• Blastboom Strice@mander.xyz
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    9 months ago

    [Edit: indeed, its actually good that it’s 2gb]

    2gb plugin??!

    Btw, does it work with tenacity?

    • 9point6@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      AI models are often multiple gigabytes, tbh it’s a good sign that it’s not “AI” marketing bullshit (less of a risk with open source projects anyway). I’m pretty wary of “AI” audio software that’s only a few megabytes.

      • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        Tensorflowlite models are tiny, but they’re potentially as much an audio revolution as synthetizer were in the 70s. It’s hard to tell if that’s what we’re looking at here.

      • Neato@ttrpg.network
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        9 months ago

        Why are they that big? Is it more than code? How could you get to gigabytes of code?

        • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Currently, AI means Artificial Neural Network (ANN). That’s only one specific approach. What ANN boils down to is one huge system of equations.

          The file stores the parameters of these equations. It’s what’s called a matrix in math. A parameter is simply a number by which something is multiplied. Colloquially, such a file of parameters is called an AI model.

          2 GB is probably an AI model with 1 billion parameters with 16 bit precision. Precision is how many digits you have. The more digits you have, the more precise you can give a value.

          When people talk about training an AI, they mean finding the right parameters, so that the equations compute the right thing. The bigger the model, the smarter it can be.

          Does that answer the question? It’s probably missing a lot.

            • Aatube@kbin.social
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              9 months ago
              1. Specifying weights, biases and shape definitely makes a graph.
              2. IMO having a lot of more preferred and more deprecated routes is quite close to a flowchart except there’s a lot more routes. The principles of how these work is quite similar.
              • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago
                1. There are graph neural networks (meaning NNs that work on graphs), but I don’t think that’s what is used here.

                2. I do not understand what you mean by “routes”. I suspect that you have misunderstood something fundamental.

                • Aatube@kbin.social
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                  9 months ago
                  1. I’m not talking about that. What’s weights, biases and shape if not a graph?
                  2. By routes, I mean that the path of the graph doesn’t necessarily converge and that it is often more tree-like.
        • ඞmir@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          They’re composed of many big matrices, which scale quadratically in size. A 32x32 matrix is 4x the size of a 16x16 matrix.

        • 9point6@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          The current wave of AI is around Large Language Models or LLMs. These are basically the result of a metric fuckton of calculation results generated from running a load of input data in, in different ways. Given these are often the result of things like text, pictures or audio that have been distilled down into numbers, you can imagine we’re talking a lot of data.

          (This is massively simplified, by someone who doesn’t entirely understand it themselves)

    • Fisch@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      2gb is pretty normal for an AI model. I have some small LLM models on my PC and they’re about 7-10gb big. The big ones take up even more space.

        • m-p{3}A
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          9 months ago

          Isn’t the telemetry in Audacity opt-in anyway?

          • Fisch@lemmy.ml
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            9 months ago

            The fork was created when Audacity was bought and one of the first things the new developers were about to do was add opt-out telemetry. People didn’t like that at all. From what I read in this thread, they ended up adding opt-in telemetry instead.

  • wewbull@feddit.uk
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    9 months ago

    I thought audacity was tarnished with spyware or something these days. Is it safe again?

    • xor@infosec.pub
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      9 months ago

      after looking into it:
      it’s not and it never was.
      a) it’s open source, so nobody’s putting that shit in there without getting caught
      b) it had an opt-in error reporting feature that would send data back… that was the entire thing…

      • drislands@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        What? You must be joking. Really? The entire thing was about opt-in error reporting?

        … seriously, that can’t be it, can it?

        • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Not really that simple, it was an apparent change to the privacy policy that vaguely anticipated collection of arbitrary user data, which shook the confidence of the open source community on the project. The fact this happened right after audacity was sold was the cherry on top.

          https://github.com/audacity/audacity/issues/1213

          Changes were eventually reverted or revised.

          • doctorcrimson@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Were they reverted? I’ll have to check later, but an official statement from Muse Group stated they provided the data they collected to third parties so idk. If the telemetry is still there then I’m not downloading it, Open Source projects generally don’t need telemetry to begin with.

        • xor@infosec.pub
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          9 months ago

          yep… really just that…

          i’ve used it forever with a very restrictive firewall and i’ve never seen it do anything unexpected… or any phoning home at all…

        • doctorcrimson@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          in 2021 Audacity was acquired by a company called MuseGroup who added unnecessary telemetry and they admit that they do provide the data the collect to third parties. It’s spyware as far as I’m concerned.

            • doctorcrimson@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              If it was truly opt in, then why did the community feel the need to create forks removing the telemetry? Plus, a lot of FOSS don’t need telemetry to start with. They get tons of voluntary high quality feedback without automated collection.

          • Klear@sh.itjust.works
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            9 months ago

            I’ve read this exact or very similar comment from you for the fourth time at least. You’re a spambot as far as I’m concerned.

      • books@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Point a has always me me wonder, is that accurate? Are there actually people going through the code to make sure open source isn’t malicious? I can barely read my coworkers code… Let alone a strangers.

