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I spent 160 buxs to upgrade my Acid4 to Acid5


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Here are my top eleven reasons for upgrading...

 

1. There's a lot more control over stretching characteristics with the new groove tools, including the ability to apply grooves to acidized files. Acid Pro 5 comes with 52 grooves, but you can create and customize your own based on how you've placed stretch markers in an acidized file.

 

2. The stretching sounds better, and the beat detection engine seems more accurate, requiring less "tweaking" to get loops to stretch over a wide range.

 

3. Folder tracks group tracks into one track. You can nest folders within folders, and do anything with a track within a folder (change track height, move, split, add envelopes, etc.) that you can do when it's not in a folder - including "cluster edits" on collapsed folder tracks. You can also mute and solo folder tracks, however, you can't do operations on the folder track itself. Drag parts out of the folder any time, as well as minimize folders to minimize space; this is a fine implementation of a much-needed feature.

 

4. VST compatibility - it's not just about DirectX any more - and can do multiport VST instruments.

 

5. Several effects (Amplitude Modulation, Flange/Wah-Wah, Chorus, and Simple Delay) can sync to tempo.

 

6. Acid now can burn CDs directly from the program.

 

7. MIDI's been spiffed up a bit with constrain to scale (just noodle on the keyboard, then snap to a specific scale/key to banish bad notes). The MIDI implementation is still kinda low-rent, but it will get you through recording your virtual instrument parts.

 

8. It's possible to route a bus to another bus (and it won't let you do anything stupid, like set up a feedback loop) - very useful if you're into bus effects.

 

9. Customizable media folders help organize the files you use in a project, and you can save a project path in a rendered file to edit a rendered file's source project. But the killer feature is Sony's new Media Manager technology for locating different types of files, as well as the ability to tag, search and browse files with metadata that makes specific attributes easier to find - think "database and search" functions.

 

10. Acid can serve as a ReWire 1.0 client and ReWire 2.0 host. Just make sure you get the most recent update, which takes care of some rewire issues with the original V5.0.

 

11. Part of the Pro package is Native Instruments' Xpress instruments (B4, Pro53, and FM7). These are not keyed to Acid so you can use them with other VST hosts, too.

 

Here's what I really really want in version 6:

 

* Freeze function

* Ability to tie level faders and other parameters to external hardware control boxes.

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My main reason was for the Rewire capability, but Craig lists all the other good ones as well, which were of lesser importance to me.

It still amazes me that I have GS3, VST32 & Pro5 humming along together via Rewire. Neat.:D

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Wow... that's quite a hefty price for an incremental upgrade. I thought Sony was being generous when they UG'd my Sound Forge 5 all the way to 8 for $100 and threw in the current CD-Architect (which was a sore spot with me and Sonic Foundry, since I was always ticked off that they virtually abandoned CD-Arch when XP came out and then, years later, when they finally came out with an XP version, they tried to get me to spend something like $190 to upgrade a $250 program...)

 

I guess they figure they can get the dough for ACID, though. It seems likely Sony was mostly interested in Vegas -- but ACID must have certainly sweetened the pot. I have AP3 and it's great technology, though I don't find myself using it much for my own music. But I suspect I may begin using it more for some web multimedia one of my clients seems moving toward.

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I think the 5.0 update is the most comprehensive and useful upgrade to date, IMO. I use many, if not most of the new features, in all my new ACID Pro projects. I briefly used ACID Pro 4 and immediately missed many of the new features and enhancements that I had come to take for granted. Many of which Craig had already mentioned:

 

Folder Tracks, bus to bus routing, VST support, rewire slave, Groove tools, Media Manager etc......, but there are other, less glamorous new features that I also find indispensible, like:

 

*Customizable Keyboard bindings (just about any action can be assigned to a keyboard shortcut)

 

*All FX Bypass (having a global FX bypass switch, which I assigned to a hot key, is real handy)

 

*Plugin Manager ( being able to organize your plugins and easily drag and drop your plugins, from your docked Plugin Manager window, onto your track/bus FX icons is a real boon to productivity and efficiency. If you have ever used this feature in Sound Forge 6,7 or 8, then you know what I mean)

 

*More Dockable windows ( you can further customize your desktop with additional dockable windows now)

 

*Realtime Event Reverse ( another great feature that even works on an entire project in realtime)

 

There is another undocumented "feature" that I also find rather useful. If you notice the track/bus FX icons change colors depending on the type of plugins that are being used. Sorta like status lights.

 

Green: indicates no plugins requiring PDC are present

Yellow:indicates at least one plugin, in the chain, requires PDC

Red: indicates the plugins have been disabled. This usually happens in rewire slave mode to PDC type plugins.

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well Im glad you guys seem to give it a thumbs up and I was liking the vsti support :D

 

 

 

I have seen a software download upgrade for only 149 but I wanted a box with cds so thats why I paid a little more .

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Originally posted by analog daniel

i'm still using acid 3!
:)

and you probably know it inside and out and use it to its full potential , I gotta buckle down and just learn 5 , I owned 4 for over a year and never really even used it , its laziness on my part .

Dammnit , tonight I will learn it all !

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Someone gave me 3.

 

I upgraded to 4.

 

Found 4 to be buggy as hell.

 

Went back to 3.

 

If 5 is significantly improved over 4, I would upgrade in a heartbeat. Sure, ProTools is the standard, but Acid is what I'm used to, and I'm not ready to pick up an MBOX and hope it'll work with my PCs.

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How comparable is Live to Acid Pro 5? Main reason I'm interested in Acid 5 is because I've already got a registered 4 and am familiar with the interface, but Live seems to have left Acid in the dust in many regards. Does it take awhile to get the jist of Live's interface?

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