or doing any operation that affects only part of a data block. Two new data blocks are created, one is affected and the other is not. The whole issue of doing punch-ins (which is where this has developed to) in Audacity is complicated because of the necessity of doing sample-accurate latency correction. We're getting into DAW territory here, and if someone needs to do punch-ins on a regular basis then I'd recommend using Ardour, Logic, Pro Tools or whatever DAW suits your fancy. In Audacity, my gut feeling (since I've never actually done it) is that the best way to accomplish this is to punch in on a separate track. You then have the flexibility to adjust the timing and crossfades for a seamless punch-in. (Pus 1 from WC)
  • Mederi adds: First to select the same part in a primary track then Edit > Split delete or Silence audio or Generate > Silence, then Tracks > Mix and Render. Or to select and "Copy" the second track then to select the appropriate part in the first track and to "Paste" it in. Or first "Split delete" in the first track then "Paste" so the affected place is visible. Then to close the second track. This is about using of present Audacity and we should also talk about improving and adding new features for the user to choose from to speed up his work. Overrecording directly in primary track seems to be an oldfashioned way but for most users (beginners?) expectable and understandable and for the others acceptable. Recording could be also performed without a temporary track. Visually recording could be running directly in primary track something like temporary track over primary track then necessary operations to "punch in" after recording stops. I would also suggest to Drag-and-drop of particular records (segments) with the mouse pointer in and between tracks and to use mouse context menu (mouse right-click) with intuitive options for clicked objects like selections and labels.

• Sample track Idea: Ok making Drums Samples and instrument sounds in Audacity is easy. But Imagine being able to select audio and assign it to be a sample. which could then be used on a Sample track. without having to save the audio to the hard drive. the Audio is saved to a bank which would only be used during the current session; so it's not there the next time you open Audacity. Once assigned you could delete the Audio Track and still have the sound you selected in a sample bank ready to be used on a sample track. The track would be unexpandable just like an audio track when you click the Arrow. The concept of being able to select audio from an audio track and then have it ready to use as a sample would make an awesome working environment. because you could tamper with sound on an Audio track and then use the audio at different stages of its development as different samples.
  • TrueHerbCrystal: replies: Isn't that idea you described just the "Duplicate" feature? Cause with the Duplicate option (under "Edit" menu), you can make a "sample" from the original track that is its own track separate track, which can be moved around independent of the original. But what you are describing sounds like a sequencer-type feature like in Fruity Loops where you click a button, then the sample is there in the track without physically showing the waveform. Is that true?
  • Steve comments: Thanks for the input Murky effects. The suggestion of being able to set the Time Line ruler ("Counters" in your mock-up) to bars and beats is something that I am strongly in favour of as I think it would be an invaluable feature for many users (including myself).
  • MurkyEffects responds: Yes. When in the sample track, if I clicked in line with a track 'Within the sample track' say "hit" Image that is a sample track: then click any were in line on the grid and it would place the sample rhythmatically. Like a drum beat. Ofcourse then once you were happy with the sample track, ' the one with heaps of samples tracks in, up to 64' you could quick mix, or mix and render back to an audio track. etheir one sample track within the actual sample track or the entire track, with up to 64 sample tracks. Each individual track within the sample track should have a volume knob.

• Sideways mouse scrolling: for a quick workflow I enjoy doing a lot of moving around with the mouse. It would feel a lot more natural to be able to scroll horizontally with the two-finger-horizontal movement on the touchpad than reaching and holding shift. I cant find a way to calibrate this in the settings.

• Ogg Vorbis -1 compression quality: It would be great if the compression quality for Ogg Vorbis can go all the way down to -1 instead of to 0. -1 is great for use with low quality voice recordings. Currently, I have to save as PCM then use another tool to compress to Ogg Vorbis at -1 compression quality.
  • Gale commented: if you obtain the oggenc2 command line utility then in Audacity Beta you can choose (external program) and issue a command to oggenc2 to encode at negative or fractional qualities. See viewtopic.php?f=20&t=47362#p116935.
  • Steve added: An excellent compression format for speech is Speex http://www.speex.org/ It can produce reasonable quality speech at ridiculously low bit rates.

