The Audacity 3.0 open-source and cross-platform multi-track audio editor has been released today as a major update that introduces a new save file format, as well as numerous improvements and bug fixes.
The biggest new feature of the Audacity 3.0 release is a new, more evolved save file format that uses the SQLite3 database to store all the data of your audio project into a single file using the .aup3 extension. Previous Audacity versions used an .aup file format that saved projects as a large number of small files.
According to the developers, the new save file format also makes editing audio faster, but on the other side it makes finishing and closing of an audio project a lot slower. It’s important to note that the old .aup save file format can be opened in Audacity 3.0, which will automatically covert it to the new save file format.
“This was a huge change, and we decided it was too risky to include many other changes we wanted to make at the same time – so [Audacity] 3.0.0 is almost entirely about this big format change.”
In addition to the new save file format, the Audacity 3.0 release introduces a new analyzer called “Label Sounds,” which can be used to label sounds and silences, an improved “Noise Gate” effect, support for importing and exporting macros, and some new commands for using the last used tool or last used analyzer.
Of course, numerous bugs were squashed in this major update to make Audacity more stable and reliable when editing audio files. You can download Audacity 3.0 right now from the official website or better install it from the stable software repositories of your favorite GNU/Linux distribution.
