Sony Acid Pro 7 (Win) Review

Jul 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Jason Scott Alexander

           
 

Plenty of new features for taking control of your music.

FIG. 1: Acid Pro 7 offers a slew of enhancements, including a more flexible mixer, better Beatmapping, and superior pitch- and time-shifting.

Acid debuted more than a decade ago and really defined the way so-called “loop music” is produced. From its humble beginnings as a remixing tool, Acid Pro has matured into a full-blown audio workstation featuring multitrack recording with video sync, a robust MIDI sequencing suite with virtual instrument support, mixdown automation and plenty of other production tricks. With all that fully integrated alongside the legendary looping functionality that first made Acid famous, the application is still a staple with DJs, remixers and game music/video/film post-production houses.

But Acid has had some stiff competition along the way. Programs that once specialized strictly in audio recording, editing, sequencing and mixing stepped into Acid's kitchen of time-stretching, pitch shifting and other loop-music features. In a marketplace where being everything to everybody often makes the difference between a sale and no sale, even the classics have to reinvent themselves to remain relevant.

Bonus Material

From Remix: How to Use Sony Acid Pro 7's Beatmapper

From Remix: Find Track Tempo in Acid Pro 7 Before Remixing

From Remix: Sony Acid Pro 7 Review

Chemical Breakdown

Acid's greatest reinvention occurred in Version 6. Whereas Acid Pro 6 delivered core functions that launched it into official DAW territory, Acid Pro 7 (see Fig. 1) takes more of a user-centric wish-list approach. This update is all about control.

For example, an all-new mixing environment includes live input buses, real-time rendering and more flexible monitoring. Enhanced Beatmapping with tempo curves, better plug-in management, more flexible hardware labeling and greater import/export options further highlight the user-control options.

Available in boxed and downloadable versions, Acid Pro 7 comes bundled with a larger assortment of freebie plug-ins and sounds than before. The 3GB content DVD hits you up with more than 3,000 Acidized loops and 1,000 MIDI files; registered users can add to that every seven days with free downloads of Sony's weekly “8pack” (eight loops arranged into a song) from Acidplanet.com.

Now that Acid is Microsoft Vista-compatible (this version also runs on Windows XP — SP2 or later — and requires a 1.8GHz or faster CPU), I tested it on my fast, new 3.2GHz Intel Core i7 Processor Extreme Edition with 4GB RAM. The Sony Media Software Preset Manager — which lets you more efficiently save and share Acid projects, loops and effects presets over multiple programs — is strongly suggested for installation.

Drop Beats on a Dime

After my regular daily grind using a typical DAW, building tracks from scratch with Acid Pro 7 was exhilaratingly fast and felt more familiar than in previous versions. Small things can make a big difference. For example, there's finally a metronome count-off that can be set to be always on, on only during playback or on only during recording. There's also a variety of wood blocks, drums, sticks and other sounds for the metronome. Little things.

FIG. 2: The beefed-up Beatmapping feature makes it easier to conform audio files to projects that have tempo, signature and key changes within a song.

Though the Beatmapper tool has always been the place to go for adding tempo information to song-length files, you could previously only embed a single set of project information (tempo, signature and key) per file, meaning that audio files that changed over time could not properly conform to session tempo changes. The enhanced Beatmapping in Acid Pro 7 (see Fig. 2) fixes that. Now you can insert Beatmap information anywhere along the timeline for an audio file — perfect for tightening up a drum groove that wasn't recorded to a click. With fully editable Clip Properties at every Beatmap marker, audio files can conform to sessions at countless varying tempos and time signatures, even key changes.

FIG. 3: The Tempo Curves feature allows you to set up tempo changes between tempo markers using a variety of fade types.

Along similar lines, you can now set gradual tempo changes between two tempo markers using Tempo Curves (see Fig. 3). Fade types include linear, fast, slow, smooth, sharp and hold (curve off). Changes can be subtle or dramatic, depending on the duration and degree of the curve, and you can perform them more quickly and easily than before. This really nice enhancement lets you build natural-sounding ritards and accelerando into arrangements that weren't previously possible in Acid Pro.