Software Update: Audacity 3.0.3

Version 3.0.3 of Audacity has been released. Available for Windows, Linux, and macOS, this open source audio editor can record sound, import and export wav, aiff, ogg, and mp3 files. The program has an unlimited undo function and also has a large collection of effects on board, such as fade-in and fade-out, echo, tempo change and noise reduction. More effects can be added easily as the program supports both vst and ladspaplugins. The release notes for this release can be found below.

The Windows version of Audacity is now 64-bit

For the first time, Audacity will now install as a 64-bit application on Windows devices. Due to this change, some processes and effects (eg certain sound generation processes & sliding stretch) will run much faster.

64-bit FFmpeg library:

If you are a user of previous Audacity versions on Windows and had installed the optional FFmpeg library then you must now install the 64-bit versions of the FFmpeg library, otherwise your imports and exports that depend upon FFmpeg will no longer work. see Installing FFmpeg for Windows for installation details.

Installing the 64-bit FFmpeg library will not overwrite or delete your 32-bit FFmpeg library if you have one installed. As Audacity is now a 64-bit application, 32-bit plug-ins will not work on Audacity 3.0.3 or later.

New colorways for Spectrograms

A new colorway has been introduced on Audacity 3.0.3 for Spectrograms. This is now the new default colorway for Spectrograms in Audacity.

Classic colorway

If you wish to revert to the former colorway just go to Edit > Preferences and choose the Spectrograms tab and from there in the Scheme dropdown menu select Color (classic).

Additional grayscale

In addition to the Grayscale which was available as a choice for Spectrogram displays in earlier versions of Audacity there is now also an Inverse grayscale. This too can be selected from the Scheme field in Spectrograms Preferences.

Display of Track Name

A new command has been added to the View menu, View > Track Name (on / off). When this is enabled the audio track name is displayed superimposed translucently at top left of all audio tracks. Note that the track name is always shown in the Track Control Panel but will be truncated if the name is too long to fit. This has the same effect as the setting for Show track name as overlay in Tracks Preferences.

Update checking

Audacity will now check for updates to see if a new update of Audacity is available. This is done on launch and then after every 12 hours while Audacity remains open. The dialog has a direct link to Application Preferences enabling you to turn update checking “off” in order to opt out or update checking.

This is not an automatic update, update does not happen without you choosing to do so from the update checking dialog that appears when a new update is available. This has long been one of the most-requested feature requests submitted by users to Audacity and it has finally been implemented.

opt out

You can opt-out of update checking by using a new preference in Application Preferences where you can turn this “off” or “on” at any time, the default setting is “on”. The setting you make in Application Preferences for update checking is not changed by Reset Configuration.

• But if you manually reset by deleting the audacity.cfg file in your Audacity settings folder this will get reset to “on” on next launch of Audacity.
• You will also get shown the update checking dialog again.

Automated crash and error reporting

Now if and when Audacity crashes, or produces an error, there will be a dialog to enable you to optionally send error and crash reports back to the developers and Quality Assurance. Not all error messages have the ability to automatically send back information to the developers and Quality Assurance.

New official binary for Linux

We now provide an official binary for Linux in the form of an AppImage.

Privacy Notice

With the release of 3.0.3 Audacity has released the following Privacy Notice.

• The Privacy Notice explains how Audacity collects and uses any information that, alone or in combination with other information, relates to you when you use the desktop application Audacity. We collect very limited Personal Data about you.
• The Notice also sets out the rights that you have in relation to the Personal Data that we process about you and how you can exercise them.

Bug fixes

In addition to the fixed bugs shown here, several changes have been made to increase the stability of the Unitary Project database structure.

P1 Bugs

• P1 2754 – Change Tempo & Pitch and Sliding Stretch with selected audio in negative time crash Audacity on windows (error on Mac)
• P1 2772 – Audacity crashes after failing to open corrupt project
• P1 2793 – AUP3 projects fail to compact if project’s path contains a single-quote
• P1 2803 – Audacity unresponsive after ‘Fit to Height’
• P1 2805 – Audacity fails to export metadata with MP3 files

P2 Bugs

• P2 2339 – On second run of Audacity “Filter Curve EQ” gets changed to “Filter Curve…” in the Effect menu
• P2 2700 – “Failed to open the project database”
• P2 2732 – Faux recovery offered on launch (very moon phase)
• P2 2738 – Audacity crashes with Macros on files when the macro-output folder is in an unwriteable location
• P2 2739 – If Temporary files directory is set to be unwritable then Audacity has a catalog of cryptic unhelpful errors
• P2 2758 – Linux: No support for Jack Audio System
• P2 2741 – Msgctxt feature of translation not working
• P2 2743 – The first use of the “window” command in LOF files is ignored by Audacity
• P2 2747 – The Macros output directory is in the top section in audacity.cfg
• P2 2764 – Open Project… under ScriptablesII can corrupt a project
• P2 2800 – Audio and MIDI files cannot be opened from FAT/FAT32 drives

P3 Bugs

• P3 2671 – ENH: “Show track name as overlay” cannot be turned on from main menus
• P3 2778 – In German in the Erzeugen menu (Generator menu) “Silence…” is untranslated
• P3 2807 – Error message for a failed import of malforned MP3 lacks a “?” help button

P4 Bugs

• P4 1309 – Paste with sync-lock can give error message but still do something
• P4 1406 – Undoing envelope points by shortcut with mouse down creates spurious undo entries
• P4 2466 – Linux: Filter Curve EQ GUI far too wide
• P4 2759 – Failed Macro command leaves empty undo item in history
• P4 2809 – Label Sounds fails when track sample rate is 22050 Hz

P5 Bugs

• P5 1091 – Spectral Edit effects may have unpredictable results