Perhaps it is outdated (2007, Windows 98, XP, Vista). I guess you'll have to look for a more modern substitute.

Nice! I use Audacity to record my demos! Very user friendly. So far, Audacity does NOT support VSTi (VST instruments)...only FX plugins. However, you can download a free VST host application. Essentially it's just a hub for you to load your VST plugins without a DAW. Google VST host. And look up VSTi vs VST3 to familiarize yourself with plugin types. Hope this helps!

Despite the name, Audacity's "real-time" effects only work in post-production, not on live performances.

Use Reaper instead of Audacity. You can add effects/monitore audio while you're recording.

Audacity is primarily a postproduction tool and is known to be weak with actual live recordings, and its VST support is extremely limited. If you're just looking for free and open-source live recording software, I'd actually recommend OBS. OBS fully supports up to the VST 2 standard, and can perfectly load all of the ReaPlugs, including ReaEQ, which allows you to watch the spectrum in real-time while you're adjusting it. ReaPlugs is entirely free and made available by the developers of Reaper, which is also an excellent DAW and one which you may also consider using for recording and/or postproduction. And while OBS is most commonly associated with video, it will only record audio if that's the only source you give it.

For high quality speech recording, the only effects I use are:

1. limiter/compressor, just to avoid excessive peaks.

2. Amplification / normalisation / loudness normalisation, to achieve the desired level.

If you start with a good, clean recording, then nothing else should be necessary.

Other effects such as EQ, Noise Gate, Noise Reduction, ... can be useful for correcting or mitigating problems in the original audio. This should only be done on a case by case basis, and only if necessary.

In general, my advice is to use as little processing as possible with speech recordings. "Over processing" is one of the most common errors for beginners.

I bought Clear by SuperTone. It is fantastic at removing room noise without affecting your audio. I wash shocked when I tried the demo...ended up buying it, and it was a great purchase.

EQ out everything below 250 Hz or even 330 Hz if you can get away with it. EQ out everything above 11,000 Hz.

Then limit to where your signal is hitting the limiter 50% of the time.

You don’t need any fancy plug ins.

Audacity has a single-band compressor. The results with a multi-band compressor are more professional sounding, you can also de-ess with it. The free version of Auburn Sound.s LENS plugin has 32-bands when turned to max, (but you don't need that many for speech, 32 will use a lot of CPU). The free version of TDR Nova is another multi-band compressor (only 4 bands max).

Check with ChatGPT. Has been a big help for me.

The recording volume in the Tool Bar, the microphone icon, if the slider is at zero, you are muted. Happened to me once.

it's been a while but last time i did it, it was something like...

• Audacity will have a plugin folder possible in the appdata
• You need to extract a dll out of the zip file you download and the move the dll file into the audacity plugin folder
• Reload audacity

Check out these instructions. You need to place the plugins in a different folder than other Audacity plugins, as detailed in the link.

It’s not a plug-in, but we use a free program called Levelator. You just drag and drop your raw .wav file into it and it spits out a levelled version of it that sounds great. I know you said you’re lazy. We’re lazy too and this is easy as pie for us.

Adobe Podcast's enhance is an AI model. It's not open source, and even if it were, you'd probably need some serious hardware to run it locally.

Is the adobe tool free to download and use or is it subscription? Thanks for sharing.

Some plugins just doesn't play well with new versions of audacity(3.0 or later), try with audacity 2.4.2

have you fixed this yet, im getting this problem

Depends on the music you (want to) make, I guess, but I just got the PaulStretch VST for my Ableton sessions, which I know from Audacity as pre-installed. Magical for Ambient, Sound Designing and installation-inspired work

Reaper would be a great upgrade. It’s “free” in the sense that you get a trial which just gives you a pop up at the beginning. There are tons of free vst plugins to use with it. Audacity is extremely limited and not really a full daw

Bandlab Cakewalk. free for windows. Been using cakewalk since it was SONAR. Over 15 years. The stock plugins are real good and you can use any 3rd party. I haven't come across anything you can't do with cakewalk.

Tracktion's Waveform works pretty well for me as a DAW.