@Christopher-Frank I cannot agree with you any more. Magix has destroyed the product completely. I'm well aware that support forums seldom have any nice job, well done posts anywhere on them as the people who come to it are seldom those who are having no problems at all. But here - have a look at the top posts on the forum; the problems are not just numerous - they are fundamental.

I keep ACID 7/8/9 on my system because I have to - I have money invested in it and - more importantly - a whole load of musical projects which I may need to re-open some time. That they cannot always be re-opened without the usual round of unpredictable issues, ranging from dropping VSTs, losing effects, whole arrangements failing to be recognised by the very software that created them, and random white screens of death that presage another loss of work. I've switched to another DAW that seems to...well...work. (Ironically, I think it was put together by former Sony software engineers who worked on ACID back in the day)

Sorry Magix - but ACID is dreadful. I am genuinely pissed off that I shelled out money for this, and even more pissed off that I shelled out money for v9 which was supposed to sort all the problems from before. As anyone who uses the product can tell you, v9 is substantially more unusable than the latest versions of v8. As has been said elsewhere, 'we are working on a fix' is no solution.

At best I feel like an unpaid, unannounced pre-alpha tester; at worst I feel like I am the victim of some kind of fraud.

Thanks for the honest, civil, and constructive feedback. Even as a paying customer it's a hard to read, but you've raised some perfectly valid points that I hope Magix can learn from.

Sorry Magix - but ACID is dreadful. I am genuinely pissed off that I shelled out money for this, and even more pissed off that I shelled out money for v9 which was supposed to sort all the problems from before. As anyone who uses the product can tell you, v9 is substantially more unusable than the latest versions of v8. As has been said elsewhere, 'we are working on a fix' is no solution.

There is pretty strong precedent for this if you've used any MAGIX software and followed their development.

Major bug fixes and QoL requests are put in upgrades. You basically need 3-4 years of MAGIX Software Upgrades to equate to one major upgrade from another vendor.

They also have very, very short support lifecycle...

You should always wait a couple of weeks after a release to see what the state of the software is like, as that can give you an idea of what state it will be in in 11-13 months, when they drop it from support and release a new version.

If the at-release quality isn't enough to get you to upgrade, then you're unlikely to be considerably more happy wiht the product at the end of its support lifecycle... so either you upgrade, sit on it and deal with the issues, or replace it with a competing package.

There is a free Pro-Level DAW on Windows that does Loop Arranging just fine. No one has to go through this.

At some point, consumers need to stop blaming companies for being "anti-consumer" and start blaming themselves for being naive. If you keep paying for what you percieve to be a low quality product, there will never be an incentive for them to deliver better.

EDIT: Glaringly incorrect word/typo.

I hate to agree but I must. Sound Forge is adding features I never wanted while in fact taking a few out. Gracenotes disappeared which is quite useful to me. I will really miss the beats timeline of SF, but RX7 is now my audio editor. Acid is too clumsy in VSTi and plugin effects, it just cannot beat Ableton Live. IMO Acid and SF are far too expensive for what they are.

@Teles @Former user @mellotronworker This is genius! I wrote a beautiful farewell post thanking the 3 of you for your invaluable replies and to bring closure to the abusive relationship Magix products had entangled me within. (Admittedly, it was a bit Shakespearean abut it was pretty good lol).

I hit the post button (thinking I should copy the text). Magix Forum crashed! My swan song "puff" gone before my eyes in an instant!!!

Thank God... everything Magix has touched over the past few months has sucked so bad, I'm on a new DAW with no intent to return this way. I finished the Requiem I was commissioned to compose in less than a week on a different DAW... compared to the week I couldn't create because ACID wouldn't remain stable fore more than 10 minutes.

Thankyou again for your thoughts.

I would have paid $1000 for acid pro 7 64 bit. (still would) If I owned acid I would have made a solid version 7 64 bit with 64 bit only vst and nothing else new and gone from there in regards to features and skin changes. Acid is like the 'ns10' of the daw world.

