I had primarily used Acid 3,4 and 7 for years. Seven was good but the plugin instrument situation was super confusing and the load times were insane. I was waiting for 15 minutes to load a song on an i7. I've also used Protools, Logic, FL Studios, Live, Garageband and Reason but settled on Bitwig. I just picked up Acid Pro 10 on the cheap and was curious about all the new features. However, I can't even get to the features when there are no buttons for simple commands. Do you want to cut a sample into pieces? Well, the cut button doesn't split a sample. It copies and removes the entire sample. They force you to use the Chopper because they didn't put an actual cut button on the toolbar. After about 2 hours, I accidentally found the S button on my keyboard is the actual key to make an actual cut. How do you write music on the midi track? Double click it, obviously. Nope, that creates a new looping section. You have to use a button that "Enables Inline Midi Editing." I'm 8 DAWS in along with a growing list of synths, samplers, drum machines, and midi sequencers and I never remember reading, "Enables Inline Midi Editing." If anything, that sounds like a type of automation.

They still didn't fix the horrible plug in situations. Do you want to turn down the volume? Well, the volume bar on the track doesn't do that. The volume bar on the mixing panel doesn't do it. There is a separate section to the mixing panel that controls the plug-ins volume separately. Why?! I'm guessing so you can make different tracks use the same plugin. But why would I need that when I can just add the same notes to the original track? I have no idea. Did you x out the soft synth screen and want to bring it back up? You have to press the "Soft Synth Properties" button. Is the button on the track? No. It is in the view section up top and the wholly unnecessary soft synth mixing bar.

Acid used to be a great entry level and expert level DAW and I would recommend it to everyone. It is no longer that and I no longer do. I've spent nearly 20 years writing, producing, and recording music on DAWS and I can't understand how to use Acid Pro 10. It is counter-intuitive and illogical. There are no obvious solutions! This program is obviously not made by people who make music but by programmers with no real interest in music. I'd love to jump into the Zynaptiq Stem Maker, Morph Pads, and Melodyne essentials but when crucial commands are hidden on unlisted hot keys, I'm not going to bother.