Subject:New To Acid..Few Questions

Posted by: rallycapmusic

Date:5/2/2009 8:23:43 PM

Hey guys, Im a newbie to Sony Acid Pro 7. I have a few questions about it.

1. What is the purpose of the chopper?

2. I do alot of sampling from records. Once my audio is and I decide what I want to loop, am i to use "loop" or "beatmapped"?

3. Is there any sort of "audio editor"? Im not finding a way to trim off my beginning and ends of my audio to get that perfect loop.

Subject:RE: New To Acid..Few Questions

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:5/4/2009 8:45:00 AM

> 1. What is the purpose of the chopper?

The Chopper is a precision tool for chopping up loops into smaller parts. While you could just cut the loop up while on the timeline, the chopper gives you and area to work in with more control and allows you make finer selections and to do multiple inserts onto the timeline at the cursor.

> 2. I do alot of sampling from records. Once my audio is and I decide what I want to loop, am i to use "loop" or "beatmapped"?

Beatmapping is for longer passages or entire songs. It inserts timing information so that ACID can conform the song to the project tempo. Beatmapped audio does not loop when you extend it. You probably want to use loops for small samples that are rhythmic. This allows you to extend them indefinitely while they loop over and over. For samples that have no tempo, use One Shots.

> 3. Is there any sort of "audio editor"? Im not finding a way to trim off my beginning and ends of my audio to get that perfect loop.

Sound Forge is the audio editor of choice for use within ACID. ACID itself does not have an audio editor. Sound Forge understands ACID formats and can add ACID information to ordinary wave files. I can't imagine using one without the other, especially if you are doing your own sampling. You can sample directly into Sound Forge, add the ACID loop information and then use the loops in ACID.

~jr

Subject:RE: New To Acid..Few Questions

Reply by: rallycapmusic

Date:5/4/2009 5:36:45 PM

Wow! thanks alot!

Well im still sort of confused with the audio coming in and being labeled as "beatmapped". Im new to Acid so im not at the stage where Im doing remixes just yet. So bringing in long pieces of audio is not what im doing yet. The audio i bring in off a record is just 1, 2 or 4bars of audio that I want to loop. So when I record it into Acid am I to turn it into "Loop"? Because its being defaulted as a "Beatmapped" piece of audio,

Subject:RE: New To Acid..Few Questions

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:5/6/2009 8:49:24 AM

Since the audio you are bringing in has no tempo information you can beatmap it even if it's small. Then once you get it lined up and trimmed the way you want so that it loops perfectly, render the just loop to a new track with Ctrl+M. ACID will automatically add the information to the WAV file to make it an ACID Loop and place it on a new track. This is the loop you should use in your project.

~jr

Subject:RE: New To Acid..Few Questions

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:5/8/2009 1:51:49 PM

A couple things to be also aware of:

ACID "ACIDizes" a particular sample based upon the overall project's tempo and key. This is very important since if you plan to use the ACIDized samples in other projects, you may have undesirable things going on, like keystretching on samples that don't need it such as percussion.

Before using the Ctrl + M function on such samples, be sure to set the overall project's key to "None." (Done in the lower left corner of the track view.)


Iacobus

Subject:RE: New To Acid..Few Questions

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:5/9/2009 3:47:48 PM

Good points Iacobus... and another thing to keep in mind (which just came up on another forum) if you do want to make your own loops: You can't just record them and hope that they will work. You must always go into the clip properties and make sure that ACID has interpreted your loop correctly and manually adjust the stretch spacing and any stretch markers that are incorrect. Otherwise your loop isn't going to behave properly.

To do this, right-click on the event you just recorded and open Clip Properties, go to the Stretch tab and adjust the Timing tightness and Stretch spacing to an appropriate value. I would also adjust the stretch markers and delete any extra markers (which are wrong) where ACID tried to guess the timing.

If you previously beatmapped the audio to make the loop it should already be set correctly but it's still worth checking.

~jr