Hi, thank you for your honest feedback,

@Christopher-Frank @Petet@Petet @mellotronworker @Teles @mjn

The huge variety of VST plug-ins can no longer be mastered through our internal tests and the beta forum.

Therefore I'd like to invite you to a public public beta test that we started today in this thread@Petethttps://www.magix.info/us/forum/acid-pro-8-9-next-public-beta-versions--1232184/

Best,

Torsten and the ACID dev team

Hi, thank you for your honest feedback,

@Christopher-Frank @Petet@Petet @mellotronworker @Teles @mjn

The huge variety of VST plug-ins can no longer be mastered through our internal tests and the beta forum.

Therefore I'd like to invite you to a public public beta test that we started today in this thread@Petethttps://www.magix.info/us/forum/acid-pro-8-9-next-public-beta-versions--1232184/

Best,

Torsten and the ACID dev team

I'll give it a download and quick lookover... Truth is, you guys have lost me. I taught myself how to use 2 other DAWs (Reaper, which is lightweight, never crashes and handles massive MIDI and ReWire projects without a hitch... I use it for Orchestral Works I compose. It slaves Sibelius, including realtime dynamic notations flawlessly. And ProTool for Club Creations. I think that program is bloated but it seems to be everyone's goto. Plus I went ahead and bought Cubase [which I used to use in the 90s] and taught myself that too as a backup.)

When you guys first mentioned the VST 32 bit bridge I scratched my head wondering why you'd waste your time. 64 bit home PCs have been commonplace for about 20 years now. Companies are clinging onto 32 bit more than consumers are... just like vinyl became cassette became CD became mp3 became streaming, people adapt.

Android went all 64 years ago without any big fanfare. Anyway, you know I'm opinionated lol. I'll give the beta a chance and be open minded about it. Just please get Acid 9 down perfect before you decide to release ACID 10 upgrades for (cur-ching) $$.

Here's my suggestions -

Call the program "ACID DONE RIGHT" (ah, me at a Grateful Dead concert in the 90s... oops... um) get rid of the ACID 10, ACID 11, blah blah stuff. just make the build's release date the version i.e. ACID DONE RIGHT 220220 (released 22nd, Feb 2020). Whoever is not on a subscription is always able to update essential core features and patches and get a lifetime of free core program upgrades. What you DO charge for are new feature "packages."

For example, lets say the next build better utilizes CPU and GPU for creating almost zero latency (just making that up lol), it's part of the core program so everyone can update to the build... plus the build has a brand new MIDI Glitch Sequencer... to add that to the update its only X amount of $ (included, of course, for new purchases)... Trust me, it'll generate greater customer loyalty and higher revenues.

ACTUALLY, i downloaded. but a midi 1 track in that only had 2 flute parts, assigned VSTi... made sounds when i tapped on the inline MIDI edit keyboard. Made no sounds when I hit play... I checked the velocity, to see if there were stay CCs blocking the way, then I realized I'm back to wasting time with this stupid product instead of being productive. Not just uninstalling, clean installing windows to get rid of any left over stuff. Sorry guys, months later and still nothing usable. Just please don't F-up Vegas, it's the only good thing left.

I have stayed with acid pro 7 since its release, i tried to update to acid pro 8 and it crashed constantly under my windows 10. The basic use on acid 7 is enough for me to create music and its quite stable. 👍

> When you guys first mentioned the VST 32 bit bridge I scratched my head wondering why you'd waste your time.  64 bit home PCs have been commonplace for about 20 years now. 

Remember, 64bit XP launched in 2005, the first edition of Acid Pro was 2009. It was 13 years after the first proper home OS supported 64bit that Magix took the correct decision to support the architecture. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but would it have been right for them to ignore 32bit at that point and focus 100% on 64bit with the initial release of 8? who knows.

when 64bit Acid 8 launched there were a lot of people frustrated with the fact that their legacy projects no longer worked in the 64bit version. In worst case scenarios the projects also wouldn't load in the 32bit version either, due to the way memory usage had changed in the product and operating systems in the last 9 years since 7. So those users affected were to some degree stuck, not helped by the fact they didn't have 64bit versions of their VSTs installed. Some people ventured down the jbridge route themselves and had reported good results.