• File Name Reveal: I want to grab the right edge of the track work panel and make it wider do I can see the whole file name of an imported clip. I had a job this morning where I had to turn eight clips into a single show. Audacity doesn't have Import-Append yet, so I opened the first clip and imported all the others intending to copy paste numbers two through eight after number one. The filenames are typically [long string of text]1.mp3, [long string of text]2.mp3, etc. So all the panel gives me is the first characters of [long string of text] and it's anybody's guess where each individual clip is. I do not have the show script, so I have no idea content or clip length. I understand there is a tool to view the filename and I made very good use of that and a pile of sticky 3M Post-It Notes on the screen to keep track of where everything was. I would have used China Marker/Grease Pencil, but I'm not on a glass kinescope monitor any more. No problem, I'll just reach up and pull the track information window wider so the whole filename is visible. Another ancillary problem is finding "End." If you select a track and press "End," you get the end of the longest track in the whole show, not the track you selected. This makes the first few Paste Edits really amusing until the target track becomes the longest one.
  • Steve commented: There is a similar feature request - to make the full file name visible as a "tool tip" style pop-up (on "hover over").
  • Koz responds: That's not enough. I need to rapidly scan a pile of clips to pick the right one -- repeatedly. Hover just gets me back to the Post-Its again -- more efficiently. Where was 032? [Hover] That's not it. [Hover] That's not it. [Hover] Nope... End should take me to the end of the current clip unless nothing or all is selected. Then it goes to the end of the show.
  • Steve replies: Glib response: Use shorter track names. Less glib response: If you put the tracks in a sensible order you should have a reasonable idea of where each track is. (Importing multiple files will import by alphanumeric order of file names). More considered response: Given the above two, yes, resizing the width of the Track Control Panel could be useful as the name box is currently very small. +1
  • Steve adds: kozikowski wrote:<<End should take me to the end of the current clip unless nothing or all is selected. Then it goes to the end of the show.>> So how would you then go quickly to the end of the project (assuming that the longest track is not currently selected)? If you would prefer to have "K" for end of project and "END" for end of track, you can swap them in "Edit menu > Preferences > Keyboard". Personally I like "END" = End of Project, so I'll leave mine at the default.
  • Edgar comments: The two offered solutions (hover/tooltip & make track control panel sizable) both require non-trivial code changes and are not likely to percolate up to a Developer any time soon. How about if we just right (instead of left) justify the display of the file names (and truncate the .xxx extension) so we see the last part of the name which may be more definitive? I would have to look at the code, but justification and stripping an extension should be trivial (he says after offering a few "trivial" fixes which became non-trivial!) and we might even get a Developer to commit it.
  • Edgar adds further: Added Audacity Bugzilla enhancement: http://bugzilla.audacityteam.org/show_bug.cgi?id=318

• Mix View Enhancements: A couple things I'd like to see:

1. I'd like to be able to see more channels on the mix view at the same time. My monitor is 1920x1200 resolution, and I can only see about 16 tracks. I can scroll, but it's not so convenient. I see several possibilities. One is to make each channel smaller. One is to allow multiple mix board windows to open so I can scroll them to different places and stack them up. One is to have the window allow multiple rows of channels. I'm sure others could think of good ideas as well...
2. Secondly, I'd love to be able to map a MIDI controller to the Mix Board. Maybe something like a BCF2000 would be great, giving me buttons for mute and solo, a knob for pan, and a fader. Have the ability to either use multiple devices, or to scroll left and right in banks of 8 or so.
3. I'd also love to see some grouping options (move all the vocal channels together, or the entire drum kit, that kind of thing)...

• FLAC export enhancement: I'm currently working with long recordings, 4-6h. I choosed flac to save some space and to keep metadata with them. Audacity lacks two features for flac export:

1. SEEKTABLE (index): Without, no player can seek. In the flac docs looks like they recommand 1 seekpoint/10 seconds, so I enabled this by default. This costs e.g. ~32k for a 5.5h stereo file (2.2GiB). I'm still playing with the values, needs some more testing with players. Maybe better is 1sk-pt/sec
2. PADDING: Since metadata is stored at the beginning of a FLAC file, increasing the length or number of meta tags (this includes also the seektable), can cause the whole file to be rewritten. This can be avoided by adding some padding bytes. 0 disables, 8k default (good for small files) 64k don't hurt on xxx GiB files

• • Peter: the OP chr() posted a patch for this in his posting, so I moved the psst to Audio Processing for retention - see: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=54431

• Logging All Processes & Changes:Firstly let me apologise for this suggestion if it's been dealt with elsewhere on the Forum. I did try and search for things like "logging", but couldn't find any related information. My suggetion is this: A means of logging all changes made to an audio file and the processes used / steps taken to arrive at an end result would be very useful to me, as a "log" could then be presented to other "interested parties" involved in the work that I do, so that they may clearly see exactly what I have done, and also enable them to replicate those results should they wish to. I'm pretty sure a lot of this functionality is already within the build that I use (latest Beta for Windows) because of the "undo" facility, so it's probably only a quantum leap to implement this feature. I know some folks might think this suggestion a little quirky, but I do have a real need for it as it would greatly help validate the stuff I produce.
  • Ed responded: Very easy to do from a coding aspect. If you choose menu Help > Show Log... you will see that some information (but not what you need) is already logged (the Log can be copy/pasted to a text file). In the code which creates the history a line: wxStatusLog(wxT("text: use the same text string used to create the history dialog")); does the trick. Alternately, but much more code, one could add a button to the View > History... dialog -- "Copy" [to clipboard] which would parse the text of the display and put it on the clipboard. This would be nice as the Log has excess-to-needs info which would need to be edited out for your use case.

