It's always tease, tease, tease... -ACID Product Family

ACID Product Family

Subject:It's always tease, tease, tease... Posted by: dlcham Date:8/15/2002 9:46:13 PM Enough already! I got the slick SOFO catlog in the mail today, extolling the virtues of version 4...so I ran to my computer, logged into the website and...what?!! No release announcement? They really had me going there; I feel so, so...used! (Hear that? They're laughing up in Madison.) WHEN IS THIS THING GOING TO SHIP??????
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: anon Date:8/15/2002 10:43:41 PM Patience, Patience.... I won't deny that the first thing I have been doing every morning is checking my e-mail to see if there's one that says: Acid 4.0 upgrade now available $99(I hope). But it will be soon. All signs seem to point towards a release before the end of the month. Anyways, I would rather wait a little longer and let them sort the bugs out instead of having to wait for an update.
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Jessariah Date:8/15/2002 11:40:33 PM Remember, our pal Maruuk announced that they were burning the midnight oil to give you MIDI quantizing...I don't think they're holding out so much as scrambling to pack as much in as possible... I agree -- the features announcement OVER TWO WEEKS AGO leaves us all chomping at the bit. But SoFo knows what they're doing (which is why they make up 3/4s of my audio/video arsenal...). Quite frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if they aren't holding back a little longer, trying to implement Rewire (I have NO inside information -- just pure speculation). I just think this company ultimately tries to take care of the majority of it's supporters -- which is why we may be waiting a little bit longer for something better...
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: dlcham Date:8/16/2002 7:07:17 AM Thanks for the support, brothers. I think I'll be OK now.
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Maruuk Date:8/16/2002 1:56:19 PM Yeah, they are definitely scrambling a bit here. The last minute quantizing speaks of coders called on the carpet, forced to work weekends, unhappy product managers, various po'd suits. But that's standard in the industry, and lateness is a given. If they are going to give us some aggressive bennies as promised, it's because the marketing dept. thinks they need it to be competitive--4.0 is not a slam dunk by any means. Just like the huge rebates and 0% financing on most cars now--they don't do it to be nice guys, they do it because they know they won't get the sales numbers they need without the goodies. SOFO is in a very real struggle for brand loyalty right now. If N% of current Acid users drift over to the feature-rich Sonar or other apps based on this disappointing rev, many will never come back. SOFO has to fight hard to keep that from happening. Because no matter how fanatical we may be about Acid, it all comes down to a numbers game. Warren Buffett once said, "The stock doesn't know you own it." It's all just a numbers game at the end of the day, no emotion, just P&L's. What currency do we the forum monkeys have with SOFO? A lot. We're the only pulse of the market SOFO's got at the moment. And there's been a lot of mixed emotions over this rev. Got to scare the suits. I don't think there's any question that ReWire is an issue for SOFO/Acid right now, it's being dealt with. At the very least, the marketing folks have seen to that. Bottom line, SOFO is now living in "interesting times". Most of us are willing to hang in there for the short term, I strongly recommend we do if only for our own selfish interests in having SOFO product there and supported. But we really do need a few key pro components still missing way more than we need rebates and bells & whistles. And let it be simple: modular/customizable/plug-ins and not stuff Acid with busy buttons. A pro can pay a few more bucks to get what they need. I want those bucks going to SOFO, and they will be if the marketing dept. gets what it's been screaming for: a 4.1 with the Missing Links finally in place.
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: MyST Date:8/16/2002 2:16:23 PM Excellent post, Maruuk!
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: dlcham Date:8/16/2002 2:44:51 PM What if SoFo put full-blown midi recording and editing capabilities into Acid, with full support for VSTi and DXi, and enabled the combining of different sources onto a single track, as Vegas does? That would take care of 99% of my needs, and probably those of the majority of the people who use SoFo's product line. If they could promise something as focused as that, I'd wait another year for it.
