Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... -ACID Product Family

ACID Product Family

Subject:Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Posted by: Zacchino Date:2/3/2004 11:33:02 AM Hi there, I know that it's not a very acid-forum-friendly question, but i'd like to know somthing. I'm using Acid Pro for more than 2 years now. And i love the way it works. The way it easily do what you want to do, without going into several submenus or subwindows or 26-keys-at-a-time shortcuts ^^. And now i'm looking for another Professionnal Midi sequencer to work in dual with Acid Pro. I have friends working on Emagic Logic Platinum 6.3 on an Apple. But the issue is there. It's Apple. Not PC. I chose PC because it gives youwhat i call "a choice". But that's an endless subject. So I'm wondering if anyone had an idea on which software i should use, as an Acid Pro user who was raised with its way of making music. I'm hesitating between Sonar 3 and Cubase SX 2 I've tested both of them. But I still want some "testimonials" or "experiences" or point of views of user who are familiar with the Acid environement. I need to know which one is the most "complete" (knowing that both of 'em can't do what I do in Acid).
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: marcarotsky Date:2/3/2004 11:44:22 AM are you more toward the genre of hip-hop and dance music?? if so, BY FAR....go with REASON!!! if its more rock and "non-electronic" music, cubase seems to be a top choise along with logic audio. i, myself am a trance producer and remixer...so i use acid and reason together as if it were my religion!!! :) reason works with mac by the way. reason HAS been known to produce with rock and other genres, i just personally never used it for that!!! give a little more detail what kind of music you make... --marc
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: Zacchino Date:2/3/2004 12:26:24 PM Tnx for replying so quickly ! The kind of music i make is all the Groove-styles (Hip Hop, RnB, Trip-Hop), and Pop. BTW i have Reason, and even Storm. Both Rewired to Acid. But i was looking for a more professionnal Sequencer/Mixer than the one you can have in these tools. PS : they announced Storm 3.0 @ midem
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: doctorfish Date:2/3/2004 3:33:00 PM I don't have any experience with Cubase but my studio partner swears by Sonar and by all accounts it is a very powerful midi sequencer. I much prefer Vegas when dealing with Audio, but still Sonar does well eough there too. Dave
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: dorkus Date:2/3/2004 3:38:56 PM I'm mainly an Acid guy, but I had needs for something else. I tried both Cubase and Sonar, and went with Sonar. The main reason is because it is most similar to Acid. It has a loop explorer, and edits similarly to Acid. With Cubase, I could never grasp the whole media pool thing. In fact, unless I'm really tearing up a lot of loops, I won't even bother to open Acid (I know, it's sad...).
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: coolout Date:2/3/2004 5:49:49 PM i've been using software sequencers since the late 80's-early 90's. i've used logic for years until acid forced me to jump ship. it really depends on what you need. if you plan on doing deeper midi work and have a bunch of midi devices, need to send scores to musicians, and want a traditional mixer, go with logic. if you don't like the quirks of acid...ie the lack of multchannel recording and how you have to name everything then go with sonar. honestly, there both going to be less intuitive and with a steeper learning curve than acid. nothing i've found edits and arranges audio quicker and easier than acid pro...period. not even protools. since you do "groove" type stuff, if you're just looking for a midi sequencer to capture a better feel, ie swing more, i'm going to break traditional wisdom and suggest you dump software altogether. get an akai mpc. i just bought a used mpc 2000 last month off ebay for $650 and it's changed my life. i'm pretty sure at least 75% of all popular music is done on one of these. it just naturally has this timing and feel that is damn near impossible to duplicate in software (yet). when you hear it you'll know what i'm talking about. i can lisen to radio now, hear the drums and just know that was made on a mpc. it's the rock solid intergrated sequencer and the sensitive pads that capture the essence of your drum programming better than a midi keyboard/software combo. the thing swings even when on straight quantize. get one of those and your productions with go up a notch.
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: Zacchino Date:2/4/2004 12:37:28 AM Well well, I agree with the fact that Cubase was very frustrating, when dealing about media pool. I'll probably never get it. Too... Too german for me ^^. I think i'll go deeper in the test with Sonar 3 and see what it can afford me aside from Acid. I've heard mD (i think so) was using both Acid and Sonar. Anyway, about the MPC2000XL... Yeah i might get what you're talking about. The pads and workflow feeling of an MPC might be very particular. I'm a former Ensoniq ASR-10 user and i know how the hardware sometimes just get indispensable.
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: Zacchino Date:2/4/2004 6:37:04 AM Ok forget about this post... After a week looking at Logic, Cubase, and Sonar. Damn it's good to be back home. Seems like once you're under Acid, you get highly intoxicated and hardly give up ^^. I can't wait for ACID 5. I just hope they'll care about what we asked for in the SAP5 Features Request posts.
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: DKeenum Date:2/4/2004 9:08:04 AM Fandego, I have, what seems to me, are similar issues. I would like to find something to help with audio recording and midi recording/editing. I know acid can do both, but I've wondered if there wasn't an easier way. I don't want to change Acid, and I think I would continue to use Acid for mixing. My background is a Mac with Opcode Vision. Acid made me leave all of that behind, but I guess there are some things that I still miss. Reason is great, but I still can't edit midi the way I want. So maybe I'm gonna have to learn new ways. BTW, I looked seriously Cakewalk's Home Studio, but when I mention it on forums, I am usually told that it will not be enough.
