Subject:Acid Well Worth It

Posted by: Cheye

Date:3/19/2008 6:41:27 AM

I realize there are many great sequencer apps out on the market today, and I have tried many... Cubase, Nuendo, Logic, Ableton etc. The ease of use of Acid and how it lets you work quickly to get creative ideas down does not even come close to other apps. The additions to Acid Pro 6 have been excellent and helps bring Acid closer to other apps that are going for the all in one approach which I feel is the way to go. I would like to encourage Sony to continue to update and bring out a new version, and to keep working at stability for this app. I believe Sony is very close to coming up with something excellent. Good things do not come without a fight, and Sony needs to get the gloves on and make this app top notch. I believe we are close.

My 2 cents

Cheye

Subject:RE: Acid Well Worth It

Reply by: indeepthought

Date:3/19/2008 6:09:35 PM

I think Sony needs to do a better job of marketing it as more than a toy for people to play with loops. Those of us who use it no that it is capable of so much more. When i go to various music forums, Acid is rarely brought up in convo and when it is, it is often either taken lightly or downright insulted. I think Sony should be more aggressive in getting the product into the hands of professionals that can endorse the product and show professional results. I know pop success is not always the measure of talent, but a few top pop producers using the product would make more people take a look in the same way that producers like 9th wonder made people believe fruity could be used to produce hits.

Subject:RE: Acid Well Worth It

Reply by: Patrick@Denman

Date:3/25/2008 4:54:35 PM

Boy, you guys really hit the nail on the head here. I too think AP6 is fantastic. And I can't agree strongly enough that Sony Creative needs to crank up the energy in marketing this product. It's pretty obvious that they're letting Vegas take the place of their premium multimedia offering, and ACID seems to be somewhat neglected of late. Why else has it taken so ridiculously long for V7 to come out?

IAC the fact is that ACID can go head-to-head with other DAW software, and while it might lose out in certain areas, ease of use has got to count for A LOT. Personally, I hardly every use canned loops any more, and it will be quite a while before I reach the limits of what I can do with ACID.

Subject:RE: Acid Well Worth It

Reply by: kitekrazee

Date:3/27/2008 8:58:22 PM

In on other forums I've read some like to use it as a mixing environment.
It's great for recording.

Subject:RE: Acid Well Worth It

Reply by: Patrick@Denman

Date:3/29/2008 1:25:33 PM

Oh yeah...definitely. In fact, lately I've used it more as a mixing tool than for music composition. I think it's awesome in that respect...it's just so easy to do.

My recent work has been to mix/master multi-track recordings for a local band. A typical session contains 8 tracks - four drum tracks, two guitars, a bass, and a vocal. I can set up a mix in AP6 within a couple of minutes. The only thing that is a little silly with AP is that I don't automatically have a level meter on each track for mixing, so I need to route each track to its own bus so that it will show up in the mixer. (Other DAWs like REAPER and Audition automatically show a level meter for each track in the mixer.) It's not a really big deal; it only takes a minute or two to do this, and with the band I just create a project as a template with all my buses set up , so all I need to do is to add the individual WAV files for each track onto the project.

This is just another case of something that Sony doesn't work hard enough on to promote ACID as the tool to do this sort of thing. IMHO, with a few extra features they could clobber the competition.

Subject:RE: Acid Well Worth It

Reply by: indeepthought

Date:4/1/2008 10:40:22 AM

i agree about it being a great tool for mixing (except for that tiny lack of meter issue). The ease of reconfiguring the order of effect chains is, imo is much better than the competition. As I have mentioned, I have purchased Sonar and still find Acid more useful for now. I think adding the following will make Acid a lot more competitive:

1. Upgraded plug-ins. The effects that are built-in to Acid are at least 13 years old. The other DAWS have Acid totally beat in that area. Don't get me wrong. The effects in Acid are not bad, but offer little in the bang for the buck factor. Yes, the effects were once sold separately, but so were the legacy effects on Cakewalk. Cakewalk offers the option of installing legacy effects and offers an assortment of newer effects plug-ins. The default eq is a very high-quality Sonitus parametric EQ. As a new consumer, there is no way I would pick Acid over similarly priced DAWS. If I wanted a mixing app, there are many good products dedicated to that , including Son'y's own Soundforge 9 (which now has better mastering plug-ins).

2. Along the same lines, including more and better supported virtual instruments would level the playing field some. Kompakt is ok, but poorly supported and easily replaced by freebies. Sony's built-in GM synth ok as a tool to audition midi files, but is useless otherwise. To make matters worse, it uses a sample format that NOBODY uses. I'm sure some deals could be made to include some LE versions of decent synths.