• timer:the ability to minimize the timer window...

• Save a Noise Reduction Profile: I understand you can save and manage a Noise Reduction Profile as a file during a "CleanSpeech" session. What I don't understand is why that's not default. If CleanSpeech has 'baggage' or special operation considerations or complexity, then the NR File needs to be split off from the complexity. Audacity makes a noise reduction profile file out of the box, sorry 'tin.' The initial request was to email a profile to someone working on the exact same sound file I am, but I can envision working on multiple tracks and want to save successful profiles as I go. (Plus 5 votes)
  • Steve wrote: There's a clunky workaround that you've no doubt figured. Select the "noise only" section and "Export Selected". How do you save a Noise Profile in "CleanSpeech" mode? It doesn't appear to be a feature in CleanSpeach mode for Audacity 1.3.12 on Linux. I'm probably +1 for this feature, but if it has already been implemented somewhere in Audacity I'd quite like to see what it's like before placing a definite vote.
  • Gale wrote: Koz's "feature request" (+1 from me) came from this topic http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=51136 i.e. to save the noise profile, turn on "CleanSpeech" mode in the Interface Preferences, then "Get Noise Profile" in Noise Removal. On Linux the file will be at ~/.audacity-data/NRP/noisegate.nrp. I am not sure I would want the current behaviour to be default (i.e. the nrp file is overwritten every time you grab the profile). I would assume a good feature would be to always hold the noise profile in memory (as happens now if CleanSpeech is off) but be able to export the current profile as a preset, and import it back when wanted. Multiple presets should be supported. There could be possibly be an option to always load a selected preset at Audacity startup. The presets would probably have to be a dialogue behind a "Load/Save Presets" button or similar.
  • Steve responded: I like the idea of being able to save and reuse a noise profile, but I don't think that it's particularly useful the way it is implemented in CleanSpeech mode. There's an obsolete, but very "cool" multitrack audio application that has the ability to save/load noise profiles. There are two buttons - "save profile" and "load profile" that allow the noise profile to be saved to disk as a file, or read (loaded) from a file via a file browser. This seems to be much the same as you are suggesting Gale, and I would definitely be +1 for that. I think that it's probably best for there to not be a default profile loaded as I think that would (wrongly) encourage new users to just use the default profile and then complain about the noise reduction being very poor. The "standard" (hence "default") mode of operation should I think be to use Noise Removal as a two pass process. It would also be more convenient if the interface remained open after capturing the noise profile and only closed after applying Noise Removal (or cancelling).
  • Gale replied: Yes +1 to all that. I just remembered though that CleanSpeech already includes Export and Import CleanSpeech Presets items in the File menu, and these presets include the current noise profile. Multiple .csp presets files are supported with any arbitrary file name and in any arbitrary location. So again the problem is that the feature is locked into CleanSpeech. A possible disadvantage of the .csp file is that as well as the noise profile it saves most of the current settings from the other available CleanSpeech effects, so will load those too when the .csp file is imported. Since the settings of these effects are saved in audacity.cfg anyway whether CleanSpeech is enabled or not, the .csp presets seem redundant to me except for the noise profile. I've tried to document the .nrp and .csp features a bit better in the Manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Interface_Preferences#modes
  • Steve replied: It would help Koz to send Noise Removal settings to his friend in Schenectady if the exported noise profile also contained default "Noise Removal" settings (Noise Reduction, Sensitivity, Freq Smoothing, Attack/Decay). It would not be useful for it to contain settings for "Leveller" etc. and it would be less useful if the Noise Removal settings could not be manually overridden.
  • Koz wrote: As above, if getting this NR file involves the housekeeping, baggage, and complexity of multiple other tools and settings, then -1. The request is to change nothing else except make the profile data available externally in a graceful way. I'm fine with two extra buttons in the tool: Import Profile and Export Profile. Hash out the defaults, tool behavior, and file management, etc. What's not cool is discovering other seemingly unrelated services have been damaged or changed -- this clean speech thing. I will always be grateful for my sister moving to a funny city. She could have moved to Albany or Troy (New York State Capitol District), but no. She moved to Schenectady.
  • Marco Diego wrote: I think I can this save/load noise profile thing. Of course, I'll would need some guidance. Having the possibility to save load presets seems to be a good idea too. Is anyone interested in helping me?
  • Ed responded: I can give you some help. Are you compiling Audacity from source?
  • Peter 25Apr11: I've no idea what happened next with Marco and Ed ...

