{"slug": "audacity", "name": "Audacity", "category": "media", "category_name": "Media and creative", "description": "Free, open-source, cross-platform audio editor and recorder.", "recommenders": 13, "commenters": 14, "warners": 0, "score": 12.749, "rising": 10.35, "first": "2026-06-23", "latest": "2026-09-04", "why": "Loved as a free, easy tool for light audio work like trimming samples and recording voice clips, and for a redesigned interface that commenters call a big improvement under Muse's stewardship.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 13, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 10, 0], "listed": true, "loved": ["Redesigned interface", "Loved and robust"], "caveat": "Not a DAW", "short_quote": "It was my go-to for light audio work like trimming a sample, for being free and easy to use for exactly that.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.audacityteam.org", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["Audacity"], "verdict": [{"text": "Loved as a free, easy tool for light audio work like trimming samples and recording voice clips,", "cites": [{"id": 792978256, "item_id": 49561141, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49561141", "by": "boomlinde", "date": "2026-09-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It was my go-to for light audio work like trimming a sample, for being free and easy to use for exactly that.", "excerpt": "I think you may be underestimating how important playing back and recording audio is for an application built for that purpose. This was already a widely adopted piece of software. It was my go-to for light audio work like trimming a sample, for being free and easy to use for exactly that.", "context": "", "use_case": "trimming audio samples", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792792992, "item_id": 49549562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549562", "by": "ch_fr", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it's a massive glow-up", "excerpt": "I have used old audacity and musescore-owned audacity, and I have to say it's a massive glow-up. I use REAPER for most things, but audacity has found a nice little niche when it comes to recording voice clips because it just does it with less hassle. It's in good hands.", "context": "", "use_case": "recording voice clips", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}]}, {"text": " and for a redesigned interface that commenters call a big improvement under Muse's stewardship.", "cites": [{"id": 792898816, "item_id": 49556176, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49556176", "by": "skrebbel", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I mean I love it", "excerpt": "I'd love to understand better how they can afford a 10+ person team working on this and then give it all away for free. After paying the original Audacity creators a fair chunk of money to buy it, even. Is that audio.com sign in screen really bringing in that much money? I mean I love it, to be fair when it got acquired I didn't have high hopes given how these things usually go, but Muse has so far been a spectacular", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792792992, "item_id": 49549562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549562", "by": "ch_fr", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it's a massive glow-up", "excerpt": "I have used old audacity and musescore-owned audacity, and I have to say it's a massive glow-up. I use REAPER for most things, but audacity has found a nice little niche when it comes to recording voice clips because it just does it with less hassle. It's in good hands.", "context": "", "use_case": "recording voice clips", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792788176, "item_id": 49549261, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549261", "by": "basisword", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the interface looks vastly improved", "excerpt": "It's been many years since I used Audacity but the interface looks vastly improved.", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}]}, {"text": " The most cited caveats are that it is not a full DAW,", "cites": [{"id": 792795216, "item_id": 49549701, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549701", "by": "Forgeties79", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love it, it\u2019s an incredibly robust tool.", "excerpt": "2 reminders that I find always need to be mentioned in audacity threads: 1) Audacity is not a DAW. I love it, it\u2019s an incredibly robust tool. But I would not use it like a fully fledged DAW. 2) Reaper isn\u2019t free. They have an incredibly generous \u201ctry before you buy\u201d license, and you should reward them by paying $40 if you use it and decide it is a tool you want to continue to use!", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}]}, {"text": " that project files bloat in size,", "cites": [{"id": 792796224, "item_id": 49549764, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549764", "by": "saltysalt", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Otherwise I love it!", "excerpt": "I hope aup4 is smaller than aup3, because my number one headache with Audacity is file size bloat. Otherwise I love it!", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}]}, {"text": " and unease about creeping audio.com integration.", "cites": [{"id": 792781536, "item_id": 49548846, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49548846", "by": "ancientstraits", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I still think this Audacity version has promise.", "excerpt": "I have been using Audacity 3 for making music with samples for a few years. And it sort of worked, but there were a lot of things that were inconvenient, like the project sometimes not saving, or getting a \"clicking\" noise across clips that I had to remove by manually fading in/out each