The new and improved Audacity 2.0 is now available for Windows, Mac and GNU/Linux, derived from version 1.3.14.

UPDATE: Audacity has been included in our announcement of The Best Music Production Software!

Audacity 2.0 has enhancements and new features developed from the recent Audacity 1.3 series, and have major improvements over the last stable version - 1.2.6.

This current version of Audacity replaces all previous versions and is no longer a beta. Audacity Team has released important information about the changes between version 1.3.14 and 2.0.0, as well as a summary of changes between 1.2.6 and 2.0.0.

New Features in Audacity 2.0.0

• Many effects were enhanced
• Equalization, Noise Removal and Normalize were heavily improved
• Vocal Remover now included plus GVerb on Windows and Mac
• VAMP analysis plug-ins now supported
• Improved label tracks with Sync-Lock Tracks feature in the Tracks Menu
• New Device Toolbar to manage inputs and outputs
• Timer Record feature
• New Mixer Board view with per-track VU meters
• Automatic Crash Recovery in the event of abnormal program termination
• Fast "On-Demand" import of WAV/AIFF files if read directly from source
• FLAC now fully supported
• Added support for optional FFmpeg library

Changes between Audacity 1.3.14 and Audacity 2.0.0

Enhancements and Changes:

• You can now show the track name in the display via a new interface preference (default is off)
• Default Playback preference for effects preview and preview before cut is now longer
• Use of Page Up/Down keys to scroll horizontally is working again

Interface Changes:

• Bugfix for a crash risk where shortcuts are used to record or import while simultaneously importing or exporting another
• Bugfix for playback speed, synchronization when dragging clips or tracks with different sample rates

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Analysis and Effects

• Tone, Chirp and Silence generators now recall settings changes
• Bugfix for crash on launch when using "Ambisonic Decoders (PC)" VST plug-ins or other plugins with additional floating point exceptions
• Bugfix for transparency of Plot Spectrum background
• Bugfixes for Click Track, High Pass, Low Pass and Vocal Remover

Imports and Exports

• Bugfix for crashes when changing the sample format of read-directly WAV or AIFF files using the Track Drop-Down Menu
• Bugfix for a crash when importing MP3 files that had duplicate metadata tags
• Bugfixes for project corruption caused by excessively high or corrupted sample values
• Audacity can now be compiled against FFmpeg 0.7.x and 0.8.x
• Other bugfixes were done

Changes between Audacity 1.2.6 and Audacity 2.0.0

Bugfixes:

• Lower case "z" is now working properly when making labels
• Bugfix for crash caused by pressing stop after recording - Windows
• Fixed shortcut keys activating when typing in file open or save windows. - Mac OS X
• Audacity now fully supports Unicode - Mac OS X
• Bugfix for recording pitch drop or distortion when playing existing tracks while recording in mono.

Audacity is freely downloadable from their website and is available for multiple operating systems. For more information, visit Audacity at Sourceforge.net.

Related Articles:
Audacity 2.1.1
Audacity v2.0.6 Update