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: Zacchino Date:2/4/2004 10:27:32 AM Dkeenum, Sonar 3 is good in its own way but for me, as you mentionned, it's still a bit akward in its midi workflow. I'll look more deeply in Cubase Sx 2 but, it's very hard for an Acid Pro user to get used to this.
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: marcarotsky Date:2/4/2004 3:51:23 PM for the amount of midi you guys are talking about having control over, i really think youre only options would be to go to a logic setup. it gives you the best of BOTH worlds...audio and midi. i am not very familiar with logic, i use it a little bit here and there. but it is a VERY powerful editor and sequencer. logic and reason together, now youre talking about some SERIOUS music producing!!!!! if you cant think of a way to do it between these 2 programs, i dont think it can be done!!!! i do some a lot of remixing...and i have yet to hit a limit with reason and acid together, with both midi and audio aspects. BUT, thats just me. like i said, look into logic. JUST BE READY FOR A SERIOUS LEARNING CURVE!!! good luck. --marc
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: DKeenum Date:2/5/2004 7:46:18 AM I agree with marc about the combo of reason and acid. I've just started with reason and am constantly impressed. Every once and a while, I need to step out of that format: I need a complete vocal or a live sounding midi part. That is when I wish I had something else, but not much. Logic or Sonar, impressive as they are, are just too much for me. Let me add that I'm not so sure I sould expect acid to fill those roles. Acid does what it does really well. Maybe it should be left at that. I don't know.
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: ozzborn Date:2/5/2004 7:51:34 AM i make hip hop and r-n-b on acid. the midi in acid sucks so i try not to use it. i have cubase sx 2.0 and ill tell you, its hot. but what you can do in acid you cant really do any where else as easy. i use reason with acid as well and its truly a great combination. if reason 3.0 does external midi ,ill sequence external gear in reason than record the audio into acid.this is sort of how i work right now. i have 2 computers, my main computer with pulsar cards and uad card,than a laptop with v-stack. i usally sequence in acid and record the audio from v-stack into acid or i will just play a sound live from my keyboards into acid. my only hesitation is drums, i will only do drums in acid or reason but never midi'd up to acid cause the timing isnt that tight. vsti's is your only other option but i try to only use few in acid.the logic sampler causes conflicts in acid when loading files. i wish someone would make a good sequencer that would rewire into acid
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: luceses Date:2/5/2004 8:02:47 AM "i wish someone would make a good sequencer that would rewire into acid" HEAR,HEAR!!!! I definitely second that motion!!!!!!!!!!! Luces
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: Zacchino Date:2/5/2004 10:49:44 AM Err... Guys, The most efficient way of working is having 1 and only tool to complete a project from scratch to mastering. I use Reason as an "big instrument". Even if it has crappy soundbanks that everybody uses. I see how you guys work, with multiple sequencers. It's like working with an MPC 2000 & an Akai S2000 together. It's just not the same. But softwares' advantage on hardware is to be able to merge all these kind of working visions. That's my opinion. My opinion sticks with the fact that Acid should go more to the Professionnal Sequencer direction. Looping isn't Professional, it's good for Remix, but you will never make a Hit with loops.
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: Iacobus Date:2/5/2004 11:48:14 AM I'm a little confused. I thought ACID Pro is a professional sequencer. :) Did you mean a MIDI sequencer? If so, it wouldn't exactly be ACID anymore. ACID is a looping tool and nothing more, much like Sound Forge is a digital audio editor. I'm sure that any of you here that have been around since ACID Pro 1.0 or 2.0 know that you couldn't even playback MIDI in ACID Pro before ACID Pro 3.0. (You only had MIDI sync.) It was exclusively digital audio otherwise. As such, MIDI playback/recording had to fit within ACID existing paradigm, not the other way around. So the confusion lies in ACID's role and those efforts to twist ACID into something it's not. "Looping isn't Professional..." -Fadengo Isaac, I'm going to have to take you to task with this quote. There are many different roles looping has in audio production, including but definitely not limited to music. Many pro users use ACID in other capacities, like sound effects looping or creating basic music beds for their business presentations. Iacobus ------- RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid mD's ACIDplanet Page
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: Zacchino Date:2/5/2004 2:05:23 PM mD... Dear mD, It's been now more than an year that you and I act in this forum. And i've guessed recently and found out the point where we definitely can't agree ^^. By saying "We", unfortunately for me, i should say The SonyTeam, you, a wide bunch of users, against me and my lonely point of view. When i say "Looping isn't Professionnal", I didn't mean that looping isn't a professionnal tool, but i meant that looping isn't enough for professionnal scoring. Now, i'd like to quote Dj Don. Please read carefully, because he says what i think about that subject : "Look at what was brought into Acid when it went from 3.0 to 4.0. Acid as just a looping tool? Then why would they bring in 5.1 surround capabilities? Why would they bother adding the additional MIDI capabilities that they did beyond 3.0? They could give Acid a MIDI sequencer that would make any