Effect Menu
To apply an effect, select part or all of the track(s) you want to modify, and select the effect from the menu. Titles which end in an ellipsis (...) will bring up a dialog asking you for more parameters.
All effects that have a dialog let you hear the audio as modified by the effect before you apply the effect to the waveform.
- Built-in effects, Nyquist plug-ins included in Audacity and other Nyquist plug-ins have a Preview button - press this to listen if the current effect settings produce what you want, and if not, change the settings then Preview again. Press to apply the effect to the waveform.
- All other effect types supported in Audacity (LADSPA, LV2, VST and Audio Units for Mac) support real-time preview - you can change the effect settings while listening then press to apply the effect to the waveform.
- Gale you were looking at an old version. You needed to do SHIFT-F5 to force a refresh. You'd then have got the short version. I assumed though you prefer the fuller version on this page, so updated the image map.
- Peter 19Apr17: I strongly think that all we need here is the short left hand bit of the image - there is no need to string this out with the Audacity built-in effects listed. That would save a lot more "page length" - plus we already have thsi image on Effect Menu: Audacity so to have it here too is unnecessarily repetitious.
- Click, or hover, on any menu item in the image to read about that command. Skip the image
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When playing, recording or paused, effects in the Effect menu that do not support real-time preview will appear grayed out. Press the yellow Stop  button to access these types of effect.
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Contents
- Nyquist effect plug-ins
- LADSPA effect plug-ins
- LV2 effect plug-ins
- VST effect plug-ins
- Audio Unit plug-ins (Mac only)
Add / Remove Plug-ins...
Selecting this option from the Effect Menu (or the Generate Menu or Analyze Menu) takes you to a dialog which enables you to load and unload Effects (and Generators and Analyzers) from Audacity. This enables you to customize your Effect Menu making it shorter or longer as required. For details see Add / Remove Effects, Generators and Analyzers.
By default all the Built-in effects, with the exception of Classic Filters, are loaded in Audacity.
- Installing Effect, Generator and Analyzer plug-ins on Windows
- Installing Effect, Generator and Analyzer plug-ins on Mac
- Installing Effect, Generator and Analyzer plug-ins on Linux
See also this list of available Nyquist effect plug-ins on the Audacity Wiki, that you can easily download and add to Audacity.
Repeat Last Effect Ctrl+R
Find out more about the 'Audacity' submenu for built-in effects here.
Find out more about the 'Nyquist' submenu for plug-in effects here.
Find out more about the 'LADSPA' submenu for plug-in effects here.
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Effects of the following LV2, VST and Audio Unit (Mac only) classes are always third-party plug-ins added by the user (and also by the operating system in case of Audio Units). |
LV2 effects
LV2 effects support real-time preview. They do not support import/export of presets but do support saving presets for use in Audacity only.
Most LV2 effects that have a graphical interface will show that interface by default in Audacity. Some LV2 effects do not allow directly embedding their interface into our effect dialog, so those effects will only show a textual interface in Audacity.
Some LV2 effects require features that are not yet supported in Audacity, so display an error message when applying the effect.
LV2 is a more advanced evolution of the LADSPA plug-in architecture. Note that LV2 effects in Audacity cannot yet display a full graphical interface.
Installing LV2 effects
For detailed instructions on installing VST plug-ins for Audacity see: Windows, Mac or Linux
VST effects
VST effects support real-time preview.
VST effects support import/export of presets (where the particular effect supports this) and support saving presets for use in Audacity only.
Adding a new VST effect in Audacity
A wide range of VST effects can be obtained online. VST instruments are not supported. 64-bit VST effects are not supported on Windows or Mac even on 64-bit systems. Conversely on Linux 64-bit systems, only 64-bit VST's are supported.
To add a new VST effect most easily on Windows, put its DLL file into the "Plug-Ins" folder where you have Audacity installed. On Mac, the easiest folder to put the plug-in's VST file in is ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/Plug-Ins. Then use to enable the VST effects and load them into Audacity, For details see Manage Effects.
For detailed instructions on installing VST plug-ins for Audacity see: Windows, Mac or Linux.
Saving, Exporting and Importing VST Effect Presets
Save As...
To save the current effect settings as a User Preset, select Save As... from the Manage menu 
in the effect dialog which brings up the following dialog:
Type a name for the preset then click after which the saved preset will appear in the "User Presets" list in the Manage menu.
Export...
Presets for VST effects are exported to a file. A presets file lets you move settings for a particular effect between computers on any operating platform that supports that effect.
Select Export... from the Manage menu in the effect dialog to bring up the "Save VST Preset As:" dialog
Be sure to choose a file type in the “Save as type:” dropdown menu (“Format” dropdown menu on Mac)
Type a name for the file in the "File Name" box ("Save As:" box on Mac) then click to export the current effect settings to a separate file.
The following file formats are supported:
- XML format: The default choice, which saves an Audacity VST preset file. This is the least flexible choice, mainly useful for the small number of effects that do not support FXP presets. Most other VST host applications do not support XML, so you may only be able to share XML presets between other computers running Audacity.
- FXP format: Saves a standard VST application file, which is the most portable choice. It allows you to save the currently visible settings. The saved preset can then be loaded by the same effect running in Audacity or most other VST host applications, on any computer or operating platform it supports. Similarly FXP presets saved by a given effect in any VST host on any computer can be loaded into that effect in Audacity.