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: pwppch Date:8/17/2002 9:10:35 AM Define "full-blown"... Regardless, most of what you are asking for is not what ACID is about. ACID will never be a DAW + MIDI sequencer + looping. It is not where ACID came from or where is headed. That would be a different product. ACID is a "loop sequencer" for lack of a better term. A paint program for audio based media. It has some DAW like features and some MIDI sequencer like features. ACID is not the kitchen sink all in one tool that some are clamoring for. ACID can't be this and maintain its focus. Sonic Foundry works hard to keep ACID what it is. I don't know how much more direct or honest I can be. ACID is not Vegas, and Vegas is not ACID. They borrow features from each other, but there is no plan on merging their functionality in to a super product. This would loose the products' focus. Peter
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Jacose Date:8/17/2002 10:43:01 AM kitchen sink all in one tool that some are clamoring for all I want is overdubs.... thats no kitchen sink request.
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: pwppch Date:8/17/2002 11:17:20 AM How would you expect "overdubs" to work in ACID? ACID is not a DAW multitrack recording tool. The ACID architecture just does not lend itself to the concept of overdubs. It is intentially limited to one single new recording at a time. It is not designed to record into an existing track. It assumes the existance of both a file and track to hold that file. When you record in ACID there is no "track" created, but rather a file. When you hit stop during record, the file that is is given a new track to hold this new file. A track cannot exist with out a file. Fundamental to the ACID model. To change this would be a new product. While it could be possible to alternate through files on the fly - and we have considered this and in fact you can "replace" the media of any given track from the track properties page - this would not be the same thing as 'overdubs' or punch in/out recording type model that Vegas uses. Vegas permits many files on a single track. The "event" in Vegas is the file assocation and it can have multiple file associations to permit the concept of "takes" or overdubs. Of all the features of ACID, recordin is one that many users don't even use. Not because of its limitation, but rather because recording is a secondary aspect of creating with ACID. Can we improve our recording model? Sure. Will it be modeled after the Vegas model? It really can't be. Peter
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: dlcham Date:8/17/2002 11:26:33 AM SonicPCH, I understand what you are saying; however, the new features being touted suggest that Acid is moving towards an all-in-one app, so that makes one wonder "what if...". In addition to "what if", I say "why not?". Instead of having to manage at least two and possibly 4 or 5 disparate applications with overlapping functionality, but none doing exactly what the other does, why not have that kitchen sink? Sure, I know that if the kitchen sink was released, somebody would gripe that it should also have had a fridge and a microwave as well... All I'm saying is that Acid is almost there, so why not go all the way? SoFo has the most intuitive GUI's out there, and the stuff works without having to mine discussion threads for obscure workarounds. And I would assume that, given the development talent at SoFo, providing midi editing on par with or surpassing that found in Cubase and Sonar would not be an impossible task. Who knows, that may be in version 4, and all will be well. Look at it this way, Sonar's moving in that direction, but the loop handling is kind of clunky and slow, and I still find the GUI more clumsy and cluttered, like that of Cakewalk versions gone by. Just my opinion, but I believe "Sonar" developed by SoFo would be a better product than Cakewalk's Sonar 2.0. Regardless, I think SoFo should be thrilled with a customer base that is interested enough in their product line to swap banter in Forums like this. It should, at least, indicate that we're ripe for the pickin', as long as they continue to provide what we users need.
