Anyone using Audacity?

I'm just wondering, as far as freeware goes, because I'm pleased with it so far. I had a 90 minute concert recording I wanted to break up into separate tracks and was totally able to do it in a matter of a couple of hours.

Any of you more technically literate-minded folk care to comment on what its peaks and limitations are? I'm more interested in what else I can do with it or other things I should try with it... and of course anything else you care to say about it, too.

Perks - good sound, low requirements, clean interface

Cons - no real-time plugins, not really anything more than a quickie tool imo.

I think Audacity's a fantastic tool. I've used it in conjunction with Cubase to edit a bunch of files for an elctroacoustic work (I found it was easier to cut and splice in Audacity, then I transferred the files over to Cubase, but that may just be because I'm a beginner when it comes to Cubase). Audacity is simple and easy to understand, great for a no frills recording, and has some sweet options for a free program (I like the noise removal, when used carefully, reversal, and amplify effects). Just my two bits.

Any thoughts on how I could maximize my output with Finale/GPO rendering/recording using Audacity, or is it mainly for cutting/splicing audio tracks?

I use audacity all the time to do some quick copy/paste/record stuff, it's pretty handy and lightweight. Only issue is it doesn't handle big projects so well.

Does it handle mixing (at all) or any better than the GPO studio with Finale? As in, would it be at all worth it to try and use Audacity for mixing INSTEAD of rendering through Finale, or would that just be too much effort for too little gain?

Audacity "totally blows" in my opinion. I've never found it that good, but then again I guess its not all that bad as far as freeware goes.

Does it handle mixing (at all) or any better than the GPO studio with Finale? As in, would it be at all worth it to try and use Audacity for mixing INSTEAD of rendering through Finale, or would that just be too much effort for too little gain?

Well I don't think it's robust enough, thought for splicing tracks together and so on it may be fine, doing mastering or anything more complicated on it isn't recommendable. I'd much rather use cubase or something designed for those functions.

Well I don't think it's robust enough, thought for splicing tracks together and so on it may be fine, doing mastering or anything more complicated on it isn't recommendable. I'd much rather use cubase or something designed for those functions.

We actually went through a brief tutorial on using Audacity today, which was AWESOME, I might add.

We're doing a Major Fieldwork Project in my Ethnomusicology class and preparing a 20-25 minute presentation about our research topic. The audio editing is only half of what I'll be doing since my topic will likely require a complement of audio and video editing. I'm stoked about this, as it will be good 'journalistic' experience in music.

But after the tutorial, I understand what you're talking about. The program just takes the audio file and lets you edit it to add things like fade in/fade out as well as a variety of other neat effects. For creating a demo reel or something where you have a bigger track of music, it lets you do stuff like fade in an important section you want to use to show your compositional strengths and so on. So, I see it definitely having its uses.

I tried using Audacity once - I couldn't make heads or tails out of it. Then I found REAPER and it's a godsend. I suggest trying it out - it's freeware as well. Opensource.

REAPER isn't free, well, not anymore at least. It's 30 days trail and then $60 non commercial, $225 commercial. Apparently, it doesn't expire, but then it's equivalent to cracking Cubase....

Anyway, I always use Audacity for the final mastering of my projects, and I've found it pretty good. It's intuitive, easy to use, and comparitively bug free. However, I haven't tried really big projects before, so I dunno, I'll find out sooner or later.