I have this little Google Docs folder filled with ideas for future videos, some of which eventually go on to see the light of day, some of which don't. But somewhere else, outside of reality, in a bizarro world, there's another folder containing videos I will definitely never make: Oh- Oh, wait. I actually might have made that one. But anyway, floating around in here somewhere is a video about me being a team member of Audacity. Ah, here it is! Except... it's true. You're watching it. Yeah, Audacity. That app everyone uses that launches really quickly, lets you record stuff, and features six magnifying glasses. Seven if you count this one here. What does this one do anyway? Okay. So, why am I involved? Well, in short, Audacity has just joined with Muse Group, a collection of music apps that includes

...a popular open-source notation program called MuseScore, which I'm currently in charge of. And since things are going rather well at MuseScore, I was asked to step up and also manage Audacity in partnership with its open-source community. And just like we're doing at MuseScore, we're now planning on significantly improving the feature set and ease-of-use of Audacity, providing dedicated designers and developers to give it the attention it deserves, while keeping it free and open-source. And since the first step in any new project is to understand it as deeply as possible, I spoke to a few key members of the Audacity team to understand how and why they built it. So in this video, I'm going to talk about Audacity, the history of its success, and where it's going in the future. Audacity has been downloaded over 200 million times and is used by a diverse audience of

...musicians, ...podcasters, ...researchers, ...live streamers, ...and teachers, ...as well as more casual audiences ...who just need a simple audio-editing tool. It's licensed under ...the General Public License version 2, ...or GPLv2 for short, ...which is popular in the open-source world ...because it prevents companies ...from closing off access to the source code ...and ensures that it's always free to use. It was started in 1999 ...by Dominic Mazzoni ...at Carnegie Mellon University ...in collaboration with his professor ...Roger Dannenberg, ...who has had an extensive career ...in researching computer music. I've provided a few links ...to Roger's audio work in the description. The research they were doing ...covered various different types of audio analysis, ...including melody detection ...and another thing called ...'query by humming'. Query by humming, ...which is a ...problem, basically, of- ...of hum a tune or sing a tune,

...uh, that you can't quite remember the title of, ...and then go search a database, ...and try to retrieve it. The query-by-humming problem ...involved a lot of analysis of voice recordings ...to identify information like pitch and duration. We found that, ...you know, as we wrote these algorithms, ...i- it would be really useful ...to be able to compare an- ...and study this- this audio ...more ...visually, ...and we weren't finding ...very good tools out there, ...and at some point we just decided ...it would be worth the time ...to write our own little tool. But before they could set about creating an app ...to visualize waveforms, ...there was another challenge that needed to be addressed. We had, um, ...Linux computers that we were doing for development. I had a Mac laptop, ...and ...Roger's computer-music lab had Windows, ...so right away I knew

...I needed to figure out some solution. ...for building something cross-platform. So, right from the very beginning, ...Audacity was built to function ...on all the major operating systems, ...except it wasn't called 'Audacity' back then. At that point, it was called 'CMU Visual Audio'. ...and there would be a few other suggested names too, ...like: ...because it's cross-platform, ...because you can monkey with audio, ...and: ...because, ...um... ...before they finally landed on 'Audacity'. The city where Auda lives. And if you're interested, ...here are some of the original emails ...where these names were discussed: Roger's most important contribution to Audacity was: ...a programming language ...developed for sound synthesis, ...which provided a way to build plugins ...that extended Audacity's capability. Regarding the interface of Audacity, ...Dominic's instinct ...was to try and make it as simple as possible.

Then when I got to grad school, ...Roger had ...much fancier, uh, ...audio-mixing software ...in his computer-music lab. I found it really overwhelming at first, ...and what ...struck me initially is that ...there was all this power in this tool, ...but it was built for someone who had ...a background in a recording studio. It really wasn't ...designed for the average person ...who just wants to, uh, ...record their garage band ...or just edit together a- ...a- ...a mix of a couple of songs ...or something like that. And it wasn't long before ...Dominic began thinking of Audacity ...as something that could be useful ...to a wide range of users. And as the project broadened in scope, ...it came to consume more and more of his time. I ended up having more fun ...building software ...than doing research,

...spending way too much time. ...turning Audacity into. ...a fully functional editor. ...and ended up, uh. ...leaving grad school after a couple of years. ...realizing that. ...I enjoyed building software. ...more than I did doing peer research. After Dominic left Carnegie Mellon. ...he more or less. ...took the work on a. ...Audacity with him and. ...and did a tremendous amount of work. ...and recruited some really great people. Then, as the program grew. ...and became more popular. ...its logistical complexity increased. ...and different requirements emerged. ...that were taken on by newer contributors. Hello, I'm Paul Licameli. I started, uh. ...hanging around the Audacity forum. ...around 2013, and. ...learned a bit about Nyquist LISP programming. ...and, uh. ...wrote. ...a. ...de-clicker. ...that. ...many, uh, voice-over artists like to use.