end of the clip. I tried the Audacity 4 beta a while ago, and it seemed super clean and like it fixed a lot of stuff. I am pretty co", "context": "", "use_case": "making music with samples", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Redesigned interface", "summary": "Commenters say the new version is a big upgrade over the dated old UI.", "quotes": [{"id": 792792992, "item_id": 49549562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549562", "by": "ch_fr", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it's a massive glow-up", "excerpt": "I have used old audacity and musescore-owned audacity, and I have to say it's a massive glow-up. I use REAPER for most things, but audacity has found a nice little niche when it comes to recording voice clips because it just does it with less hassle. It's in good hands.", "context": "", "use_case": "recording voice clips", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792788176, "item_id": 49549261, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549261", "by": "basisword", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the interface looks vastly improved", "excerpt": "It's been many years since I used Audacity but the interface looks vastly improved.", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792781536, "item_id": 49548846, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49548846", "by": "ancientstraits", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I still think this Audacity version has promise.", "excerpt": "I have been using Audacity 3 for making music with samples for a few years. And it sort of worked, but there were a lot of things that were inconvenient, like the project sometimes not saving, or getting a \"clicking\" noise across clips that I had to remove by manually fading in/out each end of the clip. I tried the Audacity 4 beta a while ago, and it seemed super clean and like it fixed a lot of stuff. I am pretty co", "context": "", "use_case": "making music with samples", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}]}, {"label": "Loved and robust", "summary": "Many commenters say they love it and call it a robust tool.", "quotes": [{"id": 792795216, "item_id": 49549701, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549701", "by": "Forgeties79", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love it, it\u2019s an incredibly robust tool.", "excerpt": "2 reminders that I find always need to be mentioned in audacity threads: 1) Audacity is not a DAW. I love it, it\u2019s an incredibly robust tool. But I would not use it like a fully fledged DAW. 2) Reaper isn\u2019t free. They have an incredibly generous \u201ctry before you buy\u201d license, and you should reward them by paying $40 if you use it and decide it is a tool you want to continue to use!", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792796224, "item_id": 49549764, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549764", "by": "saltysalt", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Otherwise I love it!", "excerpt": "I hope aup4 is smaller than aup3, because my number one headache with Audacity is file size bloat. Otherwise I love it!", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 785781232, "item_id": 49111327, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49111327", "by": "askadityapandey", "date": "2026-07-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love audacity", "excerpt": "I love audacity but most of time I use some same steps to polish my audio for yt, so instead I built my own web version which does same in one click, trim etc are available too runs on yo local browser thinking to grow this oss project in a way it can be used by more creators", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I think I made my own web version of minimalistic audacity"}]}, {"label": "Easy light editing", "summary": "Its low-hassle workflow suits quick jobs like trimming samples and recording voice clips.", "quotes": [{"id": 792978256, "item_id": 49561141, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49561141", "by": "boomlinde", "date": "2026-09-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It was my go-to for light audio work like trimming a sample, for being free and easy to use for exactly that.", "excerpt": "I think you may be underestimating how important playing back and recording audio is for an application built for that purpose. This was already a widely adopted piece of software. It was my go-to for light audio work like trimming a sample, for being free and easy to use for exactly that.", "context": "", "use_case": "trimming audio samples", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792792992, "item_id": 49549562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549562", "by": "ch_fr", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it's a massive glow-up", "excerpt": "I have used old audacity and musescore-owned audacity, and I have to say it's a massive glow-up. I use REAPER for most things, but audacity has found a nice little niche when it comes to recording voice clips because it just does it with less hassle. It's in good hands.", "context": "", "use_case": "recording voice clips", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792787664, "item_id": 49549229, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549229", "by": "apercu", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I always thought audacity was great, and still prefer its workflow", "excerpt": "I used Audacity decades ago (2006-2010) but when I stopped buying PCs I always found there was noise on a Mac so I switched to logic. I always thought audacity was great, and still prefer its workflow to slow tools or logic. I haven\u2019t ever tried Reaper however.", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}]}, {"label": "Good stewardship", "summary": "Commenters feel Muse is investing well in the