I don't think the problems some people see necessarily lie with the vst bridge, rather some plugins are just old and need updating or are no longer supported, but ultimately you are right; it does make more sense to use the correctly architected version of any plugin, if you have it available. And at this point in time if the VST is still supported there will be an x64 version available.

> Any PROfessionals in the Music or Video Industries are not relying on 32-Bit plugins that are 15-20 years old

My take on this is that actually within Acid there's valid reason for using old plugins in archived projects.. I'm sure we all have legacy projects using plugins where the vendor is no longer in business, or there simply isn't a 64bit version available. Within other DAWs, when finishing a project i will bounce down a track with plugins to rendered audio, negating the need for those projects to use plugins at a later date. That functionality does not work elegantly in Acid, actually has been somewhat broken in some releases (can't remember if it's beta releases as I've tested so many), so it's just simpler to not do it and keep the plugins as a requirement.

> not by wasting developer man hours on a VST Bridge

the VST bridge is provided by a third party, so I'm not sure it's taking up too much time. Generally the VST engine has seen development work for other reasons, I believe.

That said, in my opinion I think the default response to any support requests for 32bit plugins at this point should be to try the up-to-date 64bit version.

> Just please get Acid 9 down perfect before you decide to release ACID 10 upgrades for (cur-ching) $$.

on that, if a 10 does come out, I'd always recommend people try the trial version first. Same with any software, Magix or otherwise.

But yes, agree with you there, I hope they get the currently supported versions in a good state before looking towards what comes after 9/Next.

I'm actually incredibly happy that Magix devs have seen fit to start rolling bug fixes in 9 across to 8, and AMS. This is great news going forward because it implies there's a single underlying codebase for the apps to tackle architectural code, e.g. the audio engine, plugins, etc. meaning it should leave developers free to work on features for newer versions, whilst keeping the functional code consistent across all versions; if a version 10 does come out, any bug fixes worked on for that should easily be back ported to all other versions as well. (just my finger-in-the-air guess at how it might work going forward). This is _huge_, and a fundamental change to how Sony and Magix supported Acid in the past. It also means they're not trying to independantly support multiple codebases in tandem, context switching between those codebases, or simply dropping the last version off support.

@Christopher-Frank I very much agree that I feel like I've been a victim of fraud. MAGIX never delivered a working product in Acid 8, then moved on to Acid 9. Seriously, that's as much garbage as this program is. (I was a dedicated ACID user back in the day- ReWire with Cubase was incredible then.) I really feel like looking into a class action lawsuit- I'm wondering if anyone else is with me. I want my money back.

@Christopher-Frank I very much agree that I feel like I've been a victim of fraud. MAGIX never delivered a working product in Acid 8, then moved on to Acid 9. Seriously, that's as much garbage as this program is. (I was a dedicated ACID user back in the day- ReWire with Cubase was incredible then.) I really feel like looking into a class action lawsuit- I'm wondering if anyone else is with me. I want my money back.

Caveat Emptor

@Christopher-Frank I very much agree that I feel like I've been a victim of fraud. MAGIX never delivered a working product in Acid 8, then moved on to Acid 9. Seriously, that's as much garbage as this program is. (I was a dedicated ACID user back in the day- ReWire with Cubase was incredible then.) I really feel like looking into a class action lawsuit- I'm wondering if anyone else is with me. I want my money back.

The only reason to get ACID Pro, at all, is if you're going to use it as your main DAW or simply prefer it (because your needs are fairly simple). It can be a decent sketching tool, though, which is basically how I use it (easy project setup, just start dragging and trying things).

Otherwise, you can pretty much get Samplitude Pro X4 Suite at the same price as a new user of ACID Pro 9 (not an upgrader), and it handles looping and arranging just as well, while being better at almost everything else compared to ACID Pro - and including a content package superior to that of ACID Pro Next Suite (which costs more than Cubase Pro).

