Audacity is a very popular free tool for editing audio files. The app is based on open source code and is available for Windows as well as macOS and Linux.
And now Audacity has launched a new, greatly improved version. Audacity 3.0 includes more than 160 bug fixes and a host of new features. Perhaps the biggest news is a new project format.
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New project format in Audacity 3.0
The new format is called .aup3 and it completely replaces the old .aup format. The advantage of the new format is that it houses all your project files that are needed, which means that the .aup3 file is of course much larger than .aup can ever be.
The advantage of storing all files inside .aup3 is that you do not risk moving or taking a file from your project in Windows Explorer or Finder. Otherwise, it may cause old .aup to stop working properly (but not the new format).
In addition, it is easier to share a project with others. You do not need multiple separate files to share; now the .aup3 file is sufficient.
Another advantage of .aup3 is, according to the developers, that certain audio features in Audacity 3.0 can run faster and more efficiently. It also makes it easier to recover projects after a crash.
Other improvements in Audacity 3.0
- You can set default locations when opening, saving, importing and exporting.
- There are now features for importing and exporting macros. You can also add comments if you want.
- You can create a copy of your old project format as .aup3 via File> Save Project> Backup Project.
- The Label Sounds Analyzer can distinguish different silent parts of your songs.
- Multi-view can now be set as default.
- Mixer Board is now always on top when used.
- You can set shortcuts to repeat your most recently used command in generators, parsers, and other tools.
- The Noise Gat4e effect now supports down to 1mn and has separate controls for “attack”, “hold” and “decay”.