app.", "quotes": [{"id": 792898816, "item_id": 49556176, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49556176", "by": "skrebbel", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I mean I love it", "excerpt": "I'd love to understand better how they can afford a 10+ person team working on this and then give it all away for free. After paying the original Audacity creators a fair chunk of money to buy it, even. Is that audio.com sign in screen really bringing in that much money? I mean I love it, to be fair when it got acquired I didn't have high hopes given how these things usually go, but Muse has so far been a spectacular", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792803904, "item_id": 49550244, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49550244", "by": "echelon", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm fine with them making money as they're investing into a utility I use.", "excerpt": "Please cite this if it's true. As far as I can tell they're updating the much dated UX from being stuck in the 90's and are making great strides on the app. I'm fine with them making money as they're investing into a utility I use.", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792792992, "item_id": 49549562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549562", "by": "ch_fr", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it's a massive glow-up", "excerpt": "I have used old audacity and musescore-owned audacity, and I have to say it's a massive glow-up. I use REAPER for most things, but audacity has found a nice little niche when it comes to recording voice clips because it just does it with less hassle. It's in good hands.", "context": "", "use_case": "recording voice clips", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}]}, {"label": "Free software", "summary": "Valued for being free and part of an all-FLOSS toolset.", "quotes": [{"id": 792978256, "item_id": 49561141, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49561141", "by": "boomlinde", "date": "2026-09-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It was my go-to for light audio work like trimming a sample, for being free and easy to use for exactly that.", "excerpt": "I think you may be underestimating how important playing back and recording audio is for an application built for that purpose. This was already a widely adopted piece of software. It was my go-to for light audio work like trimming a sample, for being free and easy to use for exactly that.", "context": "", "use_case": "trimming audio samples", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 787223940, "item_id": 49201496, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49201496", "by": "seba_dos1", "date": "2026-08-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "QtCreator, Allegro, GIMP, Inkscape, Audacity, LMMS", "excerpt": "Everything happens on my terms. The phone never tries to grab my attention unless I explicitly make it so. All the things I use are FLOSS. I can patch anything I want down to the kernel and bootloader, often on the phone itself (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49191008). The OS is managed the exact same way the OS on my PC is and all my skills and knowledge directly transfer over, so I can script it or write", "context": "Linux phone user", "use_case": "game audio", "switched_from": "", "story": "I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux"}]}, {"label": "AI plugins", "summary": "OpenVINO plugins add AI audio processing with good results.", "quotes": [{"id": 791782688, "item_id": 49486418, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49486418", "by": "tlahtinen", "date": "2026-08-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audacity can also do this through the OpenVINO plugins and I've been happy with its results", "excerpt": "Good use of AI! Audacity can also do this through the OpenVINO plugins and I've been happy with its results (https://github.com/intel/openvino-plugins-ai-audacity).", "context": "", "use_case": "AI stem separation", "switched_from": "", "story": "StemDeck, a free, open-source and local AI stem separator"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Not a DAW", "summary": "Fans warn it should not be used as a fully fledged DAW.", "quotes": [{"id": 792795216, "item_id": 49549701, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549701", "by": "Forgeties79", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love it, it\u2019s an incredibly robust tool.", "excerpt": "2 reminders that I find always need to be mentioned in audacity threads: 1) Audacity is not a DAW. I love it, it\u2019s an incredibly robust tool. But I would not use it like a fully fledged DAW. 2) Reaper isn\u2019t free. They have an incredibly generous \u201ctry before you buy\u201d license, and you should reward them by paying $40 if you use it and decide it is a tool you want to continue to use!", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}]}, {"label": "File size bloat", "summary": "Project files (aup3) can grow very large.", "quotes": [{"id": 792796224, "item_id": 49549764, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549764", "by": "saltysalt", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Otherwise I love it!", "excerpt": "I hope aup4 is smaller than aup3, because my number one headache with Audacity is file size bloat. Otherwise I love it!", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}]}, {"label": "audio.com integration", "summary": "Some commenters are wary of the optional audio.com features creeping in.", "quotes": [{"id": 792781536, "item_id": 49548846, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49548846", "by": "ancientstraits", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I still think this Audacity version has promise.", "excerpt": "I have been using Audacity 3 for making music with samples for a few years. And it sort of