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Maruuk Date:8/17/2002 12:39:32 PM I find this repetitious defensive tack about "Acid can't, won't, will never have the kitchen sink" to be specious and misleading. a) dl is right on, to wit: SOFO is touting 4.0's new features to the sky. So tell us SOFO: Is more better or not? Make up your mind! b) If 4.0 was NOTHING but a ReWire add-on, you wouldn't NEED any other features! No VSTi, no midi, no goofy OPT, nada. You could simply get it all by merging with the app of YOUR CHOICE that had exactly what you needed without any further complications of Acid. So why is SOFO avoiding this obvious conclusion like the plague? We've had one peevish post from a SOFO employee that referred to ReWire as just one of the things they were looking at for the "future". So here's an elegant path that satisfies all parties: It leaves Acid Acid. It provides all pro users with a whole galaxy of possibilities totally CUSTOMIZED to their needs. It allows SOFO's coders to simply concentrate on optimizing Acid's engine and base values instead of tilting at windmills like realtime quantization and audio multitracking. I'm so sick of SOFO employees whining to posters who want more features that aren't consistent with Acid's core architecture to "leave Acid alone, let Acid be Acid!" Yet when presented with the simplest path to exactly that end, SOFO instead stuffs in junk like half-assed quantizing, goofy time sigs and OPT. Completely contradicting their own self-imposed mandate to just "Let Acid be Acid!" I can get full midi spec realtime input quantizing, full multitrack audio support, synths, samplers, notation, drum machines, arpeggiators, etc etc etc in Sonar, Cubase, Reason, your app name here. What I can't get is Acid's quick, fun creative loops environment. I don't need anything else from Acid, and SOFO is telling us in no uncertain terms not to expect all those things. Fine. Just build us a bridge to all the other apps now and you can save yourself a heap of future development SOFO! As long as you try to keep us on this one-coconut island, don't be surprised if we build rafts to escape to the mainland where all the other apps are hanging out and talking to each other. Let Acid be Acid. But also give users the one tool they need to make their own decisions about what features and capabilities they must enhance Acid with for a given project such that they can quickly co-render with full track control throughout. All the glittering features we need are right across the bay. Build the bridge. Build it and we will come.
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: waynegee Date:8/17/2002 1:11:15 PM Maruuk, for the first time ever, you and I are in total agreement. Excellent post.
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: dlcham Date:8/17/2002 1:16:06 PM Maruuk, I'm not very well enlightened on Rewire. Maybe, like so many are chanting, it's Rewire, and not "Utopia 1.0" that we need afterall. Tell me more about rewire... Thanks - dlcham
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Maruuk Date:8/17/2002 1:30:19 PM dl--It's a free and open standard, like midi--no license fee involved. It is transparent and simple. If you don't need it, you don't see it. It allows ReWire-capable apps to sync with reversable master/slave control, and here's the killer: it allows routing of all audio to be ganged to any app's mixer for co-rendering in perfect sync using the full efx power of that mixer. And it is non-cpu intensive itself, though the individual apps involved do of course tax cpu cycles additively. But you can get a brand new 1.8G P4 system with 233DDR memory and a 17" plasma for $800, so it's not like anybody really NEEDS to be stuck in sub-Gig cpu world anymore. A more elegant and effective solution to expansion of an app's capabilities there is not. Far more elegant, I might add, than actually stuffing more features into the poor old app itself!
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Iacobus Date:8/17/2002 1:31:01 PM I should note that I use ACID's recording feature all of the time to make my loops. (That would probably place me in the minority.) However, I don't use ACID all by itself when creating my own loops. That's because there are so many things that affect how I want the final loop to be. I record as hot as possible, around the -1.5 dB range. Still, to give the loop some oomph, clean the loop up, or to get creative, I open it up in Sound Forge for editing. Since ACID integrates quite well with Sound Forge, I find this very easy to do and it doesn't get in the way of my workflow whatsoever. I don't mean to be an a$$ or anything, but since ACID Pro 4.0 will have VSTi support, that