Acid was first launched in 1998, as Acid pH1, by Sonic Foundry in Madison, Wisconsin. It was a loop-based music sequencer, in which Acid Loop files could be simply drag-and-dropped then automatically adjust to the tempo and key of a song with virtually no sonic degradation.
A website for budding musicians using Acid technology was set up, named AcidPlanet.com. The software became very popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s among composers, producers, and DJs interested in quickly creating beats, music textures, or complete compositions and orchestrations, that would work with virtually any tempo or key signature.
Sonic Foundry sold its Acid, Vegas, Sound Forge, CD Architect, Siren, VideoFactory, ScreenBlast, and Batch Converter product lines to Sony Pictures Digital in July 2003; the merger resulted in the new Sony Creative Software division.[1] Sony's Acid Pro 6 (released in the third quarter of 2006) introduced a full-digital audio workstation that also included MIDI and multitrack audio recording with full support for ASIO computer-audio and VST synthesizer-plugin standards.
On May 20, 2016, German company Magix Software GmbH announced they had acquired the majority of the products in the Sony Creative Software portfolio. These include Acid Pro, Vegas Pro, Movie Studio, and Sound Forge Pro.[2] Acid Pro 8, the first version since Magix's acquisition, was announced on January 21, 2018 and released in spring 2018. The update came with new modern features including an enhanced interface, support for 64-bit, additional samples, VST3 support, over 20 DirectX audio effects, the ability to mix in 5.1 surround sound, and new features named Media Manager, BeatMapper, and Chopper.
Acid Loop (trademark), also Acidized or Acidified loop (generic terms), refers to a sound clip which can be repeated and transposed to form a song with minimal manual adjustment. Acidized loops contain tempo and key information, so that Acid can properly time-stretch and pitch-shift the clip to fit into an existing track structure. An Acidized loop is a specially prepared WAV audio file, which can be created using an audio-editing tool such as Sound Forge. .mw-parser-output div.crossreferencepadding-left:0.mw-parser-output .hatnotefont-style:italic.mw-parser-output div.hatnotepadding-left:1.6em;margin-bottom:0.5em.mw-parser-output .hatnote ifont-style:normal.mw-parser-output .hatnote+link+.hatnotemargin-top:-0.5em(For more information on audio editing, see Sound effect Techniques).
The technology was created in 1998 for Sonic Foundry's original Acid pH1 software. Sony and Magix later sold series of Acidized loop sample CDs to be used with Acid Pro, as have various third-party companies. Since then, this looping technique has been adopted by the majority of other digital audio workstations on the market, sometimes with competing brand names for the feature, such as Cakewalk Sonar (calling it Groove Clips), and Cubase (calling it Audio Warp). Many DAWs can also directly support Acidized loops intended for use in Acid Pro.
I've Sony Acid Music Studio 7, which I've been using since 2005. Win 10 upgrades have made it difficult and cumbersome to use. If I buy Acid Music Studio 11, will I be able to use my old files? That is, both the wavs and the * sfk. I've made numerous edits on my individual waves, and I don't want to lose all my work (about 100 songs). Will I be able to open my old *.acd files and just USE them, without have to re-do all the editing all over again?
Why not download the free trial of Acid Music Studio 11 from this page and test it out? You do need to be aware that Magix trial versions are always in some way limited when compared with the purchased versions, but it might at least give you some idea of the feasibility of what you are asking.
Over the last 16 years I've invested several thousand hours recording and mixing drums, lead/ rhythm guitars, Bass guitars, 3-part harmonies and keyboard (all recorded Live), into over 130 songs.
I performed live with my band for several years, and now I'm recording a lot of my unrecorded songs, while still composing new songs. Some samples: Reverbnation.com/Alan Bradley. (I've posted - I dunno 30 - 50 songs).
I am a prolific composer, and have I have about 50 songs currently partially recorded. For example, a rough guitar track or drum track as a backbone for a Bass track. Then I decide a bass melody/ rhythm, and record. I then delete the guitar track, and write one with a more significant rhythm to mesh with the bass. My songs are not simple rock or blues, they are quite complex, and so take longer to record and edit.