worked, but there were a lot of things that were inconvenient, like the project sometimes not saving, or getting a \"clicking\" noise across clips that I had to remove by manually fading in/out each end of the clip. I tried the Audacity 4 beta a while ago, and it seemed super clean and like it fixed a lot of stuff. I am pretty co", "context": "", "use_case": "making music with samples", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}]}, {"label": "Audacity 3 glitches", "summary": "Version 3 sometimes failed to save projects and produced clicks between clips.", "quotes": [{"id": 792781536, "item_id": 49548846, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49548846", "by": "ancientstraits", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I still think this Audacity version has promise.", "excerpt": "I have been using Audacity 3 for making music with samples for a few years. And it sort of worked, but there were a lot of things that were inconvenient, like the project sometimes not saving, or getting a \"clicking\" noise across clips that I had to remove by manually fading in/out each end of the clip. I tried the Audacity 4 beta a while ago, and it seemed super clean and like it fixed a lot of stuff. I am pretty co", "context": "", "use_case": "making music with samples", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}]}, {"label": "Repetitive workflows", "summary": "Repeating the same polishing steps took enough effort that one user built a one-click tool.", "quotes": [{"id": 785781232, "item_id": 49111327, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49111327", "by": "askadityapandey", "date": "2026-07-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love audacity", "excerpt": "I love audacity but most of time I use some same steps to polish my audio for yt, so instead I built my own web version which does same in one click, trim etc are available too runs on yo local browser thinking to grow this oss project in a way it can be used by more creators", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I think I made my own web version of minimalistic audacity"}]}], "who": [{"by": "seba_dos1", "context": "Linux phone user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49201496", "date": "2026-08-06"}], "tags": ["for quick audio edits", "for voice recording", "for sample-based music", "for video creators", "for Linux users"], "use_cases": ["audio editing", "trimming audio samples", "recording voice clips", "making music with samples", "ai stem separation", "game audio"], "compared": [{"slug": "reaper", "name": "Reaper", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "logic-pro", "name": "Logic Pro", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "gimp", "name": "GIMP", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49548395", "title": "Audacity 4.0", "mentions": 10}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49486081", "title": "StemDeck, a free, open-source and local AI stem separator", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49188022", "title": "I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49111312", "title": "Show HN: I think I made my own web version of minimalistic audacity", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48643848", "title": "Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 10}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 792978256, "item_id": 49561141, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49561141", "by": "boomlinde", "date": "2026-09-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It was my go-to for light audio work like trimming a sample, for being free and easy to use for exactly that.", "excerpt": "I think you may be underestimating how important playing back and recording audio is for an application built for that purpose. This was already a widely adopted piece of software. It was my go-to for light audio work like trimming a sample, for being free and easy to use for exactly that.", "context": "", "use_case": "trimming audio samples", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792898816, "item_id": 49556176, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49556176", "by": "skrebbel", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I mean I love it", "excerpt": "I'd love to understand better how they can afford a 10+ person team working on this and then give it all away for free. After paying the original Audacity creators a fair chunk of money to buy it, even. Is that audio.com sign in screen really bringing in that much money? I mean I love it, to be fair when it got acquired I didn't have high hopes given how these things usually go, but Muse has so far been a spectacular", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792825456, "item_id": 49551591, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49551591", "by": "waffletower", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used Audacity as recently as yesterday", "excerpt": "Surprised to see this upvoted to no. 1 on Hacker News in 2026. I used Audacity as recently as yesterday so I joined in and upvoted too. True that it has now displaced many commercial applications in the same niche.", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792803904, "item_id": 49550244, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49550244", "by": "echelon", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm fine with them making money as they're investing into a utility I use.", "excerpt": "Please cite this if it's true. As far as I can tell they're updating the much dated UX from being stuck in the 90's and are making great strides on the app. I'm fine with them making money as they're investing into a utility I use.", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792796224, "item_id": 49549764, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549764", "by": "saltysalt", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Otherwise