• Naming an Audacity project window: While working on Bugzilla bug 322 I notice there is no way to name an Audacity project window other than by saving it as a project. In my testing it would help a lot if I could name project windows without saving. Is there any user case where this might be helpful?
  • Bruno wrote: None that comes to mind. I think saving the project as one of the first steps is probably good policy
  • Ed responded: That is my policy--save early, save often (and change the name each save)!
  • Steve wrote: Same here. The only user case that I can think of is if naming the Audacity project window sets the default name of the project when it is saved (and the default name of the exported file). As a working process, a new project could be created and named, then to save the project it's just Ctrl+S. The project could then be renamed ready for the next save, so avoiding the possibility of accidentally overwriting the previous version. If this feature existed, I think I would probably use it.

• Previewing audio: A way to preview audio before importing it as a new track like with Adobe Audition? (Plus 1 vote)
  • Steve comments: At present, Audacity can not play previews. On Windows XP I use Foobar2000 for this purpose as Foobar2000 opens really quickly. On Linux, audio files can be previewed in the file browser (Nautilus) by hovering the mouse over the file. I think Windows 7 and Mac OS X also have ways to preview files ("Peek" for Win 7 ?)
  • Ed adds: +1 (initially, now that I see it is already available... +0.2 ). How do y'all envision this working? I can imagine a new Preference (File Preview Duration, in seconds) and a new button in the Import/Open File dialog -- when clicked any/all files selected would play their first "duration" seconds. Maybe a modal dialog with no buttons would display the title (and maybe other tag data) during play. Another solution (might not work on all OSes) would be to preview any time the mouse pointer hovered over a selection playing until the mouse stopped hovering. On the gripping hand (again -- all OSes??) one may already do this on Win7 (maybe earlier Windows as well) by using the right-click context menu item "Play" on an entry in the file dialog/requester!

• Origin selection for Audio Position: I routinely edit recordings of church services to fit onto a CD. This often involves removing portions of the music - repeated chorusus, repeated verses etc. Every time I'm working on this, I frequently select a whole song (I put range labels on them), watch the Audio Position and mentally subtract Selection Start to estimate where I am in the current song. The Range Label moving across the screen as it does is a big help here, BTW. The request: It would be really convenient to have a pair of radio buttons over Audio Position, similar to the ones for End & Length, to display the Audio Position as absolute (what it is now) or relative to Selection Start.

• Export WAV without metadata: Metadata is rarely used in WAV files. As I usually work with WAV format files and do not need Metada I have the Metadata dialogue before export switched off. However, if an Audacity project contains an imported file that has metada (for example if I import an MP3 file at the start of a project) then the metada from that file is added to the final exported WAV file. Because I have the Metadata Editor switched off, I don't see the metadata, but have recently discovered it because it interferes with another program and now I need to go through dozens of WAV files to manually remove the Metadata. I want "clean" WAV files without any metadata, but the only way that I can be sure that my exported WAV files do not have metadata is to open the Metadata Editor prior to Exporting as WAV and manually delete any metadata that is there. I would rather just switch off metadata for WAV files - in fact I'd like to switch off metadata for all files, but particularly for WAV files. (Plus 2 votes)
  • Ed responds:Why does having metadata interfere in the other app? Is it because Audacity malforms the metadata or the other app is buggy? As for switching metadata on/off -- this would require an additional global preference toggle: "ALL metadata on/off"; and to be really useful a list of toggles depicting each known each audio file type (the list is long). In addition it would require a checkbox in the Export file dialog to switch it on/off for just that specific export. I would also add a new Warning (add a warning on/off to the Warning prefs) with a "Don't nag me again" checkbox which pops when an Export is not writing metadata. Having not looked at the metadata write code I will not go out on a limb and say that this is an easy coding project--but I suspect it is...with the possible exception of a cross-platform solution to the added Export file dialog checkbox. I suspect that the chances of getting a Developer to support adding yet more prefs (for something that Developer did not invent) is slim.
  • Steve writes: <<Why does having metadata interfere in the other app? Is it because Audacity malforms the metadata or the other app is buggy?>> Neither, though I always thought that "correctly formed" metadata for WAV files was "none". Wikipedia says "As a derivative of the Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF), WAV files can be tagged with metadata in the INFO chunk", but that's not the same as saying that metadata is a standard part of the Microsoft WAV file format. From looking at various sources on the Internet, the best I can come up with is that metadata in the INFO chunk is a legal but non-standard feature of the WAV format. "Legal" by virtue of being supported in the RIFF specification. "Non-standard" by virtue of being unspecified in the Microsoft WAV specification. The particular problem that I'm having is with the program Nero (though I'm sure there will be issues with other programs). The problem is that Nero does support metadata in WAV files. When creating an audio CD compilation it will first look for the track name in the file metadata. If the track name is not found in the metadata it will use the file name. That's fine for MP3 and other formats that are expected to have metadata, but in the case of WAV files, the only two applications I have on my Windows computer that support metadata in WAV files are Audacity 1.3 and Nero. As I have the metadata editor switched off in Audacity I will not know if a WAV file has metadata until I try to burn an audio CD, and at that point I find that the track listing is nonsense. Worse still is that if multiple files are dragged into the compilation window at the same time, they may be sorted into the wrong alphabetic order because Nero is using the file names for some files and the metadata track name for other files. I can't use a bulk metatag editor to fix the metadata because I have not yet found a (free) bulk metadata editor that supports WAV files. My current solution to the problem is:

