Filed under: Audio, Software, Open Source, Podcasting, Developer
Calling Mac Devs: Audacity needs your help!
Audacity, the free and open-source audio editor (also available for Windows and Linux) is in need of some Mac-love. Whilst Mac OS X users can get themselves either the stable v1.2.6 release or a 1.3.3 beta version, development going forward is a little uncertain at the moment. According to the Audacity forum, there are no active developers on the project with Macs, and the latest beta (v1.3.4) is not going to appear on the Mac platform until "someone [with a Mac] volunteers to compile it, and sort the remaining bugs out." Yikes!
If you're interested in working on the project, then you'll want to head over to the Audacity 'Get Involved' pages for more information on how to get your hands on the code. Even if you're not a developer, if you're able to contribute via another means (such as with documentation, testing or donations), I'm sure the Audacity team would welcome you with open arms.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Pete Zich said 7:11PM on 1-02-2008
I'd be happy to compile, but I don't know anything about writing mac desktop apps. I tried compiling the mac source but the shell script the wrote fails (which is checking for the WX_CONFIG variable). Unfortunately I don't know how to fix that :(.
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Richard said 7:27PM on 1-02-2008
Do you have the wxWidgets library on your machine?
Pete Zich said 8:27PM on 1-02-2008
I just installed it, same problem, hmm.
freakscene said 9:44PM on 1-02-2008
It's amazing to me that OS X, a great platform for audio work (and a great platform to develop code on), has the least amount of freeware / open-source audio editing projects. Audacity is the closest thing we've had to a good free, sample-level waveform editor, and its UI is a mess and the app is bug-ridden and crash-prone. I hate to say it, but given the plodding pace of development on the app, I'm not sure it's such a big loss.
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jcrit said 10:30PM on 1-02-2008
Audacity has been the best audio editor I have ever used, including G-band. I love it for its simplicity; it can do 90% of the stuff I do audio for easier than anything else out there (that I know). I wish I knew programming, because Audacity is the app that deserves to be made transformational over time. Nice UI- in my opinion, never crashed even in heavy use, and has been consistently dependable over the years. Bugs? What bugs?
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Allan said 10:36PM on 1-02-2008
Will someone tell Nik to stop using 'whilst' in-place of 'while', please!
British or not, it's old and lame, not to mention completely pretentious.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/While
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Pete Zich said 10:58PM on 1-02-2008
Relax, just use find and replace in your brain. ;)
Pete Zich said 11:01PM on 1-02-2008
Or... javascript:document.body.innerHTML = document.body.innerHTML.replace("whilst","while");
Run that in your address bar before you read the page.
ButisitArt said 12:14AM on 1-03-2008
I agree. Whilst looking at Nick's 19 articles to date, he's used the word a total of 32 times. ( I believe that's accurate.)
If you choose to be a writer, procure a thesaurus and use it diligently. As my blind Aunt Minnie always told me ... "an ounce of bombast is wholeheartedly worth a pound of manure." :)
Ben said 2:58AM on 1-03-2008
It's neither old nor lame, it's correct and standard British English. Get over yourself.
Billy said 11:03PM on 1-02-2008
Not only do they need developer for Mac, they also in general need usability engineers and UI designer!
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stuntman said 11:31PM on 1-02-2008
i would go so far as to say that any developer who steps forward and does more than just compile, but fix bugs and make a mac-i-fied gui -- should have a page of their own with a great big DONATE button.
i adore audacity even with its instability and the fact that it has the awkward looks of a teenager hitting puberty. every other sound editor i've tried has made me run away screaming. but the development cycle has been one of the slowest i've ever seen in over a decade of mac lovin'.
a strong mac version would fill a gaping hole of multi-track audio editing on our favorite platform. i would throw some cash at that.
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PooPsTech said 1:39AM on 1-03-2008
OK! I have a bit of spare time. I will get involved with the development, since I have used that App in the past.
