@Rednroll Thanks for the reply. When I render the file, I get a silent track. However, your instructions seem like a hassle and such a function really ought to be more simple. Like open a new track and hit 'record' when playing soft synths.

This seems an issue with a lot of DAWS that have soft synths. When I did a search on 'recording soft synths', Sonar Cakewalk had users posting complaints on why can't users record soft synths? It seems Acid Pro has the same issue. You got all these synths, but you can't record them the way you would a regular track.

I guess that is something for the Acid Pro devs to look into: the blatantly obvious. To this newb at least. Let users record synth sessions.

Apparently, there are plugins I can get to record...or use something like Audacity and record the output?

Sorta ridiculous, Acid Pro should be able to handle this, no sweat. What a let down.

Acid Pro, feature request.

@Former user,

This is down to the way some DAWs have a hybrid midi to audio bus system, and some don't. AP, and I assume the ones you mention, don't. What this means is a DAW with a hybrid audio bus will combine a midi track and the audio bus in one. So even with a midi instrument you get audio spat out which you can then feed in to audio effects, or just bounce down in to an audio clip and edit.

It's really personal preference, there are definite benefits and drawbacks to AP's way of doing it.

In terms of workflow, especially around what you want to do, AP's set up isn't too different. Those other DAWs, at least the ones I've used, still require you to walk through steps to turn the midi + effects in to editable audio, whether that's bouncing (freezing) audio or setting up track routing and recording.

@Rednroll is right though, you either need to freeze the midi track, or render the selection to a new track.

• Render Track
  • This will render the current timeline selection to track, so that's all layers, all effects, all buses. You have to disable all that you don't want included in the render.
  • Once complete a new audio track will be added, and a new audio clip added at the start of your timeline.
     
• Freeze
  • This renders just the audio output of the virtual synth, so doesn't include effects on the bus, or any of the other parts of the project
  • However, there's no way I can find within acid to get at the audio file from this point, so you need to browse to the default project folder as defined in tools -> preferences -> folders, by default this will be C:\Users\username\Documents\ACID Pro Projects, and drag the audio in to your project. It will be beatmapped.
     

You're also right though, it is clunky, and really needs modernising in my personal opinion. I'd love to see AP move to hybrid buses. Failing that, offer some simple improvements, such as

• being able to route audio from a bus in to an audio track to allow recording
• easily access frozen midi audio without having to go outside of AP
• or put rendered-to-new-track audio in the same place on the timeline as selected when rendering

One can hope... :-)

@sheppo Thanks for the detailed response. Right now the program renders blanks when I do try and it seems freezing 'greys out' when I click it. That said, I am still a newb. Since you seem to be a veteran of the program, you say that one cannot record said synths. Then I would need something like Audacity or OBS Studio running during a session. Why even have these synths if you cannot put them to use right away?

That said, Magix Music Maker can render soft synths quite easily, though not record in real time either.

Hopefully Acid Pro will bridge this gap, which could help bring more users over.

@sheppo Why even have these synths if you cannot put them to use right away?

Most people record the midi data and edit it or record loops and short passages which then get copy and pasted throughout the track.

@Former user - I'm really not sure why you're not getting audio when you render or freeze your track. here's a little video to show you the two options and explain a bit about midi and audio routing, hopefully it can point you to where the problem lies.

Thanks Sheppo for the presentation!

For OP: as being said Acid records midi that you can route to Vsti and than freeze or render. If for some reason you want to record your performance straight to wav and you want to do it inside Acid you need additional vst fx that will do it for you. If you want a free option you can try this:

Wusik sp22

https://www.wusik.com/w/index.php/products/freebies/wusik-sp22

or another option could be NI Guitar Rig which has tapedecks that can record in realtime (if I'm not mistaken even free Guitar Rig Player has tapedecks).

There are also paid vsts acting as loopers/recorders.

Hope that helps!

@Rednroll Thanks for the reply. When I render the file, I get a silent track. However, your instructions seem like a hassle and such a function really ought to be more simple. Like open a new track and hit 'record' when playing soft synths.