1. Switch off dither (to avoid doubling the dither noise)
2. Enable the Metadata Editor prior to Export
3. Import the WAV file
4. Export the file (overwriting the original)
5. Click "Clear" on the Metadata Editor.
6. After Export, delete the "old" copy of the file.
7. Repeat for each file.

I guess that I could write a SoX script to batch process the files, but it would be completely unnecessary if I could turn off (non-standard) metadata for WAV files. If I really want metadata I would use AIFF or FLAC as metadata is properly defined in these formats (and supported by other applications including my Tag Editor program).

• • Steve adds: If Metadata in Microsoft WAV files really is "non-standard" (and it is certainly a rarity for applications to support it), then Metadata in Microsoft WAV files should be off by default. For the sake of choice there could be a Preference option to enable Metadata in WAV files.
  • Steve adds later: I may have found an ideal place to put the option: On clicking the "Options" button in the Export dialogue...

• Bundled GVerb plugin:

1. and this goes for any plugin that might replace it: Nameofplugin (Reverb) instead of Nameofplugin. in this case GVerb. That way n00bs will know what it is.
2. Add a drop down box list entitled "Presets:" that changes the settings listed to the ones here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/GVerb ... b_settings make one of those presets default when opening Gverb. (+1 vote)
3. if the problem is this is developed by someone else and they don't want to make usability changes, drop the reverb plugin from those that Audacity carries. It's just not worth having as it is. There has to be something better if this isn't fixed for usability. (11 vote)

• • Steve comments: Despite the horrible defaults, I use GVerb frequently and find it very useful for certain types of reverb effect. As it is open source there's no reason why another developer can not add preset support (or at least better default values). Unfortunately I'm not a programmer or I would have done so long ago.
  • Peter: the thread developed into lengthy audio processing discussions, so retained on the forum: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=54569

• Text-to-speech for Audacity: I must say, that it is a pity, that Audacity don't countains some text to speech. Please, could You take this function in next version? Thank You and sorry for my terrible English. (minus 1 vote)
  • "Text to speech" is not an audio editing function and in my opinion lies outside of the scope of what Audacity is for. An audio file that has been created by any of the already existing "Text to Speech" programs (if they are able to output as an audio file) can be imported into Audacity. Speech from Narrator (included with current versions of Microsoft Windows) can be recorded in the same way as recording any other sounds that are playing on your computer

• Noise Reduction: Extra button in the Noise Reduction panel: [Factory Default Settings] (plus 1 vote)
  • Ed adds: and if we are adding buttons -- a "Save As Default" one might make sense as well!
  • Koz adds: "Return To Factory" should always be an option for those of us prone to digging ourselves entertaining holes during production. I think I authored a request to be able to email a noise correction to my sister in Schenectady. So 'beyond here dwells dragons.' (Well then, if you can save a correction.....) I got shot down on a technicality.

• Find Maximum: A Find Maximum would be very useful. Here's why, and below is a suggestion how it could operate. Often I want to manually decrease the dynamic range by reducing some of the peaks, so that the overall volume increases after I normalise. I'd rather not use automatic functions because I assume they would affect the entire sound file and I'd like to keep the sound as close to original as possible. In one situation, a friend asked me to improve a sound recording made in Cairo during WW2. Street vendors offered passing soldiers the opportunity to step into a sound booth, record 30 seconds of greetings to family, and then they were given a flexible record which could be mailed home. The one I was given was full of crackles, so I worked my way through several hundred pops, manually reducing the peak between the zero-crossing. Seemed to work pretty well, though very time consuming. A more recent example was a recording of someone with Alzheimers who got distracted by the microphone in front of him and would start stroking and tapping it, introducing very loud, clipped noises. I have manually reduced the levels of some of the clipped peaks so that the dynamic range is reduced, thus allowing an overall higher volume (after normalising). But again, it was very time consuming.

• Peak Amplitude: It is quite a common request for how to find the peak amplitude of an audio track.