        • xor@infosec.pub
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          9 months ago

          people are definitely going through the code on a project as popular as audacity…
          less well known stuff is much less scrutinized, of course

        • aidan@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Its way less work than going through the code to check for telemetry unless it is an intentionally hidden attack- just use Wireshark and check if there is network traffic other than checking for an update on program start.

        • lemmeee@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          If a project is popular people will make changes to it every day. But you can look at the repo and judge for yourself.

      • doctorcrimson@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        That’s not entirely true, Audacity was acquired by a company called MuseGroup who added unnecessary telemetry and they admit that they do provide the data the collect to third parties. It’s spyware as far as I’m concerned.

    • InfiniWheel@lemmy.one
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      9 months ago

      It was a pull request to add opt-out analytics that got blown out of proportion, where the real issue was the EULA and how tonedeaf of a move it was considering the community around Audacity. IIRC, they ended up replacing it with opt-in analytics.

  • sapetoku@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    I’ve been using the OpenVINO plugins for a few weeks and it’s genuinely impressive. Noise cancelling is one thing, but the transcription tool is amazing. I can create subtitles from conference recordings in minutes and create transcripts of recorded zoom calls, etc. and it does it for multiple languages.

    That’s the kind of shit I like using AI for.

  • edric@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    The music separation and speech transcription plug-ins actually sound nice. Obviously that will depend on how reliable they actually are.

    • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I just tried the OpenVINO transcription on a random speech-over-music mp3 I happened to have: it works great, FAR better quality than I expected (I think I was expecting Youtube quality, but this is much cleaner and clearer). Perfect capitalization, good sentence breaks, adequate punctuation (commas, periods, question marks).

      Only problem is that I can’t figure out how to copy the transcription so I can paste it outside Audacity: the transcriptions show up attached to specific portions of sound, like track labels. While it will save me the trouble of having to actually transcribe audio manually, to get them out of Audacity and into a word processor it looks like I may still be stuck copying each “label” individually unless I can find a way to copy or export them.

      EDITED TO ADD: I just answered my own question, lol. File -> Export Other -> Export Labels -> .txt file

  • Agent641@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I read “Audacity ads” and thought for a moment they had gone to the dark side

    • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      We already had a scare with them, but turns out it was very unfair overreaction to the project.

      In this case I’m happy as long as it’s hardware platform independent and uses open source released models.

      AI music art has been for a long time in the hands of industry moguls and us peasants have had nothing. So I’m happy with anything that puts this power in the hands of the everyman.

      • doctorcrimson@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Was it unfair? I haven’t been following since they got bought out by spyware?

        EDIT: Audacity was acquired by a company called MuseGroup in 2021 who added unnecessary telemetry and they admit that they do provide the data the collect to third parties. Some claim the changes were reverted but I haven’t confirmed that myself so until I see there is no telemetry it’s spyware as far as I’m concerned.

  • AcidOctopus@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    I’m sure I used to use Audacity back in the day as a free, quick and dirty editor to splice up audio tracks. I’m talking at least 10 years ago.

    Had no idea it was still even a thing.

    • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It’s honestly pretty much the industry standard for indie creators. There’s nothing super flashy about it, it just does its job very well.

      This along with 7-zip and OBS and the like have been pretty impressive success stories for FOSS, even if most of their users don’t even know what that means.

  • Holzkohlen@feddit.de
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    9 months ago

    …and Audacity for Windows 64-bit is required to run these plugins.

    Useless.

    • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      On lemme I’m often reminded of the vegan joke:

      How do you tell if someone is a Linux user? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.

  • tabular@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Was the training data ethically sourced (for music generation)?

    How do music creators feel about their work potentially being regenerated and used in other’s works?

      • tabular@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I could almost agree but I think there is value in copyleft: a hack of copyright to ensure users have some of the rights copyright denies when you get a copy/derivative work from another.

        With no copyright it’s great that you won’t be sued if you share software but in practice a mere binary isn’t enough (reverse engineering is impractical). We need the source code to be able to change it (or understand what it’s even doing). I won’t support removing all copyright law without a solution.

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        9 months ago

        Getting permission to copy each music work for use in training data may be ethically important while the creators are dependant on income from that work to survive, or just as a social contract.

        • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          The capitalist mindset really is a weird one, rent seeking is out of control. We’re talking about a tool that allows independent creators and hobby users to improve the quality of their projects but all you can think about is the possibility of getting a couple of dollars in royalties.

          Regular users being able to use advanced noise reduction allows regular people to better compete with corporations, it’s the sort of technology which can help displace the monopolies which rule the world. But you’re against it because they didn’t give you 6 cents for listening to your cover version of country roads

          • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Completely agree, but one thing:

            help displace the monopolies

            These monopolies are a social/legal problem. It can’t be solved with technology. The increased FTC action in the US under the Biden administration are really a hopeful sign.

            I am worried about the number of people who want to go in the opposite direction, which “ethically sourced” is simply code for.

          • tabular@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Consider there is nuance here. I write code and want people to use it but only if they follow the license that means they must share it with others. I liked the idea of AI creating art for me until I considered the tool’s method of creation and the negative effect taking from artists may have.