This seems an issue with a lot of DAWS that have soft synths. When I did a search on 'recording soft synths', Sonar Cakewalk had users posting complaints on why can't users record soft synths? It seems Acid Pro has the same issue. You got all these synths, but you can't record them the way you would a regular track.

I guess that is something for the Acid Pro devs to look into: the blatantly obvious. To this newb at least. Let users record synth sessions.

Apparently, there are plugins I can get to record...or use something like Audacity and record the output?

Sorta ridiculous, Acid Pro should be able to handle this, no sweat. What a let down.

Acid Pro, feature request.

 

I definitely get where you're coming from. Seems like you should be able to route any output back to a track input and record away on that track. Acid has never really been all that great on it's routing of audio signals. It does the expected basics but that's as far as it goes.

For ultimate routing capability to do what you want, I would look to a program such as Reaper. You can virtually route any output to any input in Reaper. For myself, Acid is more of an old hat I'm just more comfortable wearing even though I really like and prefer Reaper in many ways, so I just continue wearing the Acid hat despite it's many comparative offering short-comings.

If I was just beginning and learning on DAWs, I would start with Reaper. What you tend to find is that you spend a lot of time learning and understanding the paradigm of a particular DAW, you eventually reach the point where you start to learn some of it's short comings, get frustrated because things should be simpler....wander over to another DAW for awhile since it does that particular task you wanted, but then have to start all over on all the other things you previously learned. I've been through that process 10 times now and just keep coming back to Acid because the initial uphill learning curve of doing things that were simple in Acid turns me off in the new DAW I'm attempting to move to.

@sheppo Thanks for the video, your approach is different from mine. The way I tried (and works is Music Maker) is that I 'insert' a soft synth and a midi track. I hit record as I play the soft synth and see the notes move about. While I play the soft synth, I throw the various affects that come with it (i.e. reverb, flange, delay, etc..). Interesting textures occur that I want to record. For most musicians, the idea of midi is such that they are more interested in musical notes, which can be run through any number of virtual instruments whereas what I seek textures on the fly which I then, in turn, build into a track down the road. Sometimes, if I am lucky, the textures are enough. Some albums I love are just that, gorgeous textures. When I look at your video, I see you approach the situation differently and some of the menus you have are not the ones I do. Perhaps seeking and doing "your way" is the better approach to get what I want (in Acid).

@shkr Thanks for the plugin link, I will look into that.

@Rednroll I am a newb with music making software, though I have used things like Reaper, Audition, Audacity, Mixbus, Ardour, et al for years, mostly for podcast and video post production. I have been told that if I want to get better at sound design, to try making music. Music making is a bit of a frightening rabbit hole as I see people dump ridiculous amounts of money into gear (like video production). But some favoured musicians are very austere with their setup. Some I know use only software with a midi controller. You have experience whereas I am just starting out with this. Yes, Reaper is super cool and works amazingly, but is one of the ugliest DAW's I have ever used.

Reaper is super cool and works amazingly, but is one of the ugliest DAW's I have ever used.

Reaper is ulgy and Acid looks good to you? LOL! 1st time I heard that but I'll move on.

I suggested Reaper because it has it's roots in Vegas and Acid but was specifically designed to overcome a lot of the routing short-comings of Vegas and Acid. If you search around, there is even a Vegas theme to make it look a lot more like Vegas/Acid. I'll stop there on the history lesson.

So to do what you want there are simple solutions, us ole time DAW users have been using for years.

1. Get yourself a sound card which has multiple Ins/outs and connect a cable from one of those outputs and back into an input of the sound card. Enable a track in Acid to record that input. As an example, you can monitor the mix of Acid from your sound cards analog stereo output, while at the same time route the mix or a specific instrument to a digital out on your sound card, then connect that digital out with a patch cord to the digital input of the sound card and walla, record away onto a new track in Acid.

2. Get yourself a small external mixer and route the output of the mixer to the inputs on your sound card.

3. You can also do this with a simple Stereo in/ Stereo out sound card but you will need a Y-Adapter cable so you can monitor and be able to record. Connect the output of your sound card to a Y-Adapter cable. One side of the Y goes to your monitor speakers, the other gets plugged back into the input of your sound card. Record that input in acid.