Using ACID as your main DAW is totally possible, if you're willing to invest in "bolting on" the utility plugins (Apreggiator, Sequencers, Audio Editor, etc.), Synths, Samplers, and Effects that it lacks in comparison to competitors like e.g. FL Studio. Buying ACID Pro Next Suite is not an economically smart, considering the hilarious price and vendor-locked nature of the plugins.

Otherwise, DAWs like Cubase, Pro Tools, Studio One, Samplitude, etc. all handle Looping and/or arrangement fine enough - some better, as ACID is naturally missing support for things like REX files, has little to not audio functionality (Audio Quantize, Pitch Correction, Wave or Spectral Editing, etc.).

ReWire is, now, more important for using Synths or Effects/Racks from DAWs like Reason and Ableton. ACID Pro is more important as a ReWire HOST than it is as a SLAVE, as you can ReWire a DAW like Reason Intro or Ableton Live Lite into ACID Pro to sidestep some of its limitations and gain access to some good plutins/instruments/synths on the cheap.

Lastly, and more importantly, ACID Pro 8 is being patched. There is a stickied topic on the forum that you seem to love ignoring, and you don't seem to have even bothered to test the latest Beta Builds. MAGIX is going out of their way to accommodate users like you. The least you could do, is at least test the build to see if it fixes your problems before complaining yet again.

If you care that much about the small amount of cash it took to buy ACID Pro 8, chances are you can't even afford to initiate a CALS, and no one else is going to cry as much about this. The people who cared that much moved on during the Sony days, when they wouldn't have even bothered to issue a patch this long after a new version has launched. These people, predominantly, never made it over to ACID Pro 8.

Amazing that no-one from Magix wants to comment on a thread like this. The customer service is just so insanely bad. What a truly terrible, unprofessional company Magix are, personally I would be ashamed to work for them.

Amazing that no-one from Magix wants to comment on a thread like this. The customer service is just so insanely bad. What a truly terrible, unprofessional company Magix are, personally I would be ashamed to work for them.

They don't need to. They created a thread with beta builds and issued patches. Responding here would do nothing but perpetuate cry threads from people who see this and think that if they complain they will get attention.

Good move on them.

I think people's expectations of what ACID Pro 8/9 would be, simply because MAGIX issued upgrades, was way out of line.

 

I think people's expectations of what ACID Pro 8/9 would be, simply because MAGIX issued upgrades, was way out of line.

I wanted to check in on this as MAGIX again has proven they know nothing about music production... It seems they removed the "more" button from the edit/process/effects windows (you know, the one that allowed professional music editors to enter precise crossfade points) AND removed the RMS normalizing feature from Sound Forge... idiots!

BTW - @Former user what I expected for my $400 was a stable build. Period!! I am a working composer who, in the midst of creating a 10 movement Requiem Mass had to ditch Acid (which used to handle MIDI flawlessly) and teach myself a whole new DAW. Re-calibrate my entire VSTi orchestra and choir and had to re-write CC information from the entire piece (since no 2 DAWs handle CC information exactly the same) AND program all new sysex data for the instrument articulations etc. and reconfigure everything from the new DAW to sync with Sibelius, my notation software.

By not "keeping an eye" on their own customer forums, MAGIX is aloof to issues with their software!!

With regards to MAGIX's money hungry upgrades, as you'd mentioned... how does this sound:

It might not be wise to offer an upgrade to first class when you can't get the engines running and the plane is moments away from crashing into the sea.

(that's simply with regards to your last post) With regards to your earlier post.. Way back in the 90s I produced club music and did remixes working under the Universal Umbrella (mostly their smaller dance labels, Logic Records in particular). I think at 55+ there's a part of me that still wants the capacity to jump back in and start creating Tech House Anthems!!

