Editing Audacity (audio editor) (section)

=== Non-destructive editing ===
Historically, Audacity is a destructive editor, meaning all changes are directly applied to the waveform. This comes with certain benefits but means that any change made cannot be tweaked later on without undoing all changes in-between. For a long time, non-destructive editing was exclusive to volume [[Envelope (music)|envelopes]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Audacity's Envelope Tool |url=https://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/envelope_tool.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160416210823/http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/envelope_tool.html |archive-date=April 16, 2016 |access-date=January 4, 2020 |publisher=Audacityteam.org}}</ref> and playback rates, but since version 3, this has been extended to clip trimming<ref>{{cite web |title=Smart Clips |url=https://alphamanual.audacityteam.org/man/Audacity_Tracks_and_Clips#smart |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221101161635/https://alphamanual.audacityteam.org/man/Audacity_Tracks_and_Clips#smart |archive-date=November 1, 2022 |access-date=November 1, 2022 |publisher=Audacityteam.org}}</ref> and effects.<ref>{{cite web |title=Using realtime effects |url=https://support.audacityteam.org/audio-editing/using-realtime-effects |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220923143348/https://support.audacityteam.org/audio-editing/using-realtime-effects |archive-date=September 23, 2022 |access-date=September 23, 2022 |publisher=Audacityteam.org}}</ref>