Trying to be honest... -ACID Product Family - MAGIX Community Forums Archive

ACID Product Family

Subject:Trying to be honest... Posted by: Cquence777 Date:11/8/2004 9:08:52 AM I know that I've been one of black sheep around here.....skeptical to say the least......but after trying out the new demo of Pro 5.0, I am only being as honest as I can be. (and yes this is just opinion) I am NOT trying to pick a fight here.....merely unsatisfied in general and want to say so. If everyone else is happy, then I'm happy for ya! So to me, there is no "attack me rebuttal" for what I'm about to say.....ok? I'm running a decent system to say the least (Intel P-4 2.2ghz, 7200rpm HD's, 1 HD for programs & 1 HD for storage, 1gig of RAM, etc). Acid 5.0 seems extremely "bloated" and much slower in general than 4.0. Somewhere between the incorporation of NET Framework (which isn't Sony's fault, but changed my Win login screen prefs for one) and the Acid install, things seemed to start slowly going downhill. For firsts, Acid's startup time is way slower than 4.0. Plugin scanning seems to be taking far too long in my opinion. Previews on sounds in the explorer window are no longer instantly previewed......they are now "watched loading" in the blue percentage bar. (and yes, tenths of seconds & milliseconds count) Now all of this keep in mind, was fine with 4.0.....I'm merely making a comparison to 4.0 with no other software installed or changes being made to my system. Midi - Ok, everyone wants to blast us midi guys cause Acid is much & much and not such & such. But all I have wanted since back when Acid 4.0 Pro came out, was "slave to midi clock". I work with Pro hardware as opposed so much to the whole software revolution. I have recently moved up in the hardware area with the purchase of a Roland Fantom X7....importing of wavs thru USB, PC card, etc, etc. You rewire guys may be good to go, but what about those of us who want to slave Acid to hardware? I guess just asking too much huh? Trigger from MTC is no good without clock messages. So.....I have at times pondered using Acid's "generate clock" and have it be the Master. Well, after running that several times in 5.0/4.0 test comparisons, I have found that it is NOT EVEN CLOSE to the sync capabilites of 4.0!! 4.0 generates almost perfect sync with midi clock where 5.0 is producing lag big time! And I even use a separate external midi thrubox to reduce such lag! There's no need to go on & on......the app is slower in general, less precise, seems to be "bloated" and prompts no real advantages for me personally as a Pro user. Yeah....I know the rest of yall are Pro users too.....that's why I said me personally. ;) The real-time midi quantize request was also thrown in as a secondary way to get my job done in case I did have to use Acid as the master too by the way. If I have to give up my sequencer as my Master, then I wanna be able to lay down my beat tracks or basslines quickly without having to go into piano roll and paint those things. Anyway, I'm not personally happy....but to each his/her own. I will now uninstall 5.0 and see how much of 4.0 it takes with it so I can slowly and painfully get back to where I was.....with the workarounds.
Subject:RE: Trying to be honest... Reply by: H2000 Date:11/8/2004 9:29:31 AM Thanks for the honest assessment. I'm looking forward to trying it myself.
Subject:RE: Trying to be honest... Reply by: Iacobus Date:11/8/2004 9:33:57 AM For firsts, Acid's startup time is way slower than 4.0. Plugin scanning seems to be taking far too long in my opinion. That may be because of the Media Manager. You can turn it off by going to Options>Preferences on the menu bar and under the General tab, uncheck the option, "Enable media manager." ACID should launch faster and perform a little faster from that point, but remember that if you want to use the Media Manager, you'll have to wait for it to load when you bring it up. Previews on sounds in the explorer window are no longer instantly previewed......they are now "watched loading" in the blue percentage bar. (and yes, tenths of seconds & milliseconds count) Now all of this keep in mind, was fine with 4.0.....I'm merely making a comparison to 4.0 with no other software installed or changes being made to my system. ? Previewing is instantaneous on mine. Previewing wasn't exactly instantaneous in ACID Pro 4.0. There's no need to go on & on......the app is slower in general, less precise, seems to be "bloated" and prompts no real advantages for me personally as a Pro user. Yeah....I know the rest of yall are Pro users too.....that's why I said me personally. ;) It almost sounds like there's something going on with your system, Cquence. Previewing loops in the Explorer should be nearly instantaneous. (Some may be taken by surprise by how quick it previews now.) Projects seem to playback no different than before on my system. I did notice it takes a little bit more to hit a performance ceiling on my system with the new version. Really like the enhanced time stretching and beat detection as well as the Media Manager myself. Iacobus ------- RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid Pre-order Instant ACID Guitars 4 Kids
Subject:RE: Trying to be honest... Reply by: Cquence777 Date:11/8/2004 9:54:18 AM Thanx for your help on unchecking the media manager mD....that may have been a big part of the startup. As for the other factors, I can truly appreciate the fact that others will have or not have, the same take as my own on 5.0. But my system is unchanged aside from the installation of NET Framework and Acid 5.0 Pro. So in my honest opinion, I can't see a "system thing" happening. I can go to 4.0 and preview samples quicker than in 5.0......don't know why....would stand to reason that if the system was the culprit, then it would be in all Acid apps? That Fantom X with Acid 4.0 in "generate clock" midi mode is pretty darn tight too......I'd even go as far as to say that it is tighter than with my Roland XP-80. But 5.0 is way off the mark.....I mean very way off. Again, I understand that Sony has agendas with each set of apps, etc, etc......I guess in my mind I feel that I am being "very flexible" (as opposed to the resident renegade) by saying that if I can't 'slave to midi clock' with it, then please give me the Master midi functions that I need. (the quantize issue, etc) That's all. Thanx for your help tho mD.