The truth is, I use nothing but MIDI when creating. My renderings are simply to sell the score. I was commissioned to compose the Requiem and only render audio so the choral director and conductor can hear and offer feedback/input during the writing process. I ended up paying the $250 for Reaper (since I do use it for commercial purposes) and couldn't be happier. It has never (and i do mean never) crashed. Which is impressive since i compose without any audio rendering... everything is MIDI. I run 4 VSTi just for the choir, 11 VSTi for the orchestra, run each of the VSTi through iZotope Neutron then each section (choir, brass, strings, etc) gets run through iZotope Ozone, then trough stage specific reverb plug-ins all while having Sibelius slaved as my notation software to actually "write" the score and the parts... And I do it all on a first generation (read 2015) Surface Book with only 8GB Ram, a 256 internal SSD drive, 2 external 256 SSD drives for VSTi sample libraries and a Focusrite 3rd gen audio interface.

I'm actually impressed how well Reaper handles everything. But I do truly appreciate the information you offered on your prior post :0)

The website is not yet up and running but InMemoriaAeterna dot com is where I'll be presenting the rendered work (starting this Tuesday, February 4th)

@Sean-Weyers I was able to get my money back from Magix for all of my products. I suggest doing what I did and simply ask MAGIX for a refund.

Well put and EXACTLY how i feel. As commented on another post...I have stuck it out with Acid over a decade..and im just done..you could have said it no better. Even with the latest update..even the communicate from company to customer...just all bad...gonna miss Acid but i can no longer waste time.

Well put and EXACTLY how i feel. As commented on another post...I have stuck it out with Acid over a decade..and im just done..you could have said it no better. Even with the latest update..even the communicate from company to customer...just all bad...gonna miss Acid but i can no longer waste time.

aaaaaand they want another 99 bucks for version 10 upgrade! I have a suggestion, undo all these "updates", "upgrades", and just go back to version 7 and make it 64bit, keep my $400 bucks. Folks, I am one of you, a tired and a moved-on former Acid Pro user. I come here to read other paying users' frustration, only to get more disappointed in both Sony and Magix.

@Christopher-Frank I cannot agree with you any more. Magix has destroyed the product completely. I'm well aware that support forums seldom have any nice job, well done posts anywhere on them as the people who come to it are seldom those who are having no problems at all. But here - have a look at the top posts on the forum; the problems are not just numerous - they are fundamental.

I keep ACID 7/8/9 on my system because I have to - I have money invested in it and - more importantly - a whole load of musical projects which I may need to re-open some time. That they cannot always be re-opened without the usual round of unpredictable issues, ranging from dropping VSTs, losing effects, whole arrangements failing to be recognised by the very software that created them, and random white screens of death that presage another loss of work. I've switched to another DAW that seems to...well...work. (Ironically, I think it was put together by former Sony software engineers who worked on ACID back in the day)

Sorry Magix - but ACID is dreadful. I am genuinely pissed off that I shelled out money for this, and even more pissed off that I shelled out money for v9 which was supposed to sort all the problems from before. As anyone who uses the product can tell you, v9 is substantially more unusable than the latest versions of v8. As has been said elsewhere, 'we are working on a fix' is no solution.

At best I feel like an unpaid, unannounced pre-alpha tester; at worst I feel like I am the victim of some kind of fraud.

Oh be careful complaining, Magix might make it even more difficult for you to use the product.

Yes, I am with you, man. Just another frustrated customer who paid and paid the bucks without a bang! waited nearly 10 years for it. I began to wonder if Magix actually understood the goodness of this DAW...well, at least once upon a time it did have the goodness.

 

I think people's expectations of what ACID Pro 8/9 would be, simply because MAGIX issued upgrades, was way out of line.

BTW - @Former user what I expected for my $400 was a stable build. Period!! I am a working composer who, in the midst of creating a 10 movement Requiem Mass had to ditch Acid (which used to handle MIDI flawlessly) and teach myself a whole new DAW. Re-calibrate my entire VSTi orchestra and choir and had to re-write CC information from the entire piece (since no 2 DAWs handle CC information exactly the same) AND program all new sysex data for the instrument articulations etc. and reconfigure everything from the new DAW to sync with Sibelius, my notation software.

I also think you're misunderstanding the quoted statement. When Sony took over ACID Pro from Sonic Foundry, the ACID Pro 5.0 update took 2 years to arrive and was not much bigger than ACID Pro 8.0.