means integration with other softsynths from other companies, like Battery or Reaktor from Native Instruments. AFAIK, Reason is the only...er...reason to have ReWire, no? VSTi's have a lot more broad user base, IMHO. (And just what is wrong with VSTi? I happen to like the platform.) I mean, I know it's only a matter of time before ReWire comes into ACID. (I know the guys over at Propellerhead are itching for ACID to have it.) You just have to give the good people at SoFo time. They've only got so many resources, you know? It's quite an undertaking just to get VSTi in there and testing out the whole slew of products available on that platform on top of being stable. Would anyone rather have ReWire slapped into ACID right now and have it an unmitigated mess? What would you say then? Iacobus
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Maruuk Date:8/17/2002 1:51:42 PM Why would you assume if ReWire had been implemented in 4.0 it would be dysfunctional? That's a pretty serious indictment of SOFO techs and QC. More likely it was a political and/or resources issue. Whose ReWired? Pretty much the whole audio app world: Ableton Live ReWire 2 Synth application Bitheadz Inc. Retro AS-1 ReWire 1 Synth application Unity DS-1 ReWire 1 Synth application Cakewalk Sonar 2.0 ReWire 2 Mixer application Cycling '74 MAX/MSP fro MacOS ReWire 2 Synth and Mixer application Emagic Logic Audio 4.7.3 ReWire 1 Mixer application Koblo Vibra ReWire 1 Synth application Stella ReWire 1 Synth application Gamma ReWire 1 Synth application Mark Of The Unicorn Digital Performer 3 ReWire 1 Mixer Application Digital Performer 2.7 ReWire 1 Mixer Application Opcode Inc. Vision DSP ReWire 1 Mixer application Studio Vision ReWire 1 Mixer application Propellerhead Software Reason 1.0 ReWire 2 Mixer and Synth application* ReBirth RB-338 for MacOS and Windows ReWire 1 Synth application Steinberg Soft- & Hardware Cubase VST 5.0r4 (PC) ReWire 2 Mixer application Cubase VST 5.0r1 (Mac) ReWire 1 Mixer application Cubase VST 4.1r2 (Mac) ReWire 1 Mixer application Cubase VST 3.7 (PC) ReWire 1 Mixer application Nuendo 1.5 ReWire 2 Mixer application Speedsoft VSampler 3.0 ReWire 2 synth application
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Iacobus Date:8/17/2002 2:18:09 PM If ACID 4.0 had ReWire, I'd have no doubts it would take longer to get it out, mostly because of resources and on top of what ACID 4.0 already has. OMG, this is turning into the whole ReWire issue thing again. Please let this die. Iacobus
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Maruuk Date:8/17/2002 2:29:56 PM Never. ReWire is what will keep Acid alive, and simple the way we all like it.
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Jacose Date:8/17/2002 2:56:07 PM It really doesnt seem like such a big deal to put rewire in, I think they should just go for it for 4.5 or something.
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Maruuk Date:8/17/2002 4:09:14 PM Yeah, and once they do, they can kiss their dev budget goodbye--leave it up to the user to buy into more features via apps that hook up. That's fair enough for everybody concerned.
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Spirit Date:8/17/2002 7:58:08 PM If AcidPro had nothing but a Rewire upgrade in it then I'd abandon the platform and go SX or maybe Sonar. That's because I've no interest in Rewire. I'd rather use my CPU power for audio creation not for other apps. This is not to deny the usefulness or beauty of Rewire to other people - and if you can get a feature you want included then that's great. But I find working in multiple apps extremely messy and tedious, so AcidPro4 with MIDI, VSTi and ASIO drivers is EXACTLY what I wanted. Where I do agree with Maruuk 100% is that it's strange how SoFo seem to deny AcidPro is or will be any good as a master app. With the above features (MIDI & VSTi) it IS a master app as far as I'm concerned. Already AcidPro3 comes pretty close - I can use all the long one-shots I like and there's never a problem. I wanted MIDI and VSTi to complete the picture and that's what I got. So what's there to add - besides Rewire ;) - to make it master app contender ? Nothing so far as I'm concerned. Look at FruityLoops, Muzsys, Orion, Massiva or N-track, they all claim master app status. They certainly don't shrivel up and say meekly that "massiva is massiva" and give away the high ground. Sure they all have their good and bad points, but I'd contend that AcidPro4 is superior in the "master app" stakes than all of them. SoFo, you're being far too modest !
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: dlcham Date:8/17/2002 8:10:48 PM Thanks for the feedback, Maruuk. I shall investigate...