            I suggest supporting independent creators directly instead.

        • kuneho@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          you are saying this like the music indistry weren’t about resampling/remixing/rethinking existing songs/melodies/phrases already. it always was. and that’s fine! people always gets down to the source if they hear something fancy.

          • tabular@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            I can’t image people always get to the source, my understanding is most music does not have attribution of significant portions copied.

            • kuneho@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              I can’t imagine…

              well yeah, there’s a lot of things I can’t imagine either, the world is a strange place

    • summerof69@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      How do music creators feel about their work potentially being regenerated and used in other’s works?

      They can always discuss that with their psychologists! :)

  • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    Audacity just doesn’t seem worth the trouble after discovering Reaper and how powerful it is for only $60.

    • OpenHammer6677@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I’m a sound engineer and I use different DAWs for different purposes. There’s just no one DAW that does all, so this is a compromise I’m happy to go with.

      When I do podcast editing, I use Audacity to split multi-track WAV files and for truncating silence. It’s just waaaay easier to do this there than on Reaper. Plus it has a loopback recording feature built-in which I use for Zoom meeting recordings etc.

      I use Pro Tools for audio post, but for most of what I do I’m a Reaper guy. It’s very powerful as you said and it just works.

      I know it can be a hassle switching DAWs (muscle memory on shortcuts can get weird), but for me, I like making the most of the strengths of a tool rather than forcing something to do everything.

      • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        That’s awesome!

        I learned DAWs with ProTools back around 2006 in college. Dropped out because I didn’t want to enter a competitive trade where my best opportunities were moving out of state.

        Got sucked into another industry and haven’t touched much audio for the past decade. Getting back into it now and started on Audacity but the 2021 buyout had me confused where to land with the Tenacity split. the good/bad of open source I suppose but as a user being in the middle of a split was frustrating and detracting from recording. Finding out about Reaper and talking to people leaving ProTools behind even within the industry was just what I needed when I needed it.

        My daughter (11yo) is now getting into DAWs as her current goal is to score an internship at KEXP, being able to share with her all the stuff I learned in school has been so much fun.

    • Takapapatapaka@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I see what you mean, in your case as well as mine, Reaper is far more powerful and so far more adequate to our needs But people do not always search for powerful software. Sometimes they only want something easy to learn, with only basic tasks but well performed and entirely free. When you have these requirements, Audacity is better

      • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
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        Audacity is a great learning tool for intro absolutely! When you’re just dipping your toes into recording and editing, free and $60 is a huge difference.

        I feel like users that are going to be using any of the features of this plug-in, they’re probably at the point that going to Reaper makes sense.

        • Lexi Sneptaur@pawb.social
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          9 months ago

          AI, like cloud computing, is just a layman’s term for something else. You will not be able to stem the tide of language changing. It just means machine learning now. Just like how cloud computing is just a term for computing in a k8s cluster in someone’s data center.

          • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Neural nets have been a part of AI ever since the term was coined 70 years ago. The one thing one could complain about is that the term may be narrowing to that specific approach.

            Strictly, neural nets are a specific kind of ML and ML is a specific kind of AI. The term AI seems to have gone out of fashion in academia, though.

        • simple@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          noise suppression and speech transcription are anything but useless…

        • Aatube@kbin.social
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          9 months ago

          This is Intel’s plug-in, with otherwise no relation to Audacity. Plus, as long as they don’t bundle it, I don’t see a problem with it.

          • Aatube@kbin.social
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            9 months ago

            I never understood the opposition to anonymized telemetry. While adding an entire network stack for it is certainly quite atrocious, there’s no problem with the principle I can see.

            • Bizarroland@kbin.social
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              9 months ago

              Some people prefer to not have their every action watched and observed by some anonymous Big brother.

              The people who do not get that are the people who profit from the watching, and the people that are, best case, inconsiderate of the desires and feelings of other people.

              It is not normal nor is it natural to claim ownership of other people’s activity.

              It is normal and natural to wish to exist without being observed. Privacy is a fundamental human right and companies are taking advantage of the fact that it is not legally enforced.

              Hopefully the laws will catch up and make it so that each and every individual opportunity to directly observe a person must be explicitly approved beforehand with a set time limit on the observation, and that all telemetry must be made publically available and transparent, not only during the original acquisition of data but also in each and every single usage of that data after the fact.

              It is only fair after all that should accompany wish to observe you that they must also be equally observed.

              • Aatube@kbin.social
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                But if you anonymize the data, does it really mean someone has their every action watched in a harmful way?

              • Emily (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                9 months ago

                This is an odd place to grand stand. I’m glad you have ideals, but the fact is Audacity was looking to gather industry standard telemetry data (basic system information and crashes) as an opt-in system. This information is extremely important in fixing bugs and prioritising developer resources.

                • Bizarroland@kbin.social
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                  9 months ago

                  And I could see the forest a whole lot better if all these trees weren’t in the way.

                  It’s not that one person is doing it it’s that everyone is doing it.

                  The only way to stop everyone from doing it is to stop everyone from doing it.