Subject:RE: Trying to be honest... Reply by: Rockitglider Date:11/8/2004 10:23:00 AM Hey Cquence, Are you local enough to call Tech support? It's free support after a purchase, I think they could probly help you out. Rockitglider
Subject:RE: Trying to be honest... Reply by: Cquence777 Date:11/8/2004 10:34:31 AM Yeah....thanx Rockit
Subject:RE: Trying to be honest... Reply by: Iacobus Date:11/8/2004 1:27:30 PM You're welcome. I actually did have times where there would be a substantial delay before previewing loops in the Explorer, but I haven't determined if this is a bug yet or if it's something to do with the media. For the most part, previewing samples is instantaneous. UPDATE: It seems that samples that aren't ACIDized properly go through the delay before being previewed. Properly ACIDized samples preview instantaneously. Iacobus ------- RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid Pre-order Instant ACID My ACIDplanet Page Guitars 4 Kids
Subject:RE: Trying to be honest... Reply by: MyST Date:11/8/2004 1:40:10 PM Honestly... Loop previews are faster than 4.0. Instantaneous, actually. I'll check the previews with non-Acidized loops. Mario
Subject:RE: Trying to be honest... Reply by: jardeano Date:11/8/2004 2:04:27 PM "the app is slower in general, less precise, seems to be "bloated" and prompts no real advantages" My experiences differ,,(my computer isn't as powerful as yours) I loaded up an acid 4.0 (1.2 gb ) project into acid 5, no problems , when I preview loops they are quick to respond triggering in the middle of a 4th measure in sync with the project, great for working drum fills. I've been using acid re-wired with sonar 3 and sx 3 ,its been rock solid so far. as for midi, I use Project 5 always have, works great in the studio and for performing live. midi sync is solid with an sequencer, overall I'm finding Acid 5 very stable. Asio driver Bugs have been fixed using my tascam us-428, no more record latency problems,
Subject:RE: Trying to be honest... Reply by: blacker Date:11/8/2004 2:04:34 PM I've also found previewing loops and samples much quicker in 5. The only glitchy thing I've encountered is when dragging a file from the Explorer onto a track name to replace the track media. Used to work flawlessly in 4, but it seems hit and miss with 5, sometimes works ing fine, sometimes not working at all. Strange...
Subject:RE: Trying to be honest... Reply by: Cquence777 Date:11/8/2004 2:49:52 PM Look, after all I wrote in the very first post here, please jardeano don't take my words out of context ok? That's how others come in and start getting all "bent up".....cause they read bits and pieces of other's posts. You quote only part of the sentence I wrote originally. I said "...prompts no real advantages for me personally". All you guys who are using soft sequencers and other rewire apps, then you've got it made! Trust me, I never once in this forum said that I was moving to Live or Sonar or whatever whatever.....Acid is a rock-solid looping machine period! I just want to be able to say those same things that you just did jardeano....from the hardware side ya know? Music production started with hardware (once upon a year)......and we are now at a very very incredible place with software......so what happened, just forgot about the hard aspect altogether? So let's break it all the way down..... I just want to use my hard sequencer, samplers, and Acid to add loops and/or extra wav samples! That's it! I am glad you mentioned the driver aspect tho.....my Echo Layla24 ASIO WDM driver would not run in Acid 5.0 either.....I completely forgot about that earlier. Runs fine in 4.0. Not upset jardeano....just didn't want people to start that argument stuff again. And thanx again mD....most of my loops are not Acidized. Maybe that "is" the slow-down.
