> I don't know why Audacity remains so popular, it's way clunkier than the above
Presumably because it’s free, but I’m with you on the clunkiness. The UI looks very dated.
I can recommend OcenAudio, which is free though not open source, and for me offers just the right level of functionality in a clean user interface. It’s very similar to how I remember the old versions of Cool Edit pre-Pro, which I thought were amazing bits of software.
If the UI is clunky to use, that's something that needs to be fixed. If the UI works okay, but only looks dated, that's ... fine and there's every good reason to leave it as it is.
Why? Because altering the look of the UI is strongly coupled with altering the usability of the UI. This leads to regressions in usability, making the product "look better" but "work worse".
Leave things alone. I don't care if the UI looks like Motif or TCL or a TUI, but if it works in a smooth, intuitive and pleasing way, there's no reason to change it.
The VIM interface is the very definition of "extremely dated", and that's fine.
Yeah, I didn't just mean in looks though; e.g. Audition and Ocenaudio behave more like, e.g. a normal text box or other "editing space in a computer." Cutting/Pasting/Trimming etc are easier and more intuitive, with fewer clicks and less thinking about tracks and such.
I remember spending days at a time in Audacity and have no crash (talking over a decade). Now everytime I use it I find a new way to crash it and it didn't evolve that much (compared to things like Ardour that went really far in the last decade including in stability).
Presumably because it’s free, but I’m with you on the clunkiness. The UI looks very dated.
I can recommend OcenAudio, which is free though not open source, and for me offers just the right level of functionality in a clean user interface. It’s very similar to how I remember the old versions of Cool Edit pre-Pro, which I thought were amazing bits of software.