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Audacity 1.2.0 Released

Posted by timothy on from the cross-platform-and-smooth dept.

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

2 of 329 comments (clear)

  1. The world of Out Of Phase Stereo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

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

    Thomas Dz.

  2. Re:Hopefully studio costs going down by LizardKing · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Software is a trivial cost in the grand scheme of things

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

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

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

    Chris