By the sounds of it, you need to start getting more familiar with using buses on a mixer which Acid does have. Essentially, you can route tracks to multiple outputs and buses in Acid. Each of those buses can be routed to multiple sound card outputs and then you are essentially routing those outputs back to an input to record onto a track in Acid but you will need to go outside of your sound card with the audio and then use any of the methods I mentioned to route that audio back into an input in Acid to be able to record it onto a new track. Reaper is able to do this without going "outside of the box" and is the reason I suggested it since I don't know your current setup.

With all these methods, you will want to turn input monitoring to OFF of the track you are recording on in Acid, otherwise you will likely have a feedback loop.

@Rednroll What you say makes sense if you are using external instruments, other software, or perhaps even some non native plugins. However, these virtual synths I mention are native to Acid Pro, so a 'direct record' option should be just another button. If I can record a Skype/Zoom conversation, synths native to AP ought to be easy breezy. In this case, the peripheral things you mention need not apply.

Reaper is fantastic. I used to use Lightworks as an NLE but had issues with audio mixing. To my delight, not only can I import video into Reaper and apply as many tracks and effects as I like, I can also mixdown and export my whole dang video into a professional, uncompressed codec. Moreover, Reaper does not crash. Not too shabby.

@Rednroll What you say makes sense if you are using external instruments, other software, or perhaps even some non native plugins. However, these virtual synths I mention are native to Acid Pro, so a 'direct record' option should be just another button. If I can record a Skype/Zoom conversation, synths native to AP ought to be easy breezy. In this case, the peripheral things you mention need not apply.

Yep, the key word being "Should" in your comments but it's not, so I'm explaining to you how it can be done using Acid since you like it and pointed you in a direction of other similar programs which do exactly what you're looking for. Sorry, if you don't like my answers. Try not to shoot the messenger, I'm a user just like yourself.

Welcome to the Music creation software DAW world, where we find some programs do exactly what we expect while others don't, while at the same time we aren't afforded the luxury to be able to pick and choose features between them. Alls I can tell you is that I've been using Acid Pro for over 20 years now and your "should" feature has been requested many times over and over during that time by many users. Send a feature request to Magix and maybe you can peak their interest to finally add it in there.

If you're part of the Reaper forum group, head on over there and say Hi to "Pipeline_Audio" for me. He was one of the most vocal about Acid and Vegas not having this audio signal routing capability as well as plugin side-chaining which "finally" made it into Acid this latest release when it adopted VST3 plugin support while Vegas Pro still lacks side-chaining capabilities in addition to VST3 plugin support. Pipeline is good friends with Justin Frankel, the developer of Reaper where Justin was previously a Vegas/Acid user as well, and decided to take matters into his own hands a do something about it by developing his own music creation DAW. Pipeline will be thrilled to discuss those history background details further with you, so make sure you tell him I sent you and I said Hi, where he should get a good chuckle hearing about others say the same things he was over 20 years ago.

My biggest gripe about lacking features in Acid is that it "should" have all the same advanced audio editing capabilities as its brother Vegas Pro, but it doesn't. Vegas kicks its butt in regards to audio editing features, so I create music in Acid and then layoff all the tracks separately when I'm done and import them as separate audio tracks in Vegas where there's not even a direct way to import an Acid project into Vegas Pro and there's no Rewire support in Vegas. Welcome to my world, where at least there are some feasible work arounds for what you're trying to achieve!😆

P.S. With your Skype analogy I can provide you some of the technical challenges in regards to Acid when this was often discussed with the Sonic Foundry/Sony developers in the past. What is flawed about your analogy is that Acid plays back previously recorded audio tracks while you are attempting in real-time to record an output from a previously recorded track back into another new audio track, and you would want to ensure the new recorded track was in perfect sync with your previously recorded track with zero latency between them. That is not a concern with your Skype video chat recording analogy example since time align sync is not present with those types of programs aside from recording the multiple source inputs simultaneously to just ensure they are time aligned with each other.

