Audacity 2.0 released bringing crash recovery and improved effects

Audacity 2.0 running on Linux

The Audacity team has announced the release of version 2.0 of their open source waveform-based audio editor. The new release, which has been in beta for a considerable amount of time, adds new features such as an improved user interface, automatic crash recovery and an improved noise removal algorithm.

The new version ships with many improved effects plugins for noise removal, equalisation and normalisation. The new crash recovery feature helps users restore projects if the program shuts down abnormally. Improved track functionality adds the ability to sync-lock and label tracks. Audacity now also fully supports the FLAC file format and imports audio from video files if an optional FFmpeg library is used.

Changes in the user interface include the Device Toolbar which manages inputs and outputs and a Mixer Board with per-track VU meters. Users will also find many more keyboard shortcuts supported by the editor and the ability to manipulate tracks and selections using the keyboard has been enhanced.

Audacity 2.0 is the first stable release since version 1.2.6 and replaces the experimental 1.3.x branch of the program which had been in beta since November 2005. More information about the new features in this release is available on the Audacity wiki and in the change log. Audacity 2.0 can be downloaded from SourceForge for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and is provided under the terms of the GPLv2.

See also:

• Audacity 1.3.13 beta arrives, fully supports Windows 7, a report from The H.
  
• SourceForge apologises to Audacity team for malicious ads, a report from The H.

(fab)