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: pwppch Date:8/17/2002 8:29:32 PM What is specious about the truth? If anybody here is using sophistic reasoning, it is you Maruuk. There is nothing contratictory about improving ACID. We chose technologies that keep ACID on course and consitent with the fundamental purpose of ACID. We improve ACID to be better at being ACID, not something different. The kind of improvements we have made since ACID 1.0 are of benifit to ACID's core functionality and don't contradict the purpose and usefulness of ACID. Why is this so hard to understand for you? You havn't even used ACID 4! None of you have! How can you judge it? You belittle the features ACID 4 does have. You want things that we didn't do. We knew we couldn't please everybody, but please, at try it before you complain about it. But hey, I am just a peevish Sonic Foundry employee that doesn't agree with you. I am sure you will remind me of this once again. Peter
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: dlcham Date:8/17/2002 8:33:39 PM I, too, am confused at how SoFo's marketing thrust promises the moon, then SoFo's "Forum operatives" seem to back-pedal when real users begin to ask legitimate questions. If they really will be able to deliver what they say they will, then great. If there's irreconcilable disparity between what marketing is promising and what development can crank out, then that's no so great. I only hope that when the dust settles and the dude in the brown truck drops off version 4 at my door, I'll have an app that makes music creation even more enjoyable than it is already (dang - I just heard some violins swelling in the background).
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: dlcham Date:8/17/2002 9:00:08 PM Easy, big fella! If Acid 4.0 is not the be-all and end-all DAW tool, then fine. By day, I'm a business app developer, and I would not even begin to pretend that I'd know where to start in designing and building an audio or midi sequenceer app, nor can I explain to you anything about Acid's core architecture. All I can tell you is that, yes, I do want ACID and Vegas and Sonar's midi capabilties all rolled into one application (heck, throw Sound Forge in there, too). Build it, and I'll buy it.
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Maruuk Date:8/17/2002 9:51:04 PM That's great, Peter, just ignore the key contradictions in your own company's spiel: "Let Acid be Acid!" How does VSTi let Acid be Acid? How does OPT let Acid be Acid? What it does is let it be a watered down, partially-functional Sonar. "We're not going to add all the bells and whistles!" So you build in a semi-functioning midi editor without input quantization. You tout some new audio optimization, and then abandon that as it apparently never happened. You totally ignore the firestorm of protest over the lack of ReWire. Is this all part of "Let Acid be Acid?" "Acid will never be a full-featured audio app!" Make up your mind. Are you guys going to keep scrambling to stuff more and more half-baked Sonar-style features into Acid until it sinks of its own weight, or will you follow your own slogan and keep Acid simple, and let the user hook up to their own audio multitracking, notation, graintable synths, FULL midi support, and all the synths, samplers and bells and whistles in the known universe? Right now, you're trying to have it both ways and talking out of both sides of your mouths--and it's confusing everybody. If we wanted a Sonar wannabee, we could just get Plasma for $39.
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: aress Date:8/17/2002 11:48:45 PM acid rules. period. being able to paint with sound is what i always wanted to do. i have used acid on all my projects since v1.... thanks SF you have made me many dollars, and made my work much easier....
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Chienworks Date:8/18/2002 12:08:30 AM Maruuk, i guess you missed it. ACID has quantization now. True, it's not input quantization, but it's a non-destructive effect that can be applied to any midi recording, and therefore undone as well. Pretty spiffy in my opinion!
