I’ve tried very hard to get used to 3.4.2, but it’s not going well. The changes in the export menu are very problematic for voice-over projects. It’s my understanding that the developers are not going to go back to the old system. What is the best way to roll back to an earlier version? Should I uninstall 3.4.2, or can I install an older version over it? If I uninstall, will my customizations be saved?
WASAPI is not working for me, either. I’ve been through a number of online posts explaining how to use it, but none of them works. It used to work in older versions.
What in particular is problematic about the changes?
What is the best way to roll back to an earlier version? Should I uninstall 3.4.2, or can I install an older version over it? If I uninstall, will my customizations be saved?
You can just install an older version over 3.4.2 - or alternatively you can have multiple versions of Audacity on your computer, they just have to be in separately named versions (I have most versions from 1.0 inwards). But note you can only run one version at a time.
In both cases your customizations will be saved as they are held in a separate folder that is not impacted be installation or re-installation.
We didn’t actually hit this, but Audacity 2.4.2 seems to work pretty well for me. That’s the old format and will produce a split-file Project. That’s important because 2.4.2 will not open later Audacity (ver 3) projects, although version 3 Audacity is intended to open earlier split file Projects.
The old Export menu used to drive me nuts because Export Selected wasn’t obvious and I would always produce enormous WAV or MP3 files (the whole show) when I really wanted a tiny minute segment sound file.
The New Export. Those settings will stick until you change them. Speeds things up for me.
That illustration is Best Practice for an ACX Audiobook Chapter.
There is one oddity. It’s good practice to Export a perfect-quality Safety Archive WAV chapter before you export the submission MP3 file. Once you make the MP3, you can’t easily change it later.
This new format Export makes it easy to flip back and forth between the two formats.
The new export menu is crap. Plain and simple. The older version allowed you to select the export format directly from file>export menu. From there it’s seemless. Now it’s a pain in the ass, using the drop down to select the format each and every time. I went back to the older version (3.3.3) and I’m not upgrading.
Plus all the extra features have no use in an audio editor anyway, but they seem to have lost their marbles in that sense as well. It’s an audio editor. It’s function is to record and edit audio. It’s not a DAW. If I need to know the bpm, or the time signature, or need to lengthen or shorten tracks, I can import them into my DAW and make the necessary changes. I don’t expect to have all that in a program that was initially designed to edit audio.
If the audacity team wants to create a DAW or a seperate program that has all those additional functionalities, fine. Have fun with it. In the meantime, I’ll stick with what works for me and doesn’t screw up my workflow.
