I use Audacity (with rosegarden) to create my own backing tracks and finally to mix all tracks. I need a ‘live’ 20 band equalizer that helps me FIND & ISOLATE unwanted or FIND & ELEVATE desired tones on the run. This need not take place during recording or such but would be like a tool that I can tinker with during playback and then use the modified file in memory with or without saving it. I don’t think one of these is available in Audacity but maybe someone has found another way to do it? The built-in envelope EQ would be OK too if it were dynamic.
Audacity doesn’t do anything in real time short of Record, Play and some timer jobs. All the rest of the tools are post production. The developers are doing better with scrubbing and some of the tools may work in semi-real time now, but don’t write to the newspapers yet. If you’re used to how some of the video editors work, this will not get you excited. I think it’s still true you can’t adjust the equalizer while it’s working.
As koz wrote, Audacity does not do “real-time processing”, but the current 2.1.1 version of Audacity does have “real-time preview” for some effects.
For Linux this includes Ladspa and LV2 effects and a few “Linux VST” (rare beasts) effects.
The “Calf” effects are very nice and include several useful Eq effects. Unfortunately on my machine they regularly cause Audacity to crash but some users with different versions of the Calf plug-ins have reported good results.
The ZAMEq2 Linux VST effect works very nicely for me. (better than the LADSPA version as the VST version has a nice graphical interface).
The next version of Audacity will be Audacity 2.1.2 (due to be released this month) which improves Real-Time Preview for some effects, but unfortunately instability for a few other effects. This is an area of active development.
When we get to Audacity 2.1.3, it will almost certainly have Real-Time Preview for the “Bass and Treble” effect, and 'may" even have Real-Time Preview for the Equalization effect (I’m very much hoping that it will )
I’m going to look into that. I use Ubuntu and sometimes it takes me a while to figure out how to get things installed/sorted out. I did manage to get Moreamp installed and working, but it’s real buggy. Even being able to play a file in something with a similar 31 band eq and manually transfering those settings to the Audacity eq is a start. lol
I had too old a version of Audacity, 2.0.5 . Followed Steves step by step instructions here and updated to a newer version, thanks Steve.
Now the Calf plug ins are working, I get the 8 and 12 channel parametric eq’s. Seems they have a simple graphic , but not for Ubuntu ? It is working live, so at least I can hear while I adjust now !
There is a Manage button bottom left of the effect then an Options menu where you can choose Graphical Mode or not.
Which version of Audacity and Ubuntu exactly do you have? I see the CALF GUI in Audacity 2.1.2 on Ubuntu 14.04 but I did not do so all of the time in Audacity in 2.1.0 or even 2.1.1.
What effect exactly does not work? Please give the name of the effect, and the type of effect it is (click the “Manage” button in the effect, then “About”).
It’s strange I had messed with nomalize and after that the calf 12 band eq wouldn’t work. It would slow me to make adjustments, but wouldn’t change the audio. Bypass was not on. I opened the original file and all worked fine. I’ve found saving the eq as a preset occasionally keeps me from loosing settings if there’s a crash.
but some users with different versions of the Calf plug-ins have reported good results.
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