Although this can be determined easily using the "Amplify" effect, it would be more convenient if it could be displayed in the information section of the Track Control Panel. As Audacity is aware of the peak value of each data chunk I would think that it should require very little processor overhead to update the displayed value whenever the waveform is redrawn. I'd also suggest that if the peak amplitude is greater or equal to 0 dB that it should be shown in red.

• Reset Preferences: Request for a button (in it's own pane? with details of what will happen?) to reset the audacity.cfg file to a virgin state. We're telling people to do that all the time (and I had to do it today to clear a weird fault), and the procedure is cumbersome IMO.(Plus 5.25 votes)
  • Ed comments: If implemented it should first create a backup of the old and include a "revert" API. It should also be well guarded by a non-turn-offable WARNING. I think this has been discussed somewhere sometime in the last year.
  • Ed adds: Don't forget, there is more than just audacity.cfg in the setting folder--plugins.cfg and a few folders (Presets, Chains & Themes) which might also need attention but we never seem to ask the user to initialize those.
  • Steve respomds: Was it decided that Audacity 2.0 would not inherit settings from previous versions? I can't find the thread at the moment - anyone remember where it was discussed?
  • Bruno replies: I don't remember the thread steve is talking about, but I do remember already suggesting this in the past... I agree that a "reset to defaults" button should exist. I don't agree with Edgar. I think it's unnecessary to save a copy of the preferences file. I think that a simple warning should be enough. Many apps have such option, usually it prompts for something like "are you sure you want to reset to defaults?". I can't see much harm in doing a reset to the preferences...
  • Peter writes: I don't recall that discussion. But 1.3.13 inherits all settings except the import preferences setting, which needs to be reset via the warning dialog that appears the first time you import an uncompressed audio file with 1.3.13
  • Steve adds: It would certainly useful to be able to reset preferences (with a non-turn-offable warning) when they screw up, but hopefully by the time 2.0 comes out we will rarely see situations that preferences mess up. An easy reset mechanism may tend to hide problems that should be fixed.
  • Ed responds: Maybe a page/section on (one of) the wiki(s) with detailed instructions on how to find the cfg file on the various OSes, how to save a backup of the current file, and how to edit the file and "initialize" it. That way we would have an easy place at which to point when we want to tell someone how to do the job. This has the benefit of being something Bill, Steve or I could do without bugging the Developers.
  • Bill comments: If we're concerned about users losing their customizations, perhaps there could be a "Repair Preferences" button?

• Loop Play from a position within a selection: Quite often I want to play my audio looped, but not from the beginning. I want to start it near the end so I can hear how well it will loop. Placing the start marker somewhere and using "Play" works, but when using "Play Looped" it starts from the beginning of the audio, ignoring my start marker. I think that is either a bug or a design flaw.
  • Steve: Loop play always starts at the beginning of the selection and plays to the end of the selection, then loops back to the beginning of the selection. If there is no selection, the the entire track will loop, starting from the beginning. That's how Loop Play has been designed to work. Adding a feature to Loop Play from a position within a selection would be an additional feature that I agree would be useful (+1) but is not currently implemented.

• Ability to add custom shortcuts to drop down menus: Need some kind of ability to add additional shortcuts to drop down menus that can point to the actual menu item for plugins. Since all plugins end up under either Generate, Process or Analyze menus, you should also be able to add a new menu item somewhere else that can point this original menu item. For example, Regular Interval Labels should also be included in the TRACKS drop down menu right underneath Add Label At Playback Position because it is part of Adding Labels to the track. I had no idea that feature (Regular Interval Labels) was available until I accidentally came across it in the ANALYZE menu.
  • Koz: This is a cousin to my request to be able to assign keyboard shortcuts arbitrarily to filters. The first time you need to apply Noise Reduction 53 times to the same clip, this becomes a lot more valuable. There was one version of Audacity where somebody neatly put all the filters in neat, orderly, sequential drop-down menus like the non-users wanted. It was a disaster for the production people. It tripled the click requirements and reduced production efficiency to trash.
  • OP: I am not suggesting that any current menus be moved, but only that you can assign a new menu item to point to an existing menu item. This would probably be a good thing for production people, as you could put whatever you want in whatever menu you want! And yes, I think it would be very closely related to being able to assign key combinations to point to something as well... good idea! I don't use it enough to ever remember any special key combinations myself, but if I could put a menu item where I think it should be, then I can find what I want without looking thru all the menus one by one!
  • Koz: Or you could have no clicks by designing four or five "floating" key combinations and associate with any effect, ad lib.