@Rednroll Noted. I will send Magix an email about this. Someone I know said that Ableton Live can already do the things I mention. I will look further into Reaper as well. I guess each DAW has their own approach at music making and I just need to get more familiar with the AP way. This does not excuse AP from some basic features.

@sheppo Could you do a video where you insert a native softsynth, like Analog synth (if you have it) adds some native effects from the synth (like flange, reverb, etc..) and then render that? There is the one that looks like a big analog synth (analog 'one' or 'two') You use an external synth in your video, so your settings are a little different. I imagine using native ones are easier. I need to work through the manual as well. I suppose the beauty of AP is when working with pre-existing audio.

@Rednroll What audio editing features are in Vegas but not acid?

also, sorry to be pedantic, but audio routing has nothing to do with VST3 support. AP had VST3 support before audio routing. Ableton had audio routing long before VST3 support. The funny thing is, moprh pads, in AP as of the latest major version, offers a complete different interface to VST plugin than the traditional way of using them in AP. It can do full non-linear routing using a virtual cable-like interface, show multiple plugin windows at the same time, gives the ability to do ablation-like macro support, and seems to work - at a plugin level - a whole lot better. But it feels like it’s not very well implemented from a UX point of view - automation, example, for the whole project has to sit on the master bus. My point is, it feels like the underlying tech to do full project level audio routing like other DAWs is there, but just needs properly implementing in to the timeline. I’m really hoping the next version brings the morphpads tech to properly replace the current channel routing and plugin support. Fingers crossed.

I’ve used Reaper and Ableton quite a bit, albeit it few years ago now. For me, and I suspect everyone here, the actual workflow of editing a project is still better in Acid than other DAWs, although probably it's just what we're used to. I'm struggled through projects in ableton, and I know the underlying problems I faced a couple years ago haven't improved in the slightest. Reaper seems to have kept a good steady pace with its improvements though. Like you I pick and choose from wide toolbox when working on projects, picking from the best from several DAWs and other software. For example, these days I prefer to put notes down in and arrange songs in Renoise, then bring it in to AP to master, for example - I just find that tracker mentality to work better with my oldskool demoscene upbringing.

@Former user - i don’t think i have any Native Instrument synths. Is there a specific one you’re trying to use, i can see if there’s a demo and have a play with it?

@sheppo heh, my bad. I do not own any native instruments plugins either. I meant the virtual synths that come with (hence my usage of the term 'native') acid pro. I need to be more precise with language here.

@Rednroll What audio editing features are in Vegas but not acid?

For starters.

1. Slip Edit: move media within event without moving the event

Vegas Keyboard short-cut ALT+Left, Mouse Drag inside event

2. Slide Crossfade: Moves Crossfade/edit point between 2 adjacent events.

Vegas Keyboard short-cut Cntrl+ALT, Mouse Drag on X-Fade

3. Move Event up/down to adjacent track

Vegas Keyboard short-cut Numeric 2(down)/8(up)

4. Trim Edit Mode- Use this in conjunction with numeric keys 4/6 and 1/3

Vegas Keyboard short-cut "[" and "]" to enter trim edit mode.

5. Trimmer Window

If you have Vegas, I would suggest trying them out, and if you need real use case examples of how they're used and why they're important, I can further elaborate on that as well. I'll give you a hint, back in the Sonic Foundry days I was part of the Vegas, Acid, and Sound Forge beta teams. I worked in a studio production house which used Neve Audiofile editors which were known to be the fastest audio editing systems to work on. Sonic Foundry was very interested in that type of workflow efficiency, where I described to them how these editing features on the audiofile functioned and the reasons it made the Neve Audiofile the faster editing system out there. They've been in Vegas since v1.0. Unfortunately, for Acid it started off as a loop based sequencer and these type of editing features didn't fit that paradigm during that time. Vegas started off as a DAW. Acid later became a DAW but never got many of the editing features the DAW users of Vegas came to enjoy. It takes me 10 additional steps in a clunky manner to edit audio tracks in Acid in what I can do in 1 or 2 simple and efficient steps in Vegas.

also, sorry to be pedantic, but audio routing has nothing to do with VST3 support.

