Audacity 1.3.10 Beta Inches Project Closer To Next Major Release

Audacity is a really popular open source audio editor used by many people to make podcasts, create ringtones, remove vocals, and pretty much anything else you want to do with sound files. Indeed, we're big fans of the project here at OStatic, so we're glad to hear its development team say this week's release of Audacity 1.3.10 beta, "brings us very close to our goal of a new 2.0 Release."

Audacity's new release contains several bug fixes and improvements, and is strongly recommended for Windows 7 users as a replacement for the stable 1.2.6 version. Important changes in the beta version include:

Imports/Exports bug fixes:
 • Freeze importing audio files in Pitch (EAC) view
 • Corrupted WAV or AIFF imports and WMA exports
 • Metadata Editor appeared before the Export window

Effects bug fixes:
 • Crash/hang using Equalization; errors in Reverse and Truncate Silence
 • Nyquist: Excessive memory consumption; errors in European locales; inaccurate text box values
    • VST effects remained in menu when no longer available

Other bug fixes:
 • Spurious "not writable/disk full" errors when saving projects
 • Desynchronized playback/data loss when using multiple tracks
 • Crash opening Preferences when no valid devices present
 • (Windows) Audacity sometimes did not come up on top at launch
 • (Linux) Crash when undoing or redoing label edits

Improvements:
 • Improved copying/pasting of label-with-audio and system clipboard text
 • Contrast Tool now modeless, intuitive handling of multiple project windows, various other improvements

Audacity 1.3.10 beta is available for download for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Since this version is still under development it's not recommended for editing important work that you can't afford to lose. If you decide to take it out for a spin, make sure you report any bugs or problems to help get the final version out the door as quickly as possible.