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Subject:AP5 : No Reviews ?
Posted by: Zacchino
Date:11/26/2004 8:56:13 AM
I've bought my favorite magazines (in france) called "Keyboard" and "Home Studio" (Recording Musician)... Anyone has seen any ? |
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Subject:RE: AP5 : No Reviews ?
Reply by: jam
Date:11/27/2004 3:50:29 AM
nothing |
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Subject:RE: AP5 : No Reviews ?
Reply by: DKeenum
Date:11/27/2004 7:54:47 AM
Reviews will take time. |
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Subject:RE: AP5 : No Reviews ?
Reply by: Iacobus
Date:11/29/2004 7:17:13 PM
Who cares wins. The various magazines' track records on reviewing ACID have been less than stellar. They all seem pretty hung up on the whole "all-in-one-DAW" apps. Iacobus ------- RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid Pre-order Instant ACID mD at ACIDplanet Guitars 4 Kids |
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Subject:RE: AP5 : No Reviews ?
Reply by: jumbuk
Date:11/29/2004 8:10:40 PM
Agree. The mag reviews generally state the obvious, and show no signs of having *used* the application. For what it's worth, my own review after a few weeks of use: - Value for money: you get the Express keyboards plus a loop library of your choice plus some bundled content. Total value > the upgrade cost. Even before any improvements to the app, it has to be positive. Does look a little as though Sony might be compensating for lack of new features, but hey, a good deal is a good deal. - Major new features: (1) Media manager: this will be of value to those that use mainly Sony loops, and will be a good way for Sony to onsell more libraries. A bit clunky for my liking, but there is a way to disable it, and it's not Sony's fault that technology can't quite deliver the speed yet. Nice try, but not much value to me. (2) Folder tracks: a simple idea, but immensely valuable. Especially needed because Acid creates a new track for every loop, even when the loops are just variations on a single idea (that would otherwise be on the same track in say Cubase or Sonar). Only question, why didn't Sony take this further, so we could have the option of a single fader for all tracks in a folder track, and being able to "collapse" the subtracks onto a single track display? (3) Rewire: not useful for everyone, but works seamlessly and is a major step forward for those of us that prefer something like Cubase for recording and MIDI editing. (4) Groove matching: THE major new feature. As usual with SF/Sony, takes a complex idea and presents it in an intuitive graphic way that is easy to work with. I have yet to explore all the possibilities. (5) VST FX integration. Some bugs still, but ultimately these will be worked through. What's missing? - Beatmapping with variable tempos (like Cubase's timewarp tools) - Integration with external control surfaces - Any features to make Acid usful for live performance - such as marked loop sections that can be triggered from the keyboard, mute/solo from external control etc. - Saved workspace/window config. - Single hit editor modelled on the MIDI loop editor but using Acid single hit tracks as the sounds instead of MIDI notes. Other points: - Odd time signatures now work properly for time sigs with denominators other than 4 (6/8, 15/16 etc). Thanks guys! - Better MIDI and softsynth editing - creation of custom loops is now much easier, and worth pursuing. Overall: - Less underwhelming than the disappointing Sound Forge 7.0 release. - Enough new features and bundled freebies to make it a no-brain decision (assuming you need/want what's on offer). - A bit less than I expected, but still worth the upgrade price. - Sets the stage for more goodies in the next release. |
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Subject:RE: AP5 : No Reviews ?
Reply by: dabb
Date:11/30/2004 5:27:14 AM
Well for my review, it is unacceptable that Sony took 2.5 years to ship out this uncompleted extremely buggy software. Their implementation of the media manager and the extra baggage required on your system is ridiculous. I’m not running a gaming machine here it’s a daw that is not connected to the net. Acid is not getting any good reviews especially on KVR, it only has 8 out of 524 votes as a useable host. I’ve made my decision to move on and I’m presently looking at audition and FLstudio. I know there will be a lot of die hard Acid users here that will not agree with me, that’s ok, just think about what Sony has been doing with this app for the last 2 and half years. What kind of beta testing did they give this release? Or is it being tested now! dabb |
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Subject:RE: AP5 : No Reviews ?
Reply by: billybk
Date:11/30/2004 7:17:51 AM
Mmmm.......ACID Pro 5......"extremely buggy" ..........compared to what? Every new release will have some bugs, Live 4 is still releasing bug fixes and it has been out (4) months and is on version 4.04. SONAR 4, just released a boatload of bug fixes with 4.01. Sony will do the same with an ACID Pro 5a update, I can assure you. I have uncovered a few minor bugs, but nothing that keeps me from using and being productive with A5 and I am using it almost every day. If you do not like the Media Manager, you don't have to use it (you can deactivate it from the ACID Preferences), or even un-install it and the "extra baggage" required to use it. Except for a few minor niggles it is working fine for me, and with 23GB (34,000 loops) worth of loop libraries to sort through, it is a blessing and a time saver. As far as the KVR popularity contest, the question is " Which host you use most?", not which is a "useable" host. Nice try for spin control, but I gotta call you on that one :) You may want to forget about Audition, since it got even less votes than ACID, only two so far. SONAR 4 may be best for you, since it is leading the pack with 157 votes @ 29%. I am also a SONAR 4 user, and I've been using it and ACID Pro 5 in rewire mode a lot these days and it has been totally rock solid. That alone justifies the upgrade, IMO. The rest, (native VST support, Folder tracks, Realtime Reverse, Groove Mapping, DAO CD Burning, new DX Tempo-based effects and so on) is just icing on the cake. Billy Buck |
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Subject:RE: AP5 : No Reviews ?