- FXB format: Saves a standard VST bank file, containing the current settings of all the factory presets for the effect. The saved "bank" of factory presets at your favorite settings can then be loaded by the same effect running in Audacity or any other VST host application supporting FXB presets, on any computer or operating platform it supports. Similarly an FXB bank saved by a given effect in any VST host on any computer can be loaded into that effect in Audacity.
By default presets are saved to the same location as the audacity.cfg file, but you can choose to save them anywhere. Since there is no distinction between preset files saved by different effects you may want to create a folder for each effect you save presets for, or include the effect name in the file name.
- Peter 10Feb15: I agree, this advice note makes no sense to me either. Accordingly I have commented it out, removed the P1 - but left a P2 as a placeholder.
- Gale 10Feb15: Same on Mac and Linux - the file name box in the export dialog is empty. Nor does the XML file itself contain the preset name in its text. I "think" what is being said is that the FXP and FXB files contain the internal preset name(s) and that these internal names "may" show in the VST effect itself if the effect supports a separate list of presets in its own GUI. I cannot find a way yet to get duplicate internal names in Manage menu > Factory Presets. I agree this may be a good tip but it is too confusing to publish it at the moment.
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Tip when exporting VST presets The exported VST preset file will contain the name of the preset. If you started with a named User or Factory Preset you may want to Save the settings with a unique name as a User Preset. This way, when you or someone else Imports the preset file they will not have duplicate preset names. |
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On Mac and Linux please take note:
Gale 10Aug14: ToDo-2P Placeholder to watch this and remove this note if the bug is fixed.
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Import...
Select Import... from the Manage menu in the effect dialog to bring up the "Load VST Preset:" dialog
Navigate to the place where you exported a VST preset file.
Click the open button to load the settings.
Depending on how the particular VST effect handles importing presets, the imported preset may show up in the User Presets submenu, the Factory Presets submenu or may not show up at all.
VST Effect Options
In the effect's dialog, click the Manage button then choose Options... 
to bring up the dialog illustrated below. When you change the options in this dialog, the changes apply only to the current effect that's open. All other VST effects will remain at the default options shown below until you change their options.
- Buffer Size: Controls the number of samples sent to the effect in each round of processing. The default buffer size of 8192 should be safe for all VST effects. You can set a higher value which will allow faster processing but some effects may not work at higher values. Changing the buffer size is effective immediately.
- Latency Compensation: This setting (enabled by default) compensates for waveform delay caused by VST effects which preload audio data to a buffer. Compensation may not work in all cases, and for it to work, any compensation or latency reporting settings in the effect itself must be enabled. If compensation fails or if this Audacity setting is unchecked, effects that buffer audio will insert silence at the start of the processed selection and remove a corresponding amount of audio from the end of the selection. Therefore leave this option checked unless a particular VST does not work even after reducing the buffer size, in which case you can experiment by unchecking this option. Enabling or disabling compensation is effective immediately.
- Graphical Mode: This setting (enabled by default) allows most VST effects to display a graphical (instead of a plain text) interface. If you change this setting you must close the settings dialog, then close and reopen the effect to see the change.
Audio Unit effects
Audio Units (AU) are a system-level plug-in architecture provided on Mac computers.
Audio Unit effects support real-time preview.
Audio Unit effects support import/export of presets (see the description below of how it works) and support saving presets for use in Audacity only.
Adding Audio Unit effects
For detailed instructions on installing Audio Unit plug-ins for Audacity see: Installing Effect, Generator and Analyzer plug-ins on Mac OS X/macOS.
Saving, Exporting and Importing Audio Unit Effect Presets
Save As...
To save the current effect settings as a User Preset, select from the Manage menu in the effect dialog which brings up the following dialog:
Type a name for the preset then click after which the saved preset will appear in the "User Presets" list in the Manage menu.
Export...
Before you can export a preset you must already have saved it as a User Preset.
Each preset for Audio Unit effects is exported to a separate ".aupreset " file at /Users/<yourUserName>/Library/Audio/Presets/Apple/<effectName>/. A presets file lets you move settings for a particular effect between computers.
To export a saved User Preset, select from the Manage menu
in the effect dialog which brings up the following dialog:
Select the user preset(s) you want to export then click to export each selected preset to a file. If there is only one preset in the list you must still select it, or nothing will be exported.
Import...
Select from the Manage menu in the effect dialog which brings up the following dialog:
Select the preset(s) you want to import then click to import each preset file as a User Preset.
Importing one or more presets does not load new settings into the effect. You must select one of the imported presets from in the Manage menu
to load its settings into the effect.
Audio Unit Effect Options
In the effect's dialog, click the Manage button then choose Options... to bring up the dialog illustrated below. When you change the options in this dialog, the changes apply only to the current effect that's open. All other Audio Unit effects will remain at the default options shown below until you change their options.
- Latency Compensation: This setting (enabled by default) compensates for waveform delay caused by Audio Unit effects which preload audio data to a buffer. Compensation may not work in all cases, and for it to work, any compensation or latency reporting settings in the effect itself must be enabled. If compensation fails or if this Audacity setting is unchecked, effects that buffer audio will insert silence at the start of the processed selection and remove a corresponding amount of audio from the end of the selection. Enabling or disabling compensation is effective immediately.
- User Interface: The "Full" setting, enabled by default, allows most Audio Unit effects to display a graphical (instead of a plain text) interface. If you change this setting you must close the settings dialog, then close and reopen the effect to see the change.