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: pwppch Date:8/18/2002 8:27:42 AM Nothing in ACID 4 is half backed. We have advanced the ACID platform and not attempted to make ACID something it is not. We believe that the ACID 4 feature set is significant and will make existing users happy and potential new users take notice. In fact we are banking on this. How does VSTi and OPT change ACID's purpose? It adds to ACID's ability to do loop based sequencing. These technologies do not change ACID's paradigm or work flow in any way. Providing the ability to edit MIDI has been the a request from users that is pervasive. OPT supplies this functionality in a open framework. We don't claim to be a sequencer. We provide MIDI editing that is consistent with what ACID's purpose is. The most asked for feature is softsynth support. DXi vs VSTi, well that is a different debate. We have softsynth support for a standard softsynth model. Yes, it requires the user to have or obtain VSTi synths. So does your model of expandability and integration. The way in which we integrated these two features into ACID - which you could not possibly know - is consistent with the way ACID works. Will it need some tweaking? I am sure of it. Does its current implementation hinder the creative process or workflow that ACID users are accustom to? We don't believe so. We are not trying to be SONAR or any other app. Why compete in an already over crowded MI marketing space? They have been doing sequencing for, what 12-13 revs? We do not mislead ourselves in believing that our first entry into MIDI editing could ever compare to what the well established sequencers are capable of. We are betting on OPT to permit extensions to our editing model. The jury will remain out on this aspect until the technology is adopted by third parties. Even if it is not adopted, it provides ACID with a frame work to edit MIDI data in ACID. We can and will advance our own editors over time. We have added features that are consistent with ACID and have never even considered what SONAR does or doesn't do. ACID and SONAR serve two different purposes. Some may say SONAR does ACID looping better than ACID. Some will say it does not. Some hate the SONAR UI. Few seem to hate ACID's UI. This is a subjective argument and each user has to make their own choice. I wont debate that. I have said nothing inconsistent with the direction ACID is taking. I am all for the integration you have been asking about, be it ReWire or some other technology. We didn't get to it for ACID 4. There are more reasons for this than just resources and time. My personal problem I have with all of this is your ignorance in how Sonic Foundry runs its business is presented as fact. This is only added to by your arrogance in implying that with out your personal crusade to license ACID 4 regardless of its features Sonic Foundry will some how go out of business. You can believe you know better, but I will take my own counsel and that of the other engineers and product architects at Sonic Foundry. I would even guess that we have more experience at this than you do, but since you have never provided your experience or quantified your level of expertise, I can't say this with out justification. There have been so many doom sayers that have written Sonic Foundry off because of marketing choices or product features. You like to mention that we had layoffs. Yes we did. You would like others to believe that our stock price has some indication or bearing on how we develop our products or the direction the company is taking. You toss out this information in a non sequitur fashion as if it is some kind of deep insight that you alone have discovered. You don't use it in context, but as inflammatory remarks to build an emotional argument. If you place these "facts" in context and provide the whole truth behind them, then your argument would be weak. You choose to provide only those threads of facts that support your arguments and opinions. A classic debating tactic, but one that is easily revealed. Once revealed, the opinion and its author loose their credibility. I am done arguing this with you. I believe you are wrong in all of your suppositions. Your inaccurate depiction of Sonic Foundry is only surpassed by your arrogance in believing you know better. Peter
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: pwppch Date:8/18/2002 10:55:49 AM This is a reasonable perspective. There are some that wish for the uber tool. Some just want a few more DAW like features. There are ACID users on both side of the wish list. We debated this internally all the time. At one point I was an advocate for the be everything to everbody app. I was convinced that this was what was needed. Maybe not in ACID itself, but some hybrid of ACID and Vegas perhaps. After dicussion and debate, I realized that one of the main features of ACID was its focus on doing loop sequencing better than anything else on the market. The benifits of this approach out-weigh the alternatives. It would convolute the ACID interface much like many complain about the uber apps having terrible UIs, but this is subjective at best. The technical aspects these apps incorporate are only 20% of the problem to be solved. Technology is easy to develope and code for. Integrating the technology into a user interface that is both logical and stays out of your way is the hard part. If it were just a matter of adding X or Y technology, that would be simple. A solid and intuative UI