• Export Multiple defaults: Export Multiple does not remember the last used "Overwrite Existing Files" setting.
  • WC: Yup, you're right -I just tested on the latest Beta 1.3.13 and a recent nightly build of Alpha 1.3.14 - and what's worse not only does it not remember the previous setting, it also defaults to "Overwrite existing files" as "on" each time - and this is the more dangerous of the two settings - and it appears to have been that way for a long while. I just tested on Betas back to 1.3.7 and 1.2.6 and they're all the same in this respect. . So: +1 for the previous setting to be remembered and +1 for changing the default to be "off".
  • Steve: I rarely use Export Multiple, but assumed that "Overwrite Existing Files" would be OFF by default. Convenience over safety is fine for people that are familiar with the program and know what they're doing, but it seems a bit reckless for new users, so +1 for changing the default and +1 for remembering the last used setting.
  • Ed: +1 for default to OFF. In fact, my current working Audacity (highly modified) defaults to OFF. -1 for "remember last" but... I would add a user choice Pref as to what it defaults to
  • Steve: I'd also be happy with that. I think that the important thing is that (mostly for the safety of novice users) the default is off, but that users are able to use their preferred settings without having to manually change it every time.

• Quick conversion of point label to range label: It would save retyping, cutting/pasting of text or ear dragging if one could more quickly convert a point label to a range label. The behavior I would like to have is this: Record/Play Cursor is at one end of the intended range. I put the Mouse Cursor on the dot of the label I want to convert. Shift + Left-Click converts the point label to a range label in addition to selecting the range. The mouse-cursor end of the range is adjusted to align with the point label even if the mouse is off a bit. I suggest the dot here rather than the ear because it already lines up with one end of what will be the select range.
  • Steve: You may be missing a trick. Why do you have a lot of point labels that you want to convert to region labels? Describe the job.
  • OP: I drop point labels during live recording to flag the next song in a medley, next speaker at the podium, etc. Being rather busy at the time, I tend to miss a few events but I add them later while listening to the recording. In that phase, I adjust the positions of point labels and start making region labels. Often I notice things that need editing and rather than flag them for later I deal with them on the spot, which resets the select region I would have used for the next region label. When things are going smoothly, I can hold the mouse on the right ear of a point label and let the waves scroll by, just jiggling the mouse occasionally to keep extending the label region in case I drop it. If it's a part I'm pretty comfortable with at this point, I might hold the right arrow key down (maybe even with the shift key) to skip ahead, still holding down the mouse button. If the section is rather long, I select it, make a new region label, then go back to the point label, either copy the text manually or transfer it therefrom to the region label via the clipboard, and delete the point label. So for the most part, the point labels originate during the live recording while I'm primarily occupied with other tasks in the sound room. Labeling all the sections is partly for quick searching and partly in preparation for the final task of making separate label tracks to configure the CD and Podcast and occasionally "custom" versions of the recording. In the above description I'm using mouse terms, but bear in mind I'm actually using a touch pad on the laptop, which makes the ergonomics a bit more cumbersome. I could select regions ([/])while recording (I think), but then I'd have to complete the process at the end of the region, and I might not be able to get to it at that moment. Moreover, that may be the spot where the next label region will start, so I'd have to remember the text I was going to type for that label while committing to memory the text for the next one. I do have key assignments (Ctrl-[ & Ctrl-]) for setting the cursor to either end of a select range, but it's still an added step and I'd be doing it after the region has gone off the screen. Using point labels, I can Ctrl-M quickly and enter the text at my convenience. I bump the focus back up to the audio track after entering the text so I can verify at a glance that I've completed that label. Have I missed any tricks?
  • Steve: Just one that I can think of at the moment. Dropping point labels (markers) during recording sounds like the best approach for what you're doing. After recording, go to "Tracks menu > Edit labels" and change the "End time" for the labels. (you can tab across from one field to the next).
  • OP: Y'know, a spreadsheet-like page of that sort for profile points would be quite useful, especially after I do something that gets the profile point GUI all confused. I'll post a bug report if I ever figure out how it happens. I've resorted to editing the .aup file occasionally to remove a stubborn point that doesn't respond to the mouse.
  • Ed: I also suffer exactly the same complaint about creating region labels after the fact where I have dropped point labels on-the-go. I modified my personal copy of Audacity so that I have a "solution". First I insert a second label where I want the region to end; next I double-click in the label track between the first & second label--this selects the region between labels including the labels (this is the mod--a feature request that the programmers have not implemented). Next I insert a label (the region is selected) which ends up automatically deleting the leading and trailing labels and creating a new region label.
  • OP: Edgar wrote: <<Next I insert a label (the region is selected) which ends up automatically deleting the leading and trailing labels and creating a new region label.>> From which label does it copy the text? Is this an upcoming feature? It has one disadvantage compared to my suggestion. I drop some markers to indicate peripheral events like Pastor's mic turned off (because I'll change the filtering at that point), Paddle Fans turned on / Box fan on (same reason), etc. (I use abbreviations, of course). I delete these later, but I don't bother with separate label tracks for different purposes during recording. Filtering (except for DC removal) I do much later, after the regions are labeled and thumps, coughs etc. are removed or suppressed (love that Pop Mute!). So temporarily I may have a region label with a couple of point labels inside the range, on the same label track. I could work around that, of course, by duplicating the label track first and removing the irrelevant labels from each one.
  • Ed: What I do is copy & paste because my solution crates an entirely new label (but it is active & ready for paste). Your solution does make sense and there is no reason both could not be implemented. Upcoming feature? Audacity has been in "feature freeze" for over a year. After the next "stable" release is the time to discuss new features!

