Acid 7 & Acid 8 Suggestions & Thoughts

Alex_London wrote on 7/15/2018, 8:59 PM

Hello guys!

Nice to meet you , Alex here. I am an oldskool Acid user. Acid has been my only DAW since 2001, a good 17 years of everyday studio usage. I am as loyal as anybody to Acid and i have never changed it.

I am so happy to see MAGIX picking up what Sony left and i have purchased Acid 8 straight away. Good job guys, thank you very much! I was really looking forward for a new version and i am so glad it finally arrived.

I want to share some thoughts, suggestions and personal notes on issues and problems from Acid 7 had, that can be fixed or improved in next version of Acid 8. I apologise in advance if these have been already fixed or discussed in previous threads.

Before i start, just 1 note for Acid 8: I used Acid 8 for a bit, but the most difficult thing for a life-long Acid used is to get used to the dark theme, so i am now back to Acid 7, purely from a practical point of view.

As another thread suggested the darkness is cool, but makes it very hard to see things. Would it be perhaps possible to give us the chance to select between a ''Classic'' theme exactly like Acid 7 and a ''Modern'' (Dark) theme of Acid 8? That would keep everybody happy :)

Here's my list of suggestion which i made over the last few years:

1. Quick cross fade edges of audio events: A very important tool, which doesn't seem to be tied to each project separately, but to all projects. Sometimes it is useful, but sometimes we don't need it. Could we please allow us to somehow have this feature applied to each project specifically?

2. Project Properties: An enhanced version which includes BPM and specific routings on additional Insert Buses would be great so things dont have to be setup from scratch every time (for example Bus 1 routed to Outputs 7 & 8, Bus 2 routed to Outputs 5 & 6). But also, it would be great if all projects can start with specific plugins on the master for example (my UAD Channel strips, EQs, etc). This would help a lot with saving time.

3. Swing: I think this is one for the most important points for me as i desperately need swing precision for loops and one shot programming. The preset swing list is OK, but not really so practical. Could you please help by adding a simple, numeric percentage swing somehow, so we can apply from 0 % Swing to 100% Swing? The closest to my favourite swing is 16th Note Swing, but i need a bit more sometimes. The other swings on that list are either too wild or not enough.

4. MIDI Usage: Not really a big problem but, i want to bring this to MAGIX's attention. Few months ago, i was trying to control my Roland MKS80 synthersizer through an VST called VPM80, which is designed to connect to it via MIDI and control its parameters from inside your DAW. When launching the VST i couldnt connect to the synth, i was getting the message ''The selected device is used by this or another application and cannot be selected''.

Speaking with the VST developers, they told me ''Last time I checked it would not work there because ACID did not have the ability to deactivate individual MIDI ports in the DAW (which is a requirement for the editor)'. In a general manner, the issue is that the DAW is set up to use the channel (to and from the MKS80) itself and does not release it to the VMP to transmit its control data. Not sure if that makes sense, its what i've been told and i though i'd make it known to the community as maybe other members have tried to control vintage gear via VST Controllers and encountered the same issue.

5. LFO: Would it be perhaps possible to have an Acid-native LFO which can be applied to any parameter of any VST plugin? That would be incredibly useful to inject some randomness and live vibe into the arrangement! I would personally happily pay something extra for such handy feature. LFO's make life so much easier and take away the static and predictable nature of a track.

6. Post Recording Pop Up Box: In Acid 7 When recording an audio file and after completing the recording, there is a pop up box in which i you can change the filename of the track. In the box there is a tick-box saying ''Show after recording session''. If for some reason this is disable, by mistake or deliberately, there is no way to get this pop box back, unless you re-install Acid. If you could please fix that, it would be great :)

7. Rendering Time: Obviously bouncing real time is the fastest way, but with new strong multi-core processors landing like the i9's,Threadripper 2 etc. would it be perhaps possible to achieve faster offline render speeds if future Acid version are programmed to take advantage of the extra cores? How does the core count and other new CPU specs affect Acid 8 and can Acid 8 take advantage of these new processors for audio processing & VSTs?

These are the points i had made notes for, once again apologies if some of these have been addressed already

Regards

Alex

Comments

LooneyBinJim wrote on 7/16/2018, 11:35 AM

I myself have been using Acid since I started serious music production.I Feel your Pain what has happened to this amazing program.It once broke the mould and made sample based projects become what we call Audio.

I find making music such a horrible experience since I purchased Ap8 I'm worried about all the problems in current edition will we be stuck and v9 will take over .

Alex_London wrote on 7/17/2018, 5:09 AM

Why is it horrible to work in Acid 8? To be honest i think Acid 8 looks good and surely promising. I understand there's a few things that can be fixed, ok. But If I had a chance to choose between light and dark themes, purely for practical reasons, i would use it every day and i will start using it every day once this happens.

The things i mentioned are issues of Acid 7 that i feel need improvement in future versions of Acid 8. If Magix took Acid 7 to Acid 8 and committed to a project that many of us were disappointed to see stuck without an update for years, i don't think there's a reason to be fearful for the future.

kinvermark wrote on 7/20/2018, 9:04 PM

I am optimistic too - especially given the effort they have put into Vegas pro. Shows commitment.

Unfortunately, there are a few things that PREVENT me from using ACID 8:

1) The dark UI means I can not clearly see loop notches in media to line them up with other instruments, and

2) No media manager to locate loops (this is a big problem when you have a large loop library).

I am not complaining about the aesthetics of the UI, or the money spent (its very little in the scheme of things), but I won't pay for another upgrade if it does not address these issues, as that would clearly be pointless.

weevil wrote on 7/23/2018, 3:54 AM

Grouping badly needs to be fixed, splitting a group of events leaves all the events on the right ungrouped which is infuriating. Grouping only works if you drag the start of an event not the end of an event.

Join is also really undeveloped. I want a really simple way to be able glue a range of different events together to create a new event. Being a loop centric platform Acid should be really good at this sort of thing.

Also gotta say I think Reaper's right click and drag Selection Tool is very, very hard to beat. Draw and Selection are the two tools you use far more than any other, having them both instantly available is a huge time saver.

Alex_London wrote on 8/28/2018, 7:11 AM

Could anybody from Magix perhaps drop us a line regarding the suggestions above? I' ve been personally supporting Acid for years and i am loyal to the program since the early 2000's. I am sure other will have the same issues, so if some of these can be address it would be great! :)

ACID-Support wrote on 8/28/2018, 9:43 AM

Hi @Alex_London,

thank you for your ideas to make ACID Pro better. Some of the suggestions and concerns mentioned above by you and the other users have popped up a few times on the Beta forum and our development team have included them in the planning roadmap. In any case I'll double check which ones the developers know about and which ones they don't and make sure to pass on the info :)

Kind regards,

Bea