A guy named Paul L. I don't know who Paul L. is, ...but he's- ...he's a pretty good guy. Uh... Thank you, Paul L., ...whoever you are and wherever you may be, ...for these two plugins. Anyway, ...I hung out on the development board. Afterward became a team member ...in 2015. Other contributors like Peter Sampson ...and Steve Daulton joined, ...and began helping with testing, ...which is really crucial for ...making sure the app performs reliably ...with very few crashes. Peter and Steve are also massively helpful ...when it comes to documentation ...and running the Audacity forum. I'm Steve, uh, I run the, uh, ...the Help forum ...with a lot of help from, uh, ...from other people, you know, ...who, uh, contribute ...to answering questions ...and ...helping- ...helping to get people going.

We pride ourselves on, ...really, being able to respond to people ...as quickly as possible, and to ...help them as much as we can. It's worth mentioning that Audacity ...does a better job of support and documentation ...than most other software companies, ...who often regard it ...as a far lower priority, ...but it's crucial for the success of any complex app. Some people see that as kind of a thankless task, ...like, they want to get building ...or they want to get designing, ...and they don't want to- ...don't want to deal with people. They don't want to write any notes about stuff. It seems like an incredible, uh, resource ...that you just sort of provided, ...and I assume you provided it for free as well? Oh, yeah, yeah. And, I guess, why did- Why did you do it, or what was the motivation? At the time, the project was, um,

...soliciting donations, ...and I was just about to retire, ...and I thought, I don't really want to actually send money. I've got time on my hands, ...and I'll actually offer time instead. I didn't imagine always being spending the ...amount of time that I have. I mean, this has turned out to be my, um, ...longest ever, uh, ...job in my career. Then there's the issue of building the infrastructure ...needed to handle millions of downloads, ...as well as security for their website and wiki page. When you're talking millions of users, ...these issues become very important. My name is, uh, Arturo Busleiman, ...and people call me 'Buanzo'. I'm Audacity's in- ...infrastructure, uh, guy, ...system administrator, ...security guy. When Dominic said that ...he was looking for a system administrator, ...I said, 'Hey, well, I have lots of'

...experience in that. So he said, 'Well, can you take care of, uh,' '...translation,' '...commits,' '...integrating strings' '...and things like that?' And that's another thing. Translations. This is a service that community members ...provide for Audacity for free, ...and it's a real superpower. Hold- Hold- Actually, hold on a second. What is that? 'Karaoke view'. What? Did you know there was a Karaoke feature in Audacity? Man, the stuff you find when you poke around. I guess that's another superpower I haven't mentioned. Random janky Easter eggs! Now, Audacity's success ...isn't just down to the fact that it's free. There are loads of free audio apps out there. Timing probably also played a part. When Audacity came out, ...it made up for a real gap. The Windows 98 audio recorder was,

...um, ...not what you'd call 'fully featured'. And when Mac moved from OS 9 to OS 10, ...there was a period where Audacity ...was the only audio editor supported on the platform. But that was a while ago, ...so why is it still so successful today? I think about that a lot, ...and it's ...a really good question because ...there's so many different ...dimensions and perspectives to- ...to think about. There's just, uh, ...just- you know, ...technical excellence and- ...and quality. Maybe audio editors are- ...are difficult to commercialise. I'm- I'm ...not sure but- ...but it may be that, uh, ...a lot of people are ...not using audio commercially, ...but- but doing ...side projects and things that they love, ...and so maybe ...they don't want to invest a lot of money, ...and that doesn't support a lot of commercial development.

It's community. We have a- a... ...wonderful community. If you- If you just take a- ...one visit through the forum, ...you're gonna notice ...uh, that it's almost self-sustaining. A lot of people with a lot of skills ...have all come together, ...and ...somehow it- it worked. It all worked really well, ...but I'm- I'm not sure any of us really ...fully understands it. What would be the most unusual use of Audacity that you've seen? It- There are some scientific uses of it. There are those who study ...the vocalizations of animals ...like, uh, ...bats ...and dolphins. I don't know if you've ever heard the- ...the- the sounds of crickets ...slowed down several octaves. You should look it up. They sound like ...howling dogs or monkeys. ['transposed' sound of a cricket]

I remember a- ...a user specifically asked ...for a feature that would reverse ...an audio track, like, play it backwards, ...and they were looking for subliminal messages ...from UFOs, ...and I- I just thought that was the- ...just- just the best. It's been used, ...I understand, ...also by seismologists ...studying, uh, ...the propagation of earthquake waves ...through the Earth's crust. It's been ...used by cardiologists ...to, um, ...study EKG output. The most unusual ...use of Audacity I've seen though ...was something called 'databending'. You trick Audacity to take an image file, ...misinterpret it as sound, ...apply an effect to it like echo, ...and then ...export the file again, ...and view ...how it morphed the image. So, as for my own involvement,