Subject:RE: Trying to be honest... Reply by: Big_Faced_Boy Date:11/8/2004 3:21:08 PM Firstly, I'd like to point out that I've only used ACID 5 at home on a less than ideal setup, so some of the problems I've experienced may well not be an issue when I run it on a better system. I do like the new timestretch capablities of the Beatmapper and the added Fixed Segments function in Loop properties. The collapsible folder tracks are fantastic. I too have found previews to be much slower. Non-acidized samples never seemed to take this long previously. Personally, I'm happy with my new purchase, but I tend to agree with Cquence. I've had a few crashes, mostly under extreme circumstances (gotta put it through its paces). The Media Manager seems to be there for if you buy lots of Sony sample cds. I don't really want .net framework bloating on my pc. It's changed my login settings, too. The new Simple Delay plugin no longer works as it did in Sound Forge 6. The effect is only applied to the highlighted area, rather than ringing out. I haven't fully assessed this yet, and haven't really played with the other updated fx. The tempo-based fx seem nifty, but still no sign of an assignable LFO for use with envelopes. The Piano Roll editor seems improved, though still isn't perfect. I think I've found a bug when editing controller information, too. I STILL RECOMMEND BUYING IT! BFB.
Subject:RE: Trying to be honest... Reply by: jardeano Date:11/8/2004 3:38:19 PM "I just want to use my hard sequencer, samplers, and Acid to add loops and/or extra wav samples! That's it! " I've been using the roland sp-606 sampler as a slave to Acid 5, seems to be working good, adding loops etc.no drifting on a 3 min. song. I'm really liking the feel of Acid 5, more so than 4.
Subject:RE: Trying to be honest... Reply by: Cquence777 Date:11/8/2004 3:58:32 PM Well that's cool jardeano....glad it's working for ya. I can drive my Roland S-550, SP-808, VS-880, EMU Planet Phatt, Korg 01/W, and my computer (Echo Layla24 midi & various comp apps such as Acid 4.0, Quartz Audio Master sequencer which I did beta testing for and helped incorporate MMC to that app) thru my 8 port midi thrubox off of my Fantom X7 with no lag, delay, or timing discrepancies what-so-ever. If I was to choose to use Acid as a Master (which be reminded "isn't" a sequencer so no valid reason for me to use it as such just to add a backdrop loop to a sequence), then I could do as Acid 4.0 is doing as I type this.....generate midi clock to the Fantom X in perfect sync. But as with most hardware sequencers, you can't record the same way in slave mode as you can in Master. So to use Acid as a Master and then add a piece of sequence to the Fantom, I have to come out of slave mode and back to Master to do that....then switch back to have Acid drive it again. Count in measures are gone in hard seq slave mode for one(at least with the Fantom). 5.0 was not remotely accurate after numerous tests. The Echo WDM ASIO driver crashed 5.0 upon startup.....fell back to my Audigy II Platinum to do the remaining audio tests....and kept Layla in place for midi. Even MTC (which serves no valid point for me personally), would lock quickly with 4.0 and would take 3 to 5 measures to lock with 5.0. The ONLY addition to this "system" was NET Framework and Acid 5.0 Pro. After uninstalling it (and yes it took Acid 4.0 stuff with it....multiple crashes in 4.0 until reinstalling), I am viewing the faults and shortcomings of 4.0f in a much better light now. lol But again, to each his/her own. And I really am happy for ya if it's working for you. ;)
Subject:RE: Trying to be honest... Reply by: Iacobus Date:11/8/2004 6:04:43 PM Cquence: Did you try completely uninstalling both versions of ACID Pro and installing ACID Pro 5 only? How does that work out for you? I remember users having problems when having two versions installed. (Though, normally, this shouldn't be a problem.) (Be sure to backup any settings like any custom FX plug-in chains and the like.) You're welcome! BFB: The simple delay should decay appropriately. I just tested this and it seemed to work fine. HTH, Iacobus ------- RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid Pre-order Instant ACID My ACIDplanet Page Guitars 4 Kids

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