I stated "sidechaining" of VST FXs, not routing so I'm not quite understanding your point. VST could be side chained going back to VST v2.6. However "Native Sidechaining" for developer easier standardized implementation wasn't added to the VST specs until VST3. Go look it up.

Oh, I thought you meant actual features, rather than keyboard shortcuts. It is interesting to hear how other people use these products. I've personally never bothered with the trimmer, or chopper. The functionality is, for me, largely redundant when I find it easier to just do that stuff on the timeline, but I can see how it could be useful, and the use of keyboard shortcuts clearly speeds up the workflow. There's definitely not full parity between everything in Acid and Vegas. Some of the fading, and grouping just works better in Vegas than Acid. e.g., drag two clips over each other in Acid, resize the fade region, then drag a clip. It defaults back to original fade. infuriating.

The slip editing works in acid just fine though. I use this a lot.

as plugin side-chaining which "finally" made it into Acid this latest release when it adopted VST3 plugin

Implication there being VST3 support was needed for sidechaining. Which, as you say, it's not, since VST2 supports it just fine in any DAW that supports audio routing. VST2's limitation was the amount of input and output channels, which is what changed with VST3. Not an issue if you work on stereo projects, but many more than that likely required VST3, according to steinberg site. :)

@Former user -

Just to be clear, it's just not that the keyboard short-cuts from Vegas are missing in Acid. The editing functionality isn't there. With those editing features in Vegas, you can essentially make a split on an audio event and stay right at that split point and never have to move up and down the timeline to complete your editing. In Acid you're scrolling up and down the timeline, copying, pasting and dragging to complete the same edit task which makes it much less efficient.

How I use the trimmer. I described to the SF team on the Neve Audiofile of how it has a feature called "Source Edit" which is a separate function outside of the track/timeline. So the intent is that you have a project built with multiple tracks on your timeline, but say you want to add a sound FX such as an explosion, gun shots, etc....or it could even be a kick, snare, etc in case of music production. You go to the explorer tab and browse your Sound FX's library, or music sample library and audition them them from the explorer. Now most Sound FX's as well as music instrument sample libraries consist of multiple Sound FXs in a single sound file but of different variations of that same type of sound. So you right click on it, and select "Load in Trimmer". Let's say there are 5 explosion samples in that file that I just loaded into the trimmer. Within the trimmer I can further audition the 5 different explosions and decide which one I want to actually place on the timelime. I make my decision, now with just that one Sound FX out of the 5 that are included in the sound file, I have it selected in the trimmer, I can drag and drop just that selected part to my project's timeline or select add to timeline where it will place it where my cursor on the timeline is currently located.

So I did all that without having to initially load the sound file onto my timeline, which would require me to then solo that particular track so only it played back for my auditioning purposes. I also had to move my cursor position, so I am no longer at the position on the timeline I originally wanted to place the sound I wanted to just audition. I would also have to be concerned when I did that if I had "ripple" edit enabled during my auditioning since when I add it to the timeline, that would cause everything in my project to be shifted due to ripple being turned on....so another step, make sure ripple edit is turned off while I'm just auditioning the sound. Then when I have that, I would need to edit out the parts of the file on the timeline I didn't want, delete their now associated individual events after I performed the cut "splits" on the original event, where in the trimmer window, I just had to select the portion that I wanted to go on the timeline.

The trimmer window is a great thing if you get used to using it because it provides you separate area to playback an individual sound file and perform quick selection edits without having to adjust any settings in your project timeline/track view, as well as do that without moving your cursor up and down the timeline.

Interesting. Not a use case I would ever come across, especially with the concept of multiple FX shots in the same file, but I can see how the trimmer would make that workflow easier. From a music production point of view I find something like loopcloud, or ADSR sample management useful, allowing samples to automatically be searched and discovered by genre, type, key, bpm, etc, and then drag sounds directly in to any DAW. Integration in to those storefronts is also useful. I've been meaning to check out Sononym which looks a whole lot better for autocategorisation and similarity - e.g. finding a whole host of percussive hits in the same key. They all move that auditioning step to outside the DAW - since few DAWs really excel at sample management and discovery anyway - and put their own spin on it. But yeah, not sure they're going to work for your multi-sample FX either.