Sonar/Logic/Cubase user green with envy and still keep Acid the BEST looping software on the planet (which it certainly is). As long as you can drag files from the media pool into Acid and paint them across the screen, Acid is still doing it's core job. I REALLY hope they give Acid a kick-ass MIDI sequencer and multitrack recording capabilities, because I know that no matter how advanced they take it, a new user will still be able to paint wave files across the screen and make music within 10 minutes (or less) of powering up the software. The features that are being begged for in this forum are not meant to take away from Acid's core compitency, they are simply meant to add to it. Sony needs to look not at what Acid I, but look at what Acid DOES (or rather what its users are doing with it). I have done TONS of work in Acid that doesn't simply sound like loops being painted across a screen, although loops are a big part of what I do. And yes, I struggle along with the clunky sequencer for now, in the hopes that in 5.0 I will not be wishing Acid did so much of the things I currently wish it would do. Why not make Acid an all-in-one DAW? The better mousetrap was made by Sonic Foundry years ago. Now Sony has the opportunity to take this amazing program to the next level without sacrificing one bit of what makes Acid so great in the first place. As long as it is stable (which I realize is far easier said than done) give Acid all the power you can. I don't WANT to worry about "Rewiring" Acid to anything. I just want to boot it up and make music without feeling the need to go anywhere else" -Dj Don
Subject:RE: Acid Pro hardcore user need advice... Reply by: Iacobus Date:2/5/2004 4:08:15 PM So I guess we can agree to disagree? ;o) I remember that post. "Then why would they bring in 5.1 surround capabilities?" To make it go with Vegas' ability to work with surround (and vice versa)? shrug Though I understand his point, here's where I really have trouble: "Why not make Acid an all-in-one DAW?" I can give a quick, succinct answer to that one: Because it would not only negate the use of Sound Forge and Vegas, it'd be a mess and unnecessarily expensive. Going further, it would be essentially not a very good idea from Sony's point of view. ACID, Vegas, and Sound Forge were all designed to be modular, both with each other and with other apps, which makes them very flexible in that regard. I would highly doubt one would buy an all-in-one app just to obtain Sound Forge's features (for example). Adding to that, part of the success of those apps lends to their ease-of-use. That's no surprise, as each app is allowed to concentrate on a specific task. If one told me that they could implement, say, both just ACID Pro and Sound Forge (full version) together in a clean, coherent way, I'd have to laugh. Hard. The only way I can think of doing such a Herculean task is to have them tabbed under one GUI shell, with each app contained in its own place. And why bother? You could do that already as it is, albeit as separate apps. Which brings me to another point: A few years back, Sonic Foundry (when it used to own the apps) had an "all-in-one" package that contained just about every app in the collection in addition to some other goodies. (I forgot the name of it but it used an acronym as the title.) It must not have sold well because I never saw it again. If one wanted "to boot it up and make music without feeling the need to go anywhere else", is it actually that hard to just open up another app (or even have one already running, ready to go)? Personally, I honestly don't think so. So I guess the question should be (at least from my corner), Should Sony create a true-blue MIDI sequencer that's modular with ACID, Vegas and Sound Forge? That I would be interested in. Iacobus ------- RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid mD's ACIDplanet Page
Subject:theres no such thing as one stop shopping Reply by: ozzborn Date:2/5/2004 7:19:36 PM as new technology and ideas are devolped, companys will try to put features into there existing products.five years ago computers weren't fast enough to run vsti's,the quality of direct x plugins were not as good as they are now because it wasn't feasible to have an e.q. plugin take up 20 % of your system resources if the fastest computer is only pentium lll 350 mhz. nothing does everything because everybody does diffrent things with there computer. this is what makes rewire amazing.acid can be your master and reason,or gigastudio 3.0,or melodyne, or fruityloops can be your slave. everybodys needs are diffrent
Subject:RE: theres no such thing as one stop shopping Reply by: Zacchino Date:2/8/2004 4:05:27 AM Well well, maybe i'd like to correct a little misunderstanding quickly. I don't want Acid to become a All-in-one DAW, i just want it to be a better multitrack sequencer, and to improve Audio and Midi Recording. As requested a lot in the "Try Again Acid Pro 5 Features Request" posts. I just want all the little details that make audio sequencing life better (for example,. the "Sample Snap point" seen in Cubase SX). Anyway, i'll wait for 5 and then i'll open my mouth (i hope i won't need this).
Subject:RE: theres no such thing as one stop shopping Reply by: DKeenum Date:2/8/2004 9:15:05 AM On the "dead boring" thread MacMoney said to speak up and that you did. I really do agree with you on the audio recording and midi areas. So I'll join you in the wants department. I guess I don't really know what Iwant. Stability or new features... I want both!
Subject:RE: theres no such thing as one stop shopping Reply by: Zacchino Date:2/9/2004 10:07:38 AM Same thing here : increased engine stability & improved functions I want Oreo's and Capt'ain Crunch cereals too... But i guess i'll have to get a green card first.

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