Subject:Song created entirely in ACID Pro 5

Posted by: billybk

Date:12/17/2004 6:44:10 AM

Here is a song, "Candy Girl", that I created entirely, from start to finish, in ACID Pro 5, including creating the final wma/mp3, directly from the timeline. You can find it at ACIDPlanet:

http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?songs=1755&T=3107

The project was done @ 16/44, included more than (30) tracks, (5) Bus tracks and (1) Synth Bus (Edirol Super Quartet). The vocals, bass & finger snaps were recorded directly into ACID, as beatmapped tracks. On this project, I used a combination of various ACID loops, from the Sony library, recorded audio and midi. For fx, in addition to ACID's Track EQ, I made extensive use of the UAD-1 (7 plugins) ,along with the WaveWarts Trackplug (to tame the bass), Voxengo Voxformer (Vocal Bus) and the new TapeBus (on the Master). ACID Pro 5, made creating this piece a breeze, and during many hours of recording, arranging & mixing, I used many of the new features, of A5 Pro, (like Folder Tracks, Bus to Bus routing, VST effects, Dim Monitor, Plugin-Manager, Media Manager), through it all, ACID 5 remained extremely stable and virtually trouble free, which allowed me to stay creative and be more productive.


Billy Buck

Subject:RE: Song created entirely in ACID Pro 5

Reply by: ATP

Date:12/17/2004 6:51:48 AM

nice plug :P

in all seriousness, what is so special about a song which is entirely created in Acid? all of my tracks are made entirely in ACID also. or did you mean to say you did not use any samples?

i'll check it out when i get back from work. :)

Subject:RE: Song created entirely in ACID Pro 5

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:12/17/2004 7:06:28 AM

Nice track. Has a nice loose "live" feel to it. My only critique would be the processing of the vocals. It sounded like doubling that you would use more for rock music than for blues (although Leon Russell used a fair amount of echo on his vocals but it was looser and not to tight). I would think a warmer up front vocal (ala Eric Clapton) would give it more of a blues club atmosphere. Still it’s a great tune.

~jr

Subject:RE: Song created entirely in ACID Pro 5

Reply by: billybk

Date:12/17/2004 7:29:41 AM

ATP,

Oh, I guess it's nothing special really, to some hardcore ACID users :), but for me, I usually use more than one app (SONAR for audio/midi work, Sound Forge for audio editing, ACID for loop arranging etc....) and rarely ACID from start to finish. This time, I purposely wanted to keep everything, in one host app and utilize many of the new features in ACID Pro 5, and while doing it, really put ACID 5, to the test. I guess the point is, the latest A5 Pro, has really evolved into a great creative tool, is extremely stable (for me anyway)
and you can really go from A-Z, and actually create original fully produced songs, that do not sound like......loop based music.


Billy Buck

Subject:RE: Song created entirely in ACID Pro 5

Reply by: billybk

Date:12/17/2004 7:36:15 AM

"Has a nice loose "live" feel to it."

Thanks JR, that is exactly what I was striving for. :)

You are right about the vocals, I did record two separate vocal tracks (and then in ACID sliced one of those tracks into two) and then routed the three of them to a vocal bus (Voxformer-LA2A-1176LN) and then routed that to a reverb bus ( Plate 140) and then added just a tinge of the vintage EMT, for effect.


Billy Buck

Subject:RE: Song created entirely in ACID Pro 5

Reply by: H2000

Date:12/17/2004 8:51:50 AM

Do you have to register to get the song? When I go to the link, under songs, there is nothing but a note saying to register to see more songs.

At any rate, can you expand on how you use bus-bus routing? I haven't found it that useful in Vegas, because what I really need is bus sends (to send a bus to another bus or assignable FX).

Subject:RE: Song created entirely in ACID Pro 5

Reply by: ATP

Date:12/17/2004 10:16:13 AM

billybk,

i see what you mean now. i thought you meant that the whole project was in ACID only (which is common for me). but actually you mean you used nothing but ACID to make this track. in that case i have to retract my earlier statement and say that i don't have any songs in which only ACID was used to create them, as SF is always used to create the samples i work with in the first place.

oh, and nice track. :)

Subject:RE: Song created entirely in ACID Pro 5

Reply by: billybk

Date:12/17/2004 10:46:00 AM

"Do you have to register to get the song? "

Hmmm......I don't really know, as I've always been registered. Anyway, registration is free @ AP and so is the posting of your songs.

"....can you expand on how you use bus-bus routing? I haven't found it that useful in Vegas, because what I really need is bus sends (to send a bus to another bus or assignable FX)".

Typically, it comes in handy when you can feed one or more tracks to a bus (with an FX chain), and once you have the fx chain sounding like you want it, you can feed that chain, to another fx bus, and have specific volume control, over the entire FX chain, as it gets routed to the next bus for additional processing. For instance, in Candy Girl, I routed three lead vocal tracks to a Vocal Bus, with an FX chain (Voxformer-LA2A-1176LN). Once I got this FX chain sounding the way I wanted it, I created another bus, with a EMT Plate 140 reverb and used the Vocal Bus volume control to feed the
FX chain (as one effect), to the reverb. So you can create and save your favorite FX chains and use the bus volume to control the level of the entire chain feeding another bus. Anyway, that is how I use it, in ACID 5. Which is something you could not do in ACID 4. Also, I have been making extensive use of Folder Tracks, along with the bus to bus routing to create quick and easy stem mixes. Group my Folder tracks into Drums, Bass, Guitar, Vocals, Percussion, Keyboards, etc.......and then route those folder tracks to corresponding Buses, for volume control over each Folder track and then further route those Buses to the Master Bus or to other FX Buses if need be.


Billy Buck

Subject:RE: Song created entirely in ACID Pro 5

Reply by: billybk

Date:12/17/2004 11:13:57 AM

Hey thanks ATP,
Yeah, I usually use more than one app too. But, I wanted to see if I could create, edit, arrange, mix & export the final distribution media (wma/mp3) or even redbook CD, without ever leaving ACID Pro 5. Anyway, that was the reason for the post, as I had not really done that before, going from A-Z, with a complete song, including vocals, in ACID before. Needless, to say, I am quite impressed with ACID Pro 5, as a complete media production tool.

Billy Buck

Subject:RE: Song created entirely in ACID Pro 5

Reply by: H2000

Date:12/17/2004 11:25:55 AM

Thanks for the explaination!
The vocal chain example is similar to what I am looking to do, but I wanted to do it using a 100% reverb bus. That way, I could just send from the vocal bus and also be able to send from other tracks in the arrangement. I assume then that your Reverb bus handles the wet/dry mix of reverb also, correct?

Interested about the Folder Tracks - I was not aware they could be used that way (can you tell I'm still using version 4).

Subject:RE: Song created entirely in ACID Pro 5

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:12/17/2004 1:25:50 PM

Another good use for Bus-to-Bus routing is if you compose Drum tracks from One Shots. You will probably have several tracks of cymbals and several tracks of snares, etc. You can route all the cymbal tracks to one bus, then all the snares to another bus, then route both buses to the Drums bus. Even if you are not using any bus FX, this lets you control the volume of all the cymbals or all the snare tracks with one fader to make it easier to mix the drums, and still have a master drum fade to mix within the other instruments.

~jr