Reply by: ATP
Date:11/30/2004 8:08:59 AM
------------------------ Except for a few minor niggles it is working fine for me ------------------------ see, that's the problem (nothing personal intended, just using this as an example). what's a minor niggle to you is a major gripe for somebody else. and who is to say which problem is less important than another? of course, if you're a beta tester you have some influence, but then i wonder how it can be that apparently none of the testers noticed the auto-preview bugs, or the loop region bug? maybe they are considered to be minor problems? i'd love to see Sony release a prioritized bug-fix list, so we can get an idea of what to expect. |
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Subject:RE: AP5 : No Reviews ?
Reply by: JohnnyRoy
Date:11/30/2004 8:11:54 AM
> it is unacceptable that Sony took 2.5 years to ship out this uncompleted extremely buggy software. Sony has only owned ACID for 1 year. The other 1.5 year wait was due to financial troubles at Sonic Foundry which is why they sold the asset to Sony. It is unfortunate for customers that this happened, but you can’t blame Sony for how long its been. (yes, it’s the same development team but the development team doesn’t control where a company invests its dollars) Even with all that going on, Sony managed to add some major features to the application. I’m sure Vegas users would die for Track Folders and a Media Manager. I know I welcome these additions along with ReWire client, the Groove Pool and VST effect support. I have to agree with Billy, ACID Pro 5.0 has been very stable for me so I don’t see a buggy release. I also just built a new PC so it doesn’t have years of software abuse to mess it up. I read the KVR thread and it looks to me like most of the complaints were about the Microsoft SQL engine. Everybody loves to hate Microsoft. If you don’t like it, just turn it off. I turned it off on my laptop because its resource constrained and ACID 5 loads as fast as ACID 4 now. ~jr |
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Subject:RE: AP5 : No Reviews ?
Reply by: billybk
Date:11/30/2004 8:38:52 AM
ATP, I personally tested the loop regions (re-adjusting positions during playback), many times in previous beta builds, I think the last one, I checked was 251 and it worked fine. In fact, I think I still have the build. In the last few builds we were checking other issues and that bug crept into the last 265 release build. Sorry about that, I don't like it any more than you do, but Sony has acknowledged it and said it would be fixed in an update. Yes, I do classify that as a "minor niggle" and there is an easy workaround in the meantime. When in Loop Mode, during playback, press the "L" key (to temporarily deactivate the loop regions) re-adjust the loop points and then press the "L" key again. A few seconds and a couple of keystrokes, not a major catastophe, in my book. I am not aware of any auto-preview bugs. Auto-preview has been working fine for me and always has. I use it every day. No different than in ACID 4. What exactly are you experiencing? What is the re-producible recipe to make it consistantly happen? If it can't be consistantly re-produced it will be harder to track down. I would not mind seeing a confirmed and verified bug fix list, from Sony either. Best regards, Billy Buck |
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Subject:RE: AP5 : No Reviews ?
Reply by: ATP
Date:11/30/2004 9:29:36 AM
thx for the detailed information. it makes more sense if the bug creeps in afterward, and for this one i guess you are correct, it's a minor bug since it can be circumvented without too much trouble. the auto-preview bug, however, that's something which is a major gripe for me personally, as it kills the smooth pace of my workflow. on the other hand, i can totally understand it if other people do not experience it as such a big problem. hence my first post in this thread, what bugs get "priority"? i've explained the bug in an earlier thread, but for reference i'll post it here again: ============================================================ BUG - previews are not always played when clicked in Explorer window ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ How to reproduce: In the Explorer window (with auto-preview enabled) click on a (lengthy) audio file to preview it, and *while it's still loading the preview*, click on another file to preview that. Result: ACID 5 will continue to load the first preview, but then not actually play it. It also does not load the preview for the next audio file. The program just keeps silent. In ACID 4, after clicking on the next audio file the program stops the loading of the first preview and automatically loads and plays the next preview. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
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Subject:RE: AP5 : No Reviews ?
Reply by: Lionel Richtea
Date:11/30/2004 9:51:11 AM
it may be a 'few seconds' and a few keystrokes, but the point is that the workflow is interrupted. This can be a 'major' thing. I make my living on PCs and have a lot of keyboard shortcuts in my head. I don't want to have it filled with temporary ones only to find that the situation is going to be changed at a later stage.Previous versions of Acid took absolutely no time wasting to get into a workflow whereas this version is full of headaches that literally waste many hours of time before you can even get to making music whioh is the whole point isn't it? I have recently spent an evening attempting to figure out why a) Acid keeps resetting my sound driver to Microsoft Soundmapper, b) won't allow me to change loop points on the fly c) doesn't function effectively as a rewire host in nearly every app i have tried despite the fact that actually purchased a NEW soundcard in the process and upgraded my machine], and d) scans my vst pugin directory on startup EVERY c**kin time i use it. This is only the start of a list of niggles [major or minor according to your opinion]... I have disabled media manager and accept that there are workarounds that need to be found in initial releases of software, but there are issues here that are inexplicable because they involve functions that are fundamental to the program and which users are familiar with and take almost as 2nd nature to be working. You cannot be surprised when people take issue with such points. How on earth did some of this get thru the beta testing phase? Anyway, lets see what the update does. I think you will find that the harshest critics of a program are usually those who love it the most... |
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Subject:RE: AP5 : No Reviews ?
Reply by: DanS
Date:11/30/2004 2:27:21 PM
SOS did a good one on AP4. |
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Subject:RE: AP5 : No Reviews ?
Reply by: Zacchino
Date:11/30/2004 9:31:07 PM
AP5's workflow is unique. Can't compare it neither to Logic, Cubase nor Sonar. All I miss in AP5 is the multitrack recording main fuctions (punch in and out, loop recording, etc.) Anyway, I'm still waiting for rewiews... And maybe Awards who knows... |