I love it!", "excerpt": "I hope aup4 is smaller than aup3, because my number one headache with Audacity is file size bloat. Otherwise I love it!", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792795216, "item_id": 49549701, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549701", "by": "Forgeties79", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love it, it\u2019s an incredibly robust tool.", "excerpt": "2 reminders that I find always need to be mentioned in audacity threads: 1) Audacity is not a DAW. I love it, it\u2019s an incredibly robust tool. But I would not use it like a fully fledged DAW. 2) Reaper isn\u2019t free. They have an incredibly generous \u201ctry before you buy\u201d license, and you should reward them by paying $40 if you use it and decide it is a tool you want to continue to use!", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792792992, "item_id": 49549562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549562", "by": "ch_fr", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it's a massive glow-up", "excerpt": "I have used old audacity and musescore-owned audacity, and I have to say it's a massive glow-up. I use REAPER for most things, but audacity has found a nice little niche when it comes to recording voice clips because it just does it with less hassle. It's in good hands.", "context": "", "use_case": "recording voice clips", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792788176, "item_id": 49549261, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549261", "by": "basisword", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the interface looks vastly improved", "excerpt": "It's been many years since I used Audacity but the interface looks vastly improved.", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792787664, "item_id": 49549229, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49549229", "by": "apercu", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I always thought audacity was great, and still prefer its workflow", "excerpt": "I used Audacity decades ago (2006-2010) but when I stopped buying PCs I always found there was noise on a Mac so I switched to logic. I always thought audacity was great, and still prefer its workflow to slow tools or logic. I haven\u2019t ever tried Reaper however.", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 792781536, "item_id": 49548846, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49548846", "by": "ancientstraits", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I still think this Audacity version has promise.", "excerpt": "I have been using Audacity 3 for making music with samples for a few years. And it sort of worked, but there were a lot of things that were inconvenient, like the project sometimes not saving, or getting a \"clicking\" noise across clips that I had to remove by manually fading in/out each end of the clip. I tried the Audacity 4 beta a while ago, and it seemed super clean and like it fixed a lot of stuff. I am pretty co", "context": "", "use_case": "making music with samples", "switched_from": "", "story": "Audacity 4.0"}, {"id": 791782688, "item_id": 49486418, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49486418", "by": "tlahtinen", "date": "2026-08-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audacity can also do this through the OpenVINO plugins and I've been happy with its results", "excerpt": "Good use of AI! Audacity can also do this through the OpenVINO plugins and I've been happy with its results (https://github.com/intel/openvino-plugins-ai-audacity).", "context": "", "use_case": "AI stem separation", "switched_from": "", "story": "StemDeck, a free, open-source and local AI stem separator"}, {"id": 787223940, "item_id": 49201496, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49201496", "by": "seba_dos1", "date": "2026-08-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "QtCreator, Allegro, GIMP, Inkscape, Audacity, LMMS", "excerpt": "Everything happens on my terms. The phone never tries to grab my attention unless I explicitly make it so. All the things I use are FLOSS. I can patch anything I want down to the kernel and bootloader, often on the phone itself (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49191008). The OS is managed the exact same way the OS on my PC is and all my skills and knowledge directly transfer over, so I can script it or write", "context": "Linux phone user", "use_case": "game audio", "switched_from": "", "story": "I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux"}, {"id": 785781232, "item_id": 49111327, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49111327", "by": "askadityapandey", "date": "2026-07-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love audacity", "excerpt": "I love audacity but most of time I use some same steps to polish my audio for yt, so instead I built my own web version which does same in one click, trim etc are available too runs on yo local browser thinking to grow this oss project in a way it can be used by more creators", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I think I made my own web version of minimalistic audacity"}, {"id": 778345634, "item_id": 48646602, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48646602", "by": "k310", "date": "2026-06-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Ones I actually use.", "excerpt": "Ublock-origin with Firefox, Audacity, Batch Photo Resizer, calibre, cardflow, Diffraction, Ejimo and Ultra Character Map (try finding emojis without them), Libre Office, Paprika Recipe Manager, Samurai Safe, SeaMonkey (who else edits HTML?) GIMP, Darktable, RawTherapee, Super Photo Upscaler, Sublime Text, VLC, Clearview (and why isn't epub supported natively?), PhotoSync (share photos with all platforms), GhostText f", "context": "", "use_case": "audio editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?"}]}