I think people are out of line (with their expectations) because they act as if they assume that the developers under Sony were already working on ACID Pro stuff, which probably wasn't the case (the talent was probably reallocated to other areas) - and they always fail to account for the work that has to be done that isn't even directly related to the software itself (when assets are purchased by another company).

ACID Pro under Sony was A $300+ Product, so I also see the cries about the pricing to be a bit... exaggerated. The same people here complaining about MAGIX selling ACID Pro/Updates from $149/99 were the same ones who funded the destruction of the product under Sony by paying much higher prices while asking for nothing but for them to "keep selling it," as they invested almost none of that back into the software. Year over year, mind you.

MAGIX is not going to pay millions to "rebirth" an extremely niche DAW for free. The money has to come from somewhere, and getting it back to the status it once enjoyed isn't going to happen over night. They have already slashed the pricing in half (or more). This DAW has had a decade of neglect. That is a lot of work. Things have changed since then. We've seen 3+ Windows version upgrades with massive changes in underlying subsystems. There are new libraries and compilers. VST Plugin Development has advanced since then. Hardware is changing and advancing.

It isn't as easy as reading a forum and pushing a button...

MAGIX has little to gain from ACID Pro. They are doing mostly this out of good will, and I'm not even sure ACID was a huge factor in their purchasing these assets from Sony - VEGAS and Sound Forge was likely the major factors. They could probably have gained a lot more by simply killing it off and diverting the talent and resources into improving/marketing Samplitude Pro, instead - while keeping Music Maker for most of the "Loopers" (lack of a better term), which is a fairly consumer-dominated market, these days (since most professional producers just roll their own loops, anyways).

-----

I'm writing an Operetta and sketching in my DAW. I would never touch ACID Pro for a project like that, (this is my personal situation). ACID Pro doesn't handle MIDI any worse than it used to. It's just has never been great, compared to what the market was already providing over a decade ago. I'm surprised you sat on it that long, personally. I would not have lasted that long.

When Sony stopped developing ACID, they were only just getting around to adding those types of features in an attempt to compete with industry standards like Cubase and SONAR (ignoring the macOS only options like Digital Performer - and Logic, somewhat - back then).

If ACID Pro makes a resurgence, it will be more towards the Hip Hop and EDM Crowd. The people who use Loops but don't need elaborate MIDI and Scoring/Notation functionalities that ACID Pro simply cannot provide. The people who do want to get closer to that, now, don't even have to pay for the priviledge. Those options already exist, and they handle Loops and Grooves about as well as ACID Pro (within their workflow framework).

I do think ACID can become successful there - and maybe even in your market - but that will take a LOT of time and development.

Composers were never really on the ACID Pro train, and those that were jumped ship long ago.

IMO, the future success of ACID is going to depend not on those legacy users, but on the users MAGIX can gain who are coming to the software with a fresh perspective and a clean slate. They need to carve out a niche for them that is less burdened by legacy, unrealistic expectations, and a sullied reputation.

Wow. Using acid since version 2. What the heck, Shall we criticize the SF team for selling out to Sony? A free market does not guarantee longevity, stability, in a profit based system. This is the price of freedom! Look at all the Sonar users that got screwed by Roland and Gibson! Acid 8 was a complete disaster, and I returned it for full refund. I cursed Magix for it. However, Acid 9 works like a charm on my W10 laptop and W7 pro desktop. I am happy to use vst2s using the integrated bridge. I load all the old stuff flawlessly, less the discontinued products of course. I appreciate AP for what it is and I consider it a bargain. I tried four other expensive DAWs, and do not have time to deal with the layers of bs to get the song created and down. I purchased acoustica pro, not bad, but again, uphill road. Let us see what Version 10 brings!

Mixcraft Pro Studio is really more of a budget Cakewalk. ACID Pro is designed for a completely different use case/workflow. So yes, that will be an uphill battle. Most DAWs handle loops well, but if that's all you do, you may not want to deal with all of the other functionality crammed in there - and the complexities that brings to those other software packages.