Audacity 3.2 includes realtime effects and ffmpeg 5.0 support

Audacity 3.2 has been released as the latest stable version of the popular audio editor, which is also free software and one of the most popular applications in its segment. On this occasion we find some important novelties that cover both support at the operating system level and some technologies related to multimedia.

The first major new feature in Audacity 3.2 is the addition of a new Effects button in the track menu that allows you to place effects in real time . This has been added to the merger of the mixer bar with the meter bars, the addition of a new audio configuration button that replaces the device toolbar (although it can be restored through the “View” menu), a reordered Effect menu and the addition of a quick audio sharing feature.

At the plugin level, VST3 effects are now supported . Its introduction has forced the change of the binary license to GPLv3, although most of the code files are still released under GPLv2. The use of GPLv3 may help the project regain some of the credibility lost after the scandal surrounding its telemetry .

VST3, LV2, LADSPA and Audio Units format plugins are now capable of working in real time. On the other hand, all plugins are automatically checked and enabled when Audacity is started.

As for operating systems, Linux now uses the XDG directories , although the classic ones ~/.audacity-dataand those ~/.audacitythat have been inherited will continue to be used until the user deletes them. Continuing with more things related to Linux, it is now possible to compile the source code even if the JACK server is not present, while for macOS there is a native compilation for Apple Silicon (ARM64). Audacity 3.2 has added support for ffmpeg 5.0 and Wavpack, as well as changing ‘mad’ to ‘mpg123’ as the MP3 importer.

Full details about Audacity 3.2 are available in the release announcement published in the project repository on GitHub, while the application can be obtained from the download section of the official website with builds for Linux (AppImage), Windows (x86 32-bit and 64-bit) and macOS (ARM and Intel). Alternatively, it’s possible to get it via Flathub and should hit the Snap Store stable channel in a matter of time.