Rebrands hardly ever get a lot love. That backlash may be particularly robust in the event you’re giving a facelift to a decades-old piece of software program beloved by nerds across the globe. So, it was no shock that when Audacity revealed its new brand individuals on the web bought somewhat labored up. And look, there’s no two methods about it, the brand is fairly dangerous. The font it fairly good, however the bewildering tackle its conventional headphone icon is tough.
Reactions round The Verge newsroom included “seems like somebody stepped on the apple music icon,” and “making an attempt to determine if their new brand seems like a sperm, and am principally arising with sure.” But when you may get previous the branding, Audacity 4 truly seems prefer it’s going to be a a lot wanted improve.
Martin Keary, VP of product at Muse, posted an almost hour lengthy video to YouTube detailing the challenges going through Audacity, the logic behind the design modifications, and updates on the event of model 4 (slated for launch in early 2026). One of many greatest enhancements is in minimizing what Keary calls “Audacity says ‘no’”. These are issues that Audacity merely gained’t allow you to do, usually with no clarification apart from a easy pop up (in the event you’re fortunate). He lists off various examples:
If you wish to drag a clip previous one other clip, it hits it like a brick wall. No. In the event you copy a clip and attempt to paste it the place there’s not sufficient clean runway, no. You don’t have sufficient room. In the event you needed to pick out a number of clips… no.
Cleansing this up concerned altering the habits of the UI, like routinely trimming a clip in the event you paste one thing over it, and eliminating a bunch of “modes” that restricted how you would work together with audio. The crew additionally added meters for particular person tracks, made trimming and time stretching simpler to seek out (simply click on and drag the sting of the clip), and added a cut up device that makes cleansing up audio a bit simpler.
Some customers is perhaps upset that the Sync Lock characteristic goes away however, as a very long time consumer of Audacity, I can affirm it’s a complicated mess. Working with and conserving a number of audio tracks in sync is a tough problem to deal with, however the approached specified by model 4 makes much more sense (to me no less than). Add to this a extra customizable, trendy interface that’s a lot simpler to learn and Audacity 4 seems prefer it’s truly shaping as much as be main step ahead for the stalwart audio editor. Lets simply hope they revisit the branding earlier than the correct launch in 2026.
