Subject:ACID Pro 6 review from UK

Posted by: billybk

Date:5/7/2006 8:17:40 AM

Although, I don't agree with all of the comments:

Ugly interface

.......it’s hardly the most intuitive application!

The reviewer does have some positive things to say:


ACID Pro 6 will definitely please long-standing users of the software. The combination of a multitrack recording environment for audio and MIDI along with excellent looping tools really opens up an exciting range of possibilities for composers, studios, musicians and multimedia work. This is without a doubt the best and most comprehensive version of ACID Pro ever. Highly recommended!


http://www.biosmagazine.co.uk/rev.php?id=465

ACID Pro 6 does receive the mags Editors Choice Award

http://www.biosmagazine.co.uk/rev_image.php?id=465&imageid=ed_choice#images


Cheers,

Billy Buck

Subject:RE: ACID Pro 6 review from UK

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:5/7/2006 10:13:49 AM

Ugly interface? I've never understood that argument, all the years that it's been made. I'm personally glad Sony apps buck the trend of trying to be 'unique' and 'flashy', or attempting to emulate an old obsolete piece of analog gear to appease past-era pros.

My brother is a professional model/texture artist, and we've always found it funny how visual art applications from his field typically have the most god-awful, unintuitive interfaces, and how audio-focused applications from my field typically have beautiful, ornate interfaces. You'd think it would be the opposite, give what actually comes out of the programs.

I'm glad Sony apps are "ugly" then. I'm working with a Windows computer making noises. Why dress it up as anything else?

- Nick

Subject:RE: ACID Pro 6 review from UK

Reply by: Spectralis

Date:5/7/2006 11:13:22 AM

I imagine the people who describe ACID as "ugly" would hate Le Corbusier. Ok, maybe that's a bit pretentious but my point is elegance doesn't have to be flashy.

Subject:RE: ACID Pro 6 review from UK

Reply by: Illogical

Date:5/7/2006 11:17:28 AM

Acid makes my eyes happy. They should allow other background colors besides white on clips, but that's my only gripe.

Subject:RE: ACID Pro 6 review from UK

Reply by: Tobias7000

Date:5/7/2006 12:16:16 PM

I thank the developers of AcidPro for making the interface a usable blend of looking good while not focusing too much on pretty buttons with shading and memory hogging graphics. This is also why I like LIVE5... no frills interface, just good workflow with highly usable features.

Subject:RE: ACID Pro 6 review from UK

Reply by: thenoizzbox

Date:5/8/2006 7:55:32 AM

I don't understand the ugly interface argument either. Acid is eminently usable and that's one of the reasons I love it. You want real ugly? open Tacktion...

I am also thankful that Sonic Foundry/Sony have not fallen into the trend of making Acid's interface look like old analog gear. A professional application's interface should get out of the way and let users work quickly and efficiently and I think Acid does this beautifuly. If that is ugly then I love ugly...

Subject:RE: ACID Pro 6 review from UK

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:5/8/2006 3:29:04 PM

Hey, why all the long faces for our ugly duckling? It won the Editor’s Choice ward! ;-)

Like many of you, I find the simple Windows interface of ACID refreshing from the “space shuttle” approach that SONAR takes or the day-glow pop art/Fisher Price look of Live. I would rather ACID be called ugly than be called “intimidating” which is what those others apps are to new users.

The comment about not being intuitive is funny. Intuition assumes a common frame of reference and is not really about “ease of use” for everyone. To a Sound Forge or Vegas user, ACID’s interface is “intuitively” obvious.

It’s good to see ACID get great reviews like this. Reviewers have to find something wrong so the interface is always an easy one to complain about for any application.

“One man’s intuitive interface is another man’s blank screen”. :-D

~jr

Subject:RE: ACID Pro 6 review from UK

Reply by: filkertom

Date:5/14/2006 5:23:24 PM

I'm definitely in the "Acid looks great" camp. Clean, simple, no problems finding anything. On the other hand, I'm not happy with the Kompakt interface. My screen is 1280 x 1024, and it's simply too difficult to read that tiny, blocky text. Any chance of Sony/NI working something out for the next version?

Subject:RE: ACID Pro 6 review from UK

Reply by: feign

Date:5/14/2006 6:12:27 PM

I agree that Acid looks fine. My very first impression of Acid last year was: "This looks FUN. I can't wait to use it". I have the same reaction every time I open it. Is that so very wrong? Should it look dull in order to be taken seriously? Though I'm a heavy user of Adobe Audition for mastering projects, and I do like the program, I find the interface sober and monotonous, and also not so easy to take in everything at a glance. I've tried the demo of Live, and it is, well, just flat and boring. Like it was designed by an artistically-challenged, totally color-blind engineer.

With Acid, it took me about 30 minutes to get used to the interface, and now I find it extremely easy to glance around the screen and know what is happening instantly about every aspect of my projects. Having tinkered with some other DAWs and plugins, I really hate the common attempt to imitate analog gear. Valuable screen real estate is taken up with lovingly detailed illustrations of knobs, rather than useful information. That is really getting in the way of my getting used to using Kompakt. It is a pretty illustration, and an actual 3-dimensional metal-and-plastic mixer console that looked like that might be simple to work with, but it is so *&@)(*(#ing counter-intuitive AS A COMPUTER PROGRAM that I cringe to use it.