A new version of the open-source, cross-platform audio editor Audacity is available to download, kitted out with some major new features.
Audacity 3.6 introduces support for master effects. These adjust the sound of the project as a whole (the ‘master mix’ composed of all individual tracks and any realtime effects applied to them) and are usually done as the final stage of editing prior to export.
Brand new Compressor and Limiter effects are included in this update to Audacity, along with a set of handy presets the developers say are applicable to a wide range of use cases. Gain reduction history is also available when using them as realtime effects.
Audacity 3.6 improves its appearance with revamped light and dark themes, though the old theme remains available, now called ‘Classic’, and users can switch via the Preferences > Interface pane.
Other notable changes in Audacity 3.6:
- FFmpeg 7 support
- Ability to paste audio files into Audacity with ctrl + v
- Alternative waveform colours can be styled by custom themes
- Track name overlay preference and “blend themes” preference removed
- New Extras > Export > Export Selected Audio option
- Redesigned “What’s New” dialog
- Option to show/hide RMS in waveforms added to View menu
- OpenVINO effects download link now available in-app
Plus a bunch of bug fixes, including: –
- Track scrolls back into view when recording to a new track
- Hitting esc in some preference dialogs no longer saves them
- Stray orange lines in the high contrast theme removed
- Quality slider for Ogg export on Linux works again
For a lick more detail on these and other changes read through the release notes on Github, or watch the following video showcase that the Audacity team uploaded to promote this update:
Download Audacity
If you think the above improvements sound sweet, and you want to try them out for yourself, you can download the latest version of Audacity for Windows, macOS, or Linux from the official website.
The Linux version available to download there comes as an AppImage, a standalone binary that will run on most Linux distributions. Note: to use AppImages on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS you need to install a small library from the Ubuntu repository first.
While you will find Audacity on Flathub be aware that is not an official package, nor is the the Audacity snap (still on v3.1) that App Center in Ubuntu shows if you search for ‘Audacity’ (v3.4 is available in the noble repo as a DEB, if you’d rather).