🆕Using master effects & realtime effects

Adding effects to a track

You can add realtime effects using the following steps:

1 Click the Effects button or press the E key to activate the realtime effects panel

2 Click Add effect to display the list of available effects

3 Select the effect to add to your track

4 You can toggle the state of the effect if necessary

Note: Realtime effects always apply to an entire track. Since they're calculated realtime, they won't change the source waveform.

Adding effects to all tracks (Master effects)

To add master effects, first open the realtime effects panel (Shortcut: E). At the bottom of the panel, you'll find a Master Effects section.

Master effects are effects which are applied to the master mix (that is, after all the individual tracks in the project are mixed together, with any per-track realtime effects as well as gain and pan faders applied).

Tips & Tricks:

• For music, use a little reverb on the master to make the project sound a little less "dry".

• You can put a limiter on the master to prevent clipping. Limiters do distort the audio a little, but not as badly as clipping would.

• You can adjust the loudness of your entire mix in this stage and do other tweaks to make the audio sound better - this is called "mastering".

Changing effect settings

You can change the effect settings by clicking on the effect's name. This will open a settings window, often with a graphical interface which looks nothing like Audacity itself. You still can interact with the main Audacity window while the effect settings are open.

Bypassing an effect

You can press the blue power button next to an effect (or the entire effects stack) to bypass it, causing it to be not applied to your audio.

Tip: If you want to completely remove an effect from the stack, press the triangle next to the effect name and select "No Effect".

Applying an effect stack to the waveform

It generally is not necessary to apply the effect stack. The stack is automatically applied when exporting the audio.

That said, you can apply the effect stack to the waveform by first selecting the track and then going to Tracks > Mix > Mix and Render.

Caution: When selecting several tracks at once, the Mix and Render option will mix all tracks together.

Master effects are only rendered when exporting the file.

Getting more effects

While Audacity doesn't yet ship with many realtime effects, you can download plugins for it. Currently supported plugin formats are Audio Units (macOS only), VST3, VST, LV2, and LADSPA. You can get many of these effects via the Muse Hub, and we have collected some plugins at plugins.audacityteam.org. Once you install the plugins, they should be detected by Audacity once you restart it, if not, see the installation instructions.