History of effects after saving project

So, as the title says ,i have a bit of a problem, i might be dumb and it can be pretty easy, but i am sitting here for about 2 hours looking for advice.
Is there possibility to view History of used effects in opened saved project? i want to make more lines using voice that i made a couple weeks ago, but i cant remember the effects i used.

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While an Audacity project is open, you can see a summary list of everything that has been done since opening the project, by looking in “View menu > History”.

The History is not saved with the project (or with exported audio files), so once the project has been closed the list is no longer available.

Is there maybe at least option to copy the effects and put them on the different line?

No. Tell us what feature you would like - text export of history to a file?


Gale

I personally, and i think this applies to nearly all users of Audacity, would to have something similar to foler or text file that after saving project is added to project save file, that you can open and, in case you ever wanted to make the same effects from previous projects, be able to know which ones you used. There can also be, instead of a text file, change in View>History so that you can click on opened project and view history of saved project same way you can with not closed one.
Just a suggestion (and sorry for bad english)

I think a lot more people would like Projects to save UNDO. That way, you could open the Project, UNDO your work step by step and write down the effects.

Koz

Looking at the history of an already closed project is a different proposition to being able to physically Undo. The latter requires copious disk space.


Gale

The latter requires copious disk space.

“I have copious disk space,” he said brightly. I wanted to add another 2T external drive, but I had to “settle” for a 4T drive at the Apple store.

Where is the “Save UNDO” preference?

Koz

This wasn’t a one-off or special delivery with armed guard. This was a plain, off-the shelf purchase and there were several of them available. My guess is the video people scarf these things up.

Storage was a problem when I was active in video and it’s only gotten worse with 2K, high def, etc. And then there’s Virtual Reality. How much storage does it take to Edit virtual reality.

So although there still are people trying to edit a podcast on a WinXP machine, I don’t think I would limit Audacity design to them.

Koz

Hi, I would like to have this undo feature too, after saving and closing app.

What I propose for this feature is a settings, where you actually can set how many effects you want to save to be able to undo.
So, for those who has disk space problem, they just disable or add 2-5 effects.
For me, as I editing a lot audio video, the space is already resolved.
Also the button clean history may exist. And/or good to have another button: Back to original, so, you always can go back to from you started.

From a technical point of view, the way that it would need to be done to allow undoing effects, would be to specify the number of “undo levels” (see: History - Undo and Redo - Audacity Manual). It is not possible to save only the undo steps when effects are applied - any intermediate steps also need to saved.

Although the next release of Audacity does not have this feature, it does provide a way to save a robust copy of the current state with perfect sound quality. (for a sneak preview, see “Save Lossless Copy of Project…” in the Audacity 2.3.0 alpha manual: https://alphamanual.audacityteam.org/man/File_Menu:_Save_Project )

It would be immensely handy to save all history out to a text log file. I am editing a live performance in 3 separate chunks, I would like to be able to repeat steps in editing the next file by using the log as a reference.
I think this is what the OP was knocking at.

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If it’s something that you need to repeat several times, you could create a Macro to run it automatically. Macros - Audacity Manual

If Audacity had the ability to automatically convert steps from the History into a Macro, that might be very useful for all sorts of things (as well as being an easy way to create complex macros).

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I briefly looked through the help system for a different editor, one that did actually save UNDO with its projects. Universally, Every Help Post was a complaint how large the shows were.

You can use Chains/Batch/Macros to collect different effects in one place so they can be applied all at once just by applying the Macro and not the individual effects.

https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/macros.html

How about making Audacity create the Macro from the edit session? You don’t really need gigs and gigs of audio data, you just need:

========================
Start
Amplify [settings]
RMS Normalize [settings]
Compressor [settings]
Equalization {settings]
End

Or at the end of the show…

Save Effects as Macro [Y/N]

I am perfectly clear about the limits of this. Someone is going to want to take an effect out of his show. All that and Audacity still can’t remove effects, filters and processing from a mixed show.

Koz

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Dueling posts, or I wasn’t paying attention?

Koz

Thanks to kozikowski for suggesting to use Chains/Batch/Macros. That will be at least a part of the work around for me. However, even that doesn’t get me where I think I should be. I should be able to know that I applied the “amplify” at this db (or ratio or percentage), even if I did it 4 sessions (4 open save close sessions) ago. This work around, while it offers at least some way to record what I applied, still isn’t a record that I applied Macro1 versus Macro2. Yes, undo kept beyond a session would be get the best, but even being able to turn on a text log as your default where all actions are recorded and appended to the text log file would be better than what is offered by audacity at this time.

I vote that some improved feature be added to a future release which saves the details of a user’s activities.

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I second Godfearer’s post to vote that a log that can be accessed after closing a project be created. I should have checked here before closing my Project, since I have a second recording done at the same time and was going to just apply the same edits once I got the first the way I wanted it. D’OH!! Luckily, I did save my effects, but I had made a few and then didn’t apply each in the end. Ah well, more practice for me at getting the sound I want! :wink:

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:open_mouth: :angry:
I had the same question. Poo. I was playing around with effects on a project, and ended up with a great combo, but now I want to re-do the original audio. I have no idea which effects I finally settled on!

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How does that work? How long would Audacity retain that log? Would there be an ever growing log of everything you do in every project forever?

I would like to see the ability to undo effects after the project has been closed as well.