I am a composer - for about 45 years now - and at any one time I have up to 100 brand new songs in the rough stages. I am a also a member of the BMI music rights organization, and I've so far copyrighted over 70 songs with the U.S. Copyright office. I already have another 30 - 40 finished songs ready for copyright.
Sorry for the long story.
The bottom line is that I am an experienced composer with 100 - 110 brand new songs in the rough stages. Many of these rough recordings have 5 -10 tracks with a LOT of editing done to them.
But usually newer versions of software will first remove all traces of the old software. And I CAN use my old software. If the new software doesn't work - and it has by then already erased my current software - then I'm up the creek without a paddle.
Sony Aid Music Studio 7 is from 2006; the new software is 15 YEARS newer! Before I erase my old software, I need to be sure that all my wavs and sfk files, with all the previous cut & pasting, balancing, volumes reverb, etc, will still appear & work & sound the same way. With no additional work required to 'adjust' the songs to the new software.
What has always sold Acid to me was how easy the user interface makes it to mix and match loops together to create an initial musical bed. Two things are key here. First, while the project is playing, the real-time preview available in the Explorer window means that simply clicking on a file as you browse through your loop collection makes it possible to hear the loop tempo- and pitch-matched to the project. Second, once a loop is added to the project, the straightforward tools for arranging the loops along the timeline make basic song construction very efficient. However, Acid is not just a one-trick pony and it also includes audio recording and support for MIDI tracks, although it does lack the sophistication of a dedicated MIDI + Audio sequencer in these areas. So with this brief summary in mind, what does version 5 bring to the party?
Acid can now extract this relationship between the actual position of the transients and the musical grid from an audio loop and save it as a Groove Map. This can be done either from the Track Properties window, via the Catherine wheel-like icon positioned at the top right, or by right-clicking the Track Header and selecting Add to Groove Pool. At this point, a new Groove Map is added to the list in the Groove Pool with the same name as the audio file from which it was extracted.
Of course, it is possible to do all sorts of things with Groove Mapping that, musically, just don't work (applying a complex jazz swing to a heavy rock drum loop, for example) but that's true of all groove-quantising software, and provided you bear that in mind, the results possible here are really very good. The most obvious application is to take a drum loop that has a rhythmic feel that you like, extract its Groove Map and then apply that Map to other loops used within the project. The subtle shifts in timing that can be produced in bass or guitar loops, for example, just help to tighten the timing and make loops taken from different sample collections, well, groove!
What is also remarkable, however, is how efficient Acid makes this whole process: a groove can be extracted from one loop and applied to a whole project with no more than half a dozen mouse clicks. The ease with which this can be done makes experimentation with the feel and timing of loops almost effortless. If you do want to delve a little more deeply into the quantising it is perfectly possible to do so. Groove Maps can be edited within the Groove Pool by simply dragging the blue and pink markers (I'm not sure why the latter are not green as used in the Track Properties window). If this is done to a Groove Map already used within the project, the results can be auditioned while the project is playing.
At first glance, the Media Manager is far less exciting an addition than the creative Groove Mapping options described above. However, even in the relatively short review period, I found myself using it more and more. It is remarkable how being able to isolate, for example, all the 'hip-hop bass loops' or 'cymbal one-shots' improves the efficiency with which the right loop for a particular task can be hunted down. For those with big loop collections and tight deadlines, the Media Manager will be a considerable asset.
On my test system, this operated exactly as expected and, for the first time, I was able to create a complex tempo map in SX and watch as Acid followed it exactly, adjusting the time-stretching required for the loops in real time as the tempo changed. Even with some extreme tempo ramps, Acid seemed to keep up pretty well. With the subtle changes that might be more typical of a genuine task, the sync seemed very tight. The only down side to the process is that longer one-shot files will slip out of sync with the host if a tempo change is made after the one-shot has been triggered.
Second, support for VST effect plug-ins has now been added to that for VSTi plug-ins. Again this is very welcome given how popular the VST format is. Third, some of the key audio plug-ins supplied with Acid now contain tempo sync options. These include Amplitude Modulation, Chorus, Flange/Wah and Simple Delay. This addition is long overdue, and also most welcome.
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