https://manual.audacityteam.org/ is still showing version 3.7?
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https://manual.audacityteam.org/ is still showing version 3.7?
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I think one of the forum people told me that Muse were intent on discontinuing the manual.
Discontinuing the manual??? What sort of a carry on is this? A so-called āimprovedā (!) version of Audacity, and the developers seem to think that we do not need an instruction manual?? You canāt make this stuff upā¦
I agree with you entirely. Audacity 4 is definitely OUT, as far as Iām concerned. How it could be deemed improved when so much existing functionality is missing. Who wants nice colour schemes if it doesnāt do what you need?
Yes, in itās current state, Audacity 4 absolutely stinks. I liken it to Boeing deciding to design a new version of the Boeing 737, not bothering to fit any wings & engines to the plane & still expecting the test pilot to take it on a test flight, thinking it will fly okay without themā¦
Exactly. Instead of releasing a new version of software, they have āshipped a productā. This would make a tiny bit of sense if money was at stake (lost sales) but the program is free.
Every update is an opportunity to pitch their commercial services; āmuse hubā and āaudio.comā.
IMO, even the new color schemes are an eyesore.
Where is the Audacity 4 online manual?
Here: Audacity Ā® | Help
Fairly early in my long career in software development, I learned a very simple fact: if it isnāt documented, it might as well not exist. Iāve tried to get going in Audacity 4: failing, I resorted to using the manaul (aka RTFM). There isnāt one. The pointers on the internet all refer to the older version of the software. So I canāt find out how to do what i want to do. So Iāll go back to the old software. This is unfortunate, because Iām sure the team have put a great deal of effort in to the new version, but itās all a complete waste of time if you donāt produce the associated documentation
The Help pages Steve linked to are not bad. There appears to be a complete menu reference, complete toolbar reference, and a few getting-started pages.
Too bad the Help > Online handbook menu item doesnāt link to it.
There is an old saying which goes āthe job isnāt over until the paperwork is doneā. To the developers, their proud offering might seem highly intuitive. But I can assure you that for new users it can be a nightmarish labyrinth which can leave those keen to learn, both frustrated and depressed. I used Audacity for some years but then stopped using it. On seeing the announcement of Audacity 4, I decided to āreturn to the foldā. I have now spent three whole fruitless evenings attempting to record a voice track, duplicate it to provide left and right pans to provide breadth an then merge into a composite stereo channel. I cannot for the life of me find out how to do it including AI supported Google searches which are Totally misleading as they keep apologising for recommending solutions which worked in the previous version but have now been changed - or removed- with no information on how Audacity 4 does it. Now I know there are lots of YT videos and forums which might assist after many manhours spent in trawling through the plethora of ārabbit holesā. It is simply unprofessional (some might say outright cruel) to issue a new / revised product with such wide application without the necessary user updates to the user manual. AI is improving all the time but rubbish in = rubbish out. Without authoritative user guidance, it can be worse than useless. The lack of a user manual is likely to result in a big reputational hit for Audacity. I suggest someone in the team needs to be tasked with producing the necessary - and quickly (before ārabbit-holeā frustration leads to increased suicide rates.) ![]()
Itās here: Reference | Audacity Manual
FWIW.
Are you having trouble with the recording, or with duplicating the track?
If you have successfully recorded a track, click on the āā¦ā upper right of the Track Control Panel.
The Duplicate option is in this menu.
Once you have two mono tracks you can use the pan control to pan them left and right.
Thanks Bill for the very swift response. I am having some difficulties with the Forum- keep getting a 429 error when trying to input anything.
I looked at tge reference. This will be very useful in order to understand the layout and menu structures. I will definitely study it.
However, I donāt think it will solve my issue. I can duplicate a single track and pan them separately. When I play this back the metering indicates that both right and left channels are playing back as expected. However when I try to merge them into a stereo L/R channel, and play back, whilst both channels are showing correctly in the channel monitoring, the audio it is all coming out on the same side of my headphones with silence on the other. It appears as if the pan set in the first channel isā overriding that originally in the second channel. Google/AI advised me that it would 'all come out in the wash when I saved to a file (Merge down no longer being available and apparently changed. (Apparently this is done using Merge Down in previous versionbut Aud4. is supposed to sort this on saving to file). But no such luck.
This method of providing breadth by panning two copies of the same audio mono channel and combining in a single stereo output is a very common thing to do so it should be very straightforward.
I suppose one way of doing it would be to connect a splitter cable to the mono mic cable and feed that into separate channels in my DI (M-Audio MTrack Duo), but surely it should be possible using Audacity and a single input .