 

Reviewed but not added - unclear

• A "Macro" facility for menu items: A "Macro" facility that allows one or more of the standard menu items to be applied in sequence to the current selection or project. These macros to be definable by the user and assigned to key combinations (for example M+1 to M+9). It would be useful if effects could be added with their current/last used settings so that the user does not need to memorise lists of parameters for each effect. (Plus 1 vote)
  • SteveTF comments: I suspect that if a macro facility was developed, it would probably open up ways to implement the "Add missing menu commands in keyboard preferences" FR

Gale: What is the distinction between macros and extending the chains feature?

• • Edgar adds: the only conceptual difference that I can imagine is that users expect to be able to "record" a macro whereas with a chain the user must create the chain and an editor (in this case a dialogue). My guess is that in the user sophisticated enough to want to employ either a macro or a chain would be comfortable with the "chain" environment. I have not looked at the chain dialogue extensively for implementation, I would expect that it could be extended to include any command listed here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Talk:Keyboard_Shortcut_Reference
  • SteveTF adds: The main difference in the idea that I was putting forward is the idea of "Favourites". If there is an effect, or series of effects (macro/chain), that the user is using frequently, then they can add it to the list of favourites. The effect, or macro can then be recalled with a keyboard short cut (suggested M+1 to M+9 for the favourites - M+0 would open the Macro dialogue to create a new macro/favourite). Making a string of effects may indeed cross over with the "Chains" feature - I'd not considered that. Perhaps there could be an option in the "Edit Chains" dialogue to add a chain to the Macro menu (thus making it available within a project through M+number) and/or in the Macro dialogue > "Save Macro as Chain". Following the conventional way of creating Macro's, it would work something like this:

Recording.

1. M+0 (open macro dialogue) > "Start Macro Record"
2. Apply one or more effects.
3. M+0 > Stop Macro Record
4. Select "Options" and Save.

"Options" would include:

1. The number of the macro "slot" that the it is being saved in (M1 to M9)
2. "Pause at each effect / Run without pause".

If "Run without Pause" is selected, then pressing the appropriate M+number will run the effect(s) with the settings are stored in the macro. (For a single effect, this would be identical to "Repeat Effect").

If "Pause at each effect" is selected, then the user has the opportunity to change the effect settings for each effect (running the macro calls up the Effect dialogue screen, but does not auto-run the effect). An obvious use for this is for people that regularly use "Noise Removal". They could set (say) M+1 to call up the Noise Removal effect, then it would just be : M+1 > Get noise profile > M+1 > apply noise removal.

"Typical" uses of the macro feature could be something like:

1. (with "Pause" option) M+1 > Get noise profile > Apply Noise Removal > Equalize > Fade In > Fade Out > Export.
2. (with "No Pause" option - uses settings stored in the macro) M+2 = Apply Noise Removal > Equalize > Normalize.

Reviewed but not added - discussing internally

• Improving the Noise Removal effect in Audacity by adding the "threshold" control that was used in Audacity 1.2.x and offering both a full version (with the additional slider) and a simplified interface that used a single slider for more/less noise reduction. I think that in the simplified interface, could combine both the "threshold", and the "amount by which the noise should be reduced" in a single slider, and fixed values for "attack/decay" and "smoothing" (probably fixed at the current default values that are used in Audacity 1.3.x). At low amounts of noise removal, the effect would be more like the 1.3.x effect, then as the slider was increased it would become more like the 1.2.x effect. Plus 1 vote
  • SteveTF adds: The upshot of all this, is that it would be good to have the threshold slider back, but in addition to the refinements that we currently have in 1.3.x - If the developers think that this makes the effect too complicated, perhaps with the categorisation of the effects menu, there could be two versions, a simple, and an advanced interface.
  • See this Forum topic.

Reviewed but not added - intending to delete

These pending FRs were posted here but on review, appear to be inappropriate for the reasons stated (for example, the Beta already supports this feature). Unless reasons for adding them/more explanations of usefulness/purpose are given, they will be deleted.

• "Delete Track" menu item: Tracks menu > Delete Track Where is it? How does a visually impaired, or other non-mouse user delete a track? Should this be an "enhancement" issue in Bugzilla? (Plus 1 vote)
  • Gale:' Tracks > Remove Tracks