3. A step sequencer would be a huge step considering even loop based producers tend to want to program drums to some extant, even if it is just beefing up kicks and snares.

4. The ability to convert mono instrument samples into midi notes. Wishful thinking but it would certainly raise the bar.

Subject:RE: Acid Well Worth It

Reply by: mista k

Date:4/4/2008 7:59:36 PM

Acid 6 rocked when it came out - It is def. falling behind the competition. Ableton alone is swallowing up all acids potential buyers and that will eventually lead to the demise of acid. Less buyers = less time in reseach & development. They have good grips on the video with Vegas and I really hope that I am totally wrong on this hunch but I think we will not see too much more of acid upgrades and future versions. It's unfortunate for me to think this as Acid has been the best sequencer, yes DAW that I have ever used and I throw a compete option with my friends that run on Cubase Logic Sonar & Fruity Loops - I bet them I can do close to everything they can and I'm sure I can do more with Acid then they know how to do with their DAW's.
So - let's hope that Acid will stay alive and continue to strive.

I don't want to jump on a new DAW - Acid is like home to me!!!!

Please upgrade Acid so it can use utilize more than 2GB RAM - My computer is beast but almost pointless when limited to such historic settings and capabilities. This fact alone will sway new buyers.

Subject:RE: Acid Well Worth It

Reply by: Kennymusicman

Date:4/5/2008 1:34:10 AM

"Please upgrade Acid so it can use utilize more than 2GB RAM - My computer is beast but almost pointless when limited to such historic settings and capabilities. This fact alone will sway new buyers."

Best make sure you're running Vista64 with more than 4GB to take proper advantage of that then...For example, AMS7 will happily see 4GB here, on my 8GB system.

Subject:RE: Acid Well Worth It

Reply by: thenoizzbox

Date:4/5/2008 7:24:01 AM

> Acid 6 rocked when it came out - It is def. falling behind the competition.

In terms of modern OS support, sure, not in terms of functionality IMO. If Acid Pro 6 was working correctly in Vista 64 I'd still be using it.

> Ableton alone is swallowing up all acids potential buyers and that will
> eventually lead to the demise of acid.

"All" of Acid's potential buyers? Demise of Acid? You like to exaggerate upon unfounded assumptions don't you? Personally, Ableton Live is the last DAW I'd go to if Acid was discontinued permanently (which will not happen any time soon). Live may get a few ex Acid users but I find Reaper a much more logical alternative. That's what I'm using on Vista now while I'm waiting to see what Acid Pro 7 brings to the table. Reaper makes a lot more sense to an Acid user than Ableton Live IMO.

> Less buyers = less time in reseach & development.

True, but let's wait and see how Acid Pro 7 does when it's released before getting out all the doom and gloom. Sony has said there will be an Acid Pro 7. They just didn't say when. I choose to think that the fact they are taking a long time means they want to do it right and that's a good thing. On the other hand, I still think they should have released an updated to AP6 to support Vista which would have taken a lot less time than a whole new version and would have made it easier for users like me who had to get new computers to stay with Acid. But they chose not to do that. They will live with the consequences of that decision if it means they'll loose a lot of Acid users permanently. But that is not a given yet and, I myself will decide if I upgrade when I see what version 7 looks like. No need to continually bitch and moan before that.

> I really hope that I am totally wrong on this hunch but I think we will not see
> too much more of acid upgrades and future versions.

You are basing this "hunch" on what exactly? Acid Pro 6 was a fantastic upgrade. It's taking them even longer to get version 7 out. Maybe it will be even more revolutionary?

> It's unfortunate for me to think this as Acid has been the best sequencer,
> yes DAW that I have ever used
> I don't want to jump on a new DAW - Acid is like home to me!!!!

It was to me as well but, in a way, Sony didn't give me a choice. They didn't force me to choose Vista but going to that OS was the logical choice for me and I don't regret it. The last update to AP6 (v 6.0d) was released in mid 2006, which was over two years ago. The computing world has moved on since then and again, Sony chose to wait until a major paid upgrade to support Vista which was itself released over a year ago and had been in public beta for over 2 years before that. They had ample time to update AP6 to work on Vista and on Dual Core 64 bit systems had they chosen to do so. But they didn't.

So, in the meantime, I decided to try a new DAW (Reaper) and I love it so far. I'm waiting to see what AP7 will be like and if it has significant improvements. If it does then I'll jump back to it in a heartbeat.