is one of ACID's and Vegas' most appealing features. Sonic Foundry has some of the best UI designers and implementers out there. (I am not one of them.) A technical aspect should be hidden from the user as much as possible. Far too many apps punt on this and just expose the "programmers" UI on things and consider it an integrated feature. This just goes against the design philosophy of SF. Our founders are VERY active in maintaining this and demand that this is maintained. ACID has always been unique. If maintaining this uniqueness is a bad thing and hurts ACID as a product to generate revenue, then Sonic Foundry would be blind not to change its thinking. Nothing presented to us in either sales or lack of sales have convinced us that turning ACID in to the uber app would change this. There are as many vocal users against doing this as it appears there are those that want this out of ACID. Regardless of the technical issues in changing ACID's direction, Sonic Foundry has made a choice. If the market proves us wrong, then I we have no choice but to adapt. With every new release of ACID, we have not lost market share. Our market share continues to grow. ACID has grown in features and usability. It will continue to do so. Sometimes we make mistakes. (rmid+DLS rings very loudly in my mind, and I implemented that feature! The promise of this technology was never realized.) I don't believe it will digress very far from the fundamental purpose for which it was designed. It maintains its ACID functionality. It is the focus of the design effort and addition of new features. Some of the requests made here are completely reasonable and can be made to fit with out changing this core functionality. Some are difficult to integrate with out a complete change in the app architecture. We have to make choices on what is prudent to add to ACID. For now I am waiting for the release so that all the oponents and proponents of the ACID 4 specifications can actually use the product. When that happens, we will see what the results are. There will always be room for improvement and advancing the product to meet the needs of the users. What these improvements will be and when they will occur remains to be seen. I can say that our private beta testers are pleased with what ACID 4 has to offer and how it is presented. We adapted a great deal to their request and suggestions. The beta testers we chose and that chose to participate represented a solid cross section of the ACID user base. Some are hard core ACID users since ACID 1.0. Otheres were very new to the ACID world. Did we please all of them 100%? Probably not. I can't believe that any product, new or an upgrade, will satisfy ever users needs. There are too many users that exist that have different thoughts on how things should be done. Peter
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Iacobus Date:8/18/2002 12:35:51 PM Do I hear an, "AMEN!" :) Iacobus
Subject:YO PCH Reply by: Jacose Date:8/18/2002 1:56:28 PM Some may say SONAR does ACID looping better than ACID. I dont see how ANYONE can say this. I really understand your stand on how having overdub capability in ACID is against its frame archetecture. (one aspect of which is : one file per trak...) I just wish there was a workaround... there has GOT to be... even so, being able to organize trax in subfolders would really help!! cause with all these trax, MIDI, VSTI AUTOMATION,BUS, AUDIO, BEATMAPPED, its gonna be REALLY REALLY hard to organize.... nice post and thank you
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: Jacose Date:8/18/2002 1:57:32 PM AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMEN!
Subject:RE: YO PCH Reply by: pwppch Date:8/18/2002 2:02:27 PM Organization of media is a problem with all of this. It is no simple problem. This is something that a solution is being sought after. It can get down right ugly when working with lots of loops. Mix in the multiple media types and it becomes an issue. As far as the over dubbing problem: How would you envision this working? That is, you just recorded your vocal/lead track. You decide that from bar 12 to 16 the "lead" sucks. How would you want to "punch" in or comp this in ACID? Peter
Subject:RE: YO PCH Reply by: chaircrusher Date:8/18/2002 2:41:44 PM Heh, I guess I am really mr. obvious, Peter. All of the suggestions I've ever made for Acid has shown in the user forums. Sonic Foundry is not alone in having media management issues. Cubase makes you specify a directory for each project's audio before it will record any audio, but then it's up to you to figure out which of a bazillion wav files are the discarded take. They have a convoluted method for saving a copy of a project with all media, but it doesn't always work. Cakewalk was even more of a nightmare, storing all the audio takes in the same directory, and occasionally getting confused. They, at least had a cleanup command that would delete all the files in their wav cache directory that had no corresponding sequence file pointing to it. I guess this is a golden opportunity for someone to write a whizbang utility that runs through all the acid files on your computer, and gives you a graph showing which projects point to which files. The sad fact is this: Even without Acid, or Cubase, or Cakewalk, to confuse the issue, keeping track of several years' worth of files on 100+gigabytes of hard disks is a nightmare, unless you are strictly disciplined all the way along in implementing a directory structure schema.