...taking on a program like Audacity ...is a gargantuan challenge. From working on two other creation apps ...with large audiences in the past, ...I've learned that there are ...rarely any easy wins. For example, it commonly happens ...that one group of users will clamor ...for an overhaul to a feature, ...only for another group to cry foul that ...that same thing should never change. Researchers and audio analysts ...will have different needs than musicians and podcasters, ...for example. Even the appearance of Audacity ...isn't so straightforward to change, ...despite most people seeming to agree ...that it could do with a lick of paint, ...but the devil's in the detail. Let's take the logo, for example. As a designer, ...my automatic instinct is to ...want to finesse and modernize it, ...but ...should that be done? We've had lots of people submitting, uh, ...suggestions for it,

...when we've always. ...somewhat resisted that. Logos are really hard to design, because. ...they carry a really. ...deep message. It's all. ...through, sort of. ...connotation. ...and- and graphics. I think it. ...it is important to. ...keep the. ...qualities of. ...open-source and community. ...and 'homegrown.' ...as opposed to some. ...real. ...you know. ...slick corporate look. It's got excellent brand recognition. I love it. I just love it. The thing is, ...this logo is iconic. Incredibly well-known. It might feel unpolished ...and homespun, ...but that quality itself ...also tells a story. Perhaps it can be finessed ...very subtly. I- I don't know. Actually, I was wondering if maybe... ...we could try something like. ...changing a pixel of the Audacity logo. ...every five days?

[laughs] I- I don't know. What do I say? Um... Do you want to try suggesting to BMW ...that they change their logo? [laughs] From time to time, ...people would... ...suggest a new logo, ...and we got contributions of ...new logos, ...and it was really hard to keep people civil, ...because people reacted so strongly ...whenever anyone did that. I- I- I think, ...you know, you can see ...one of the differences between ...a- an open-source project ...and, you know, a corporate project ...is... ...as being like, uh, ...you know, something that's ...made by craftsmen. They're lovingly made ...by hand, ...yeah, rather than something that's ...churned out by a machine. Um... [laughs] Have you seen the Audacity pumpkin? I have. Oh God, it's terrifying.

I carved that pumpkin. ['transposed' sound of a cricket] So, regarding the future of Audacity, ...I'm only just getting started. But, now that the cat's out of the bag, ...I'm going to be conducting interviews ...and setting up new spaces ...to engage with existing users ...to find out ...what kinds of things they'd like to see us build. For example, one thing we're currently working on ...is non-destructive stackable VST effects. There's also lots to do on ...straightforward UX, ...just making things easier to find and use. We're also looking at some ...fairly out-there experimental stuff too. I've... ...made a spectrogram ...in perspective view ...as a landscape, ...a three-dimensional landscape. It looked like something ...I could reach out ...and touch, ...but, like, when I saw the ...3D spectral-editing ...prototype that you built,

...the first thing that occurred to me was. ...you could manipulate that. ...with features that are a little bit like. ...3D-sculpting tools. ...like ZBrush. I don't know if you know that application. ...but basically. ...you use your mouse to move a pointer in 3D space. ...and you can sculpt around. ...a model. My fantasy project. ...for future Audacity. ...would be. ...a haptic spectral editor. I'm aware of gloves that have been developed for this. ...so that you can reach out and. ...feel, sort of, 3D models that are in space. ...that it gives you the right sort of haptic feedback. Imagine. ...not just having this modeling tool. ...but being able to actually use one of these gloves. ...to reach out and grab the spectrum. ...and kind of push it down manually. ...with your hand or something like that. That's the triple synesthesia.

...of sight. ...and sound. ...and touch. Another thing I should mention is that ...we're going to be publishing our designs ...so people can comment on them. The ability to work out in the open like this ...is a really amazing quality ...that open-source projects have ...which many other projects can't match. Keep an eye on our social media links, ...which I've put in the description. You can also check out my Twitter, ...where I'll occasionally be putting out ...calls for user testing and prototyping. And it's also worth mentioning that ...alongside our open-source community, ...Audacity is going to be hiring a few key positions ...for senior developers or designers ...who have experience in audio or music tech. Those links are also in the description. And as for this channel, ...it's business as usual. I may very occasionally speak about Audacity ...when I think there's something to say ...that will appeal to general audiences. Anyway, I'm off now to do some design work.

I gotta roll up my sleeves ...and bring into existence ...the fabled eighth magnifying glass ...we've all been waiting for.

The Story Behind Audacity

Scripts