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Ben the Dog said 1:49AM on 1-03-2008
From the wiki link:
"Whilst is synonymous with while in standard British English and Australian English"
Given that Nik is in England, it's perfectly appropriate usage.
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gtcaz said 2:59AM on 1-03-2008
Amadeus Pro is a great editor for Mac at a reasonable price. I love it's CD burning feature; I recently used it to master a bunch of CDs from vinyl I'd ripped with WireTap Pro. De-clicking is a little tedious (should be more automation), but setting the track markers and burning was great. Also, the app loaded quickly, even on my PowerBook G4.
For very basic but lossless MP3 and AAC editing (i.e. no re-encoding; edits are done directly on the compressed file), fission is a good choice.
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mrk23 said 5:05AM on 1-03-2008
Pro Tools
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Mark Porter said 5:51AM on 1-03-2008
If only protools free were available for OS X
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Nick From Montreal said 5:50AM on 1-03-2008
OK. So I'm a developer making my first steps into Mac audio (I have a C++/OpenGL graphics background) and downloaded Audacity's code to see what I could learn....
Big Mistake...Here's why Audacty will never make on the Mac:
1) Mac users have very high expectations
With GarageBand being essentially free with every new Mac, Apple has raised the bar in term of what people will accept - even for free. GarageBand shares a lot of code and content (loops) with Logic 8, which has been in development for the past 15 years. Basically, rock solid MIDI and audio editing for free. It's not bad on the eye either.
2) WxWidget=Ugly, Cocoa=Beautiful
The plague of any cross-platform software is always the fact that you have to use cross-platform UI components. So far, the leading ones are Qt and WxWidget, both of which take their design cue from **Windows 95**. There is no way in hell this approach is going to compete with beautifully designed Cocoa objects. With CoreAnimation and Leopard, the gap is only going to get larger.
3) Cross-Platform Audio is very hard
I don't know about Linux, but programming audio on Windows is like playing Russian roulette. You cannot assume that users have a decent audio card capable of duplex playback (play/record at the same time). As a result, you have to write for the lowest common denominator. Don't even get me started on synchronizing with MIDI. I'm still trying to figure out this one.
4) The freakin' code is not commented!
Programmers are expected to write comment with their code. Comments are text notes that explain the purpose and working of the code. Without it, you waste tons of time trying to understand what is going on. Not fun.
Audacity is fighting an unfair battle against Apple. This is why I won't get involved with that one. I'm learning audio/midi programming with Pd, which now has a book coming with it.
- Nick From Montreal -
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stuntman said 6:27AM on 1-03-2008
i understand all of your points but disagree with number one. i find garageband tedious and difficult even though it is easy on the eyes. audacity is incredibly easy harking all the way back to the days of soundmaker. for simple editing with easy plug-in use, and as many tracks you desire to stack up, audacity is the one that's setting a bar for ease-of-use that garageband has not reached. i say this in regards to simple editing -- because garageband does excel in music-making... just not the editing in my opinion. very basic things i've attempted in garage band have taken me a good half an hour... and i can do them in half a minute with audacity.
so even though the prospect of inheriting the troubled code of audacity may be daunting, i believe there is definitely a mac audience. and with the coding issues and the low standards created by windows compatibilities, perhaps it would be easier to just mimic each of it's features (as well as its usability) in a brand new cocoa app built from scratch.
Nick From Montreal said 7:06AM on 1-03-2008
Well, usability is different for each person. For me GarageBand and the new Logic 8 have actually raised the bar in audio/midi software. And that's coming from a 5 years ProTools user. I'm seriously considering not paying the Digidesign/Wave tax anymore and use Logic 8 as my main DAW.
I totally agree with you about a "clean slate" Cocoa rewrite. Cocoa provides a lot of stuff like CoreAudio and CoreMidi, which are hard to duplicate in a cross-platform way.
However, for basic Audio editing, I think that Rogue Ameoba's new Fission (http://rogueamoeba.com/fission/) + AudioHijack combo is pretty much there. Native Cocoa UI and rock solid audio editing for a great price ;)
- Nick From Montreal -