Subject:RE: YO PCH Reply by: pwppch Date:8/18/2002 3:15:32 PM I feel for you, as I have the same problem. You toss video into it and it gets worse. I am editing a video now, and it has over 200 clips associated to it. You add in the audio and the new audio I know I still have to record and it becomes a constant task to maintain orginzation. Vegas is actually very good as it has a number of tools to let you manage your media. I laugh a bit when you mention the 100+ gig storage we have. I remeber when I was happy to have enough to record 8 tracks of audio and edit. Now we have storge heaven, but because of this the media managment issue has become the problem. Media management is actually one of the other divisions of SF. It is currently at the very large scale, but as the technology progresses, I am sure the apps division will be able to get our greed little hands on some of this developing technology<g>. Peter
Subject:RE: YO PCH Reply by: MatthiasPowerbomb Date:8/18/2002 4:41:54 PM Why is media management so hard? Can't you just organize your stuff from the start? Don't you have an idea of the type of things you're going to have? Just make a folder for each type of thing. It's not hard. I've never had a problem with it at all. And why do you want to punch in or overdub? Is it such a big deal for the fixed lead vocal to have it's own track? If it's that big of a deal, just bounce them into the same track. Or better yet, get Vegas, which is designed for what you're talking about. ACID is for loops. Some people (me included) use it for more than just that, but why compain about ACID not having a function that Vegas does have. If you really want to do multitracking and have single song-length tracks, then why not use Vegas? People are missing the point of the programs. You wouldn't try to sequence a song in Sound Forge. So why try to multitrack in ACID? I have ACID, Sound Forge, and Vegas. I all three of them all the time. They are well integrated. What's the big deal?
Subject:media managment Reply by: Jacose Date:8/18/2002 4:53:02 PM What I am talking about is not nessecarily managing recorded files or loops in seperate folders in windows explorer. I am reffering to the fact that once you have like 50 loops in a song, 5 or 6 Vsti tracks, 10 Audio recording tracks, 15 MIDI tracks and a beatmapped track, plus a video trak, Even at full zoom you cant see all the trax.... It would be great if you could GROUP tracks together so If you want to edit a specific part (basss, Vox, etc.) you just maximize THAT part and you see the trax contained within.
Subject:RE: media managment Reply by: SHTUNOT Date:8/18/2002 5:10:26 PM Cool freakin' idea!!!
Subject:RE: media managment Reply by: nlamartina Date:8/18/2002 6:23:00 PM Jacose, When I've got a composition that gets up in the 50+ tracks range, I start color coding stuff, like pads are green, drums are red, FX teal, vocals blue, etc etc. Then I put all the like colors together, so I've got a red section, a blue section, a green section, and so-on. Depending on the composition, I sometimes color code song sections as well, like verse as reddish, bridge as bluish, chorus as greenish, etc. That way I can quickly scan through the track list via color instead of name. Also, don't forget it's possible to even put image files into WAV's that will show up on the track list (at least it was possible in Acid 2, haven't tried it ever). Finally, don't forget F11 for maximizing track space. Hope this helps, Nick LaMartina
Subject:tahnks! Reply by: Jacose Date:8/18/2002 7:37:31 PM wowo thanks that will help I thiknk!
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: dlcham Date:8/18/2002 8:24:37 PM Ok...so 41 posts later, here's what I get from all this: 1. Nobody's sure when version 4 will ship. Just probably by the end of the year. 2. It'll have some kind of VSTi support. 3. It'll have some kind of midi editing support. 4. It probably won't be rewire compatible. 5. Even given 2 and 3 above, Acid will still be a specialized PART of my arsenal designed primarily for loop manipulation - not a replacement for my audio and midi sequencer. Have I missed anything?
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: dlcham Date:8/18/2002 10:14:26 PM Nevermind...watched the webcasts, slapped down the plastic.
Subject:RE: It's always tease, tease, tease... Reply by: SHTUNOT Date:8/19/2002 1:56:42 AM Did the same myself!!!!

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