BorisFX acquires Acid Pro

[havran]

I wonder if that means Acid Pro will get some bug fixes.

There's an update announced ("coming soon"), so most probably yes.

By the way:

I love this quote:

This is where true creativity starts
Place, move, and adjust loops with precision to write your music

Yes, and that's exactly what I did not like about Magix Music Maker when I tried it in the early 2000s (not sure, but I think it did not include a note sequencer or instruments at the time). By then I had composed or channeled a couple of piano melodies, so putting other people's loops together was not my idea of making music.

As for updates, from the email that BorisFX sent I had the impression they were just getting those three new acquisitions ready for delivery through their installer (which might also involve transferring the user-license data from Magix).

However, these days who knows? They might have Claude or some other AI refactoring the codebase and trawling the Magix forums to identify bugs to fix.

I have a Magix license for Acid Pro 10 (standard, not suite) and am interested to learn what an upgrade would provide.

[havran]

It's been quite a trip for Acid. From Sonic Foundry to Sony to Magix to.... Boris?

Who tf is Boris?

For years, BorisFX has made visual FX plugins for the pro video industry. The "Visual Effects" section of their product list shows what they have been known for so far.

https://borisfx.com/

I hope this is good news for the things they have acquired from Magix.

[jamcat]

Ah, so their interest was probably primarily in Vegas.

[Dexter US]

If I can use magix on d drive then I am intrested esp with the vst's included.. not the one they bought so we will see what happens with it... I remember buying acid in 2000 2001 sometime and never being able to get past the copyright protection... magix on the other hand I had bought at circut city and enjoyed alot...
's

but magix was the name of the company? they developed several products including acid, music maker, sequioa, samplitude, vegas pro and soundforge, i dont recall one actually called 'magix'.
Over the past 10+ years or so I have definitely used Samplitude, Soundforge and Vegas on a drive other than C:\

It was magix music maker and there was also a video maker ... acid pro and vagas pro were purchased from some other company back in the day..

[Shabdahbriah]

If I can use magix on d drive then I am intrested esp with the vst's included.. not the one they bought so we will see what happens with it... I remember buying acid in 2000 2001 sometime and never being able to get past the copyright protection... magix on the other hand I had bought at circut city and enjoyed alot...
's

but magix was the name of the company? they developed several products including acid, music maker, sequioa, samplitude, vegas pro and soundforge, i dont recall one actually called 'magix'.
Over the past 10+ years or so I have definitely used Samplitude, Soundforge and Vegas on a drive other than C:\

It was magix music maker and there was also a video maker ... acid pro and vagas pro were purchased from some other company back in the day..

That would be Sonic Foundry. Sold to Sony, then Magix.

[aallvor]

As of three or four months ago, my licenses for Acid Pro 7 and SamplitudeX Pro 8 were still in my Magix account. I haven’t done the Boris upgrade, hope I don’t have to.

[jens]

Ah, so their interest was probably primarily in Vegas.

Nope - Samplitude/Sequoia was what they first took over (last summer)..

[ThomasHelzle]

Most of what BorisFX has is bought. I had licenses for Particle Illusion Pro ages ago, when it was a single developer, same with SynthEyes. Samplitude was originally conceived by SEM in the GDR for the AMIGA IIRC, we had a license for PC in the 2000's.
Looks like another of those software graveyard companies to me, like Magix, milking long deceased cows for what it's worth.

Magix never did anything about the extremely dated workflow in Vegas which feels like something from the Windows 98 days to me. They just slapped new effects on top of it.
I can't imagine Boris will go down to the core and make it into a modern and fast, fluid to use software.

They are up against DaVinci Resolve which is free in the basic, quite capable version and plays in a completely different league.

R.I.P.

[mountainmaster]

I contacted them as none of my Magix software shows up in my account. They replied to say they are still working on merging licences. I'm not finding the upgrade prices for Vegas and especially Sound Forge 2026 to be overly appealing.

I received the same reply. They specifically mentioned older licenses. I own Sound Forge 16 which is not the latest version.

We are still working on merging older licenses into our Borisfx.com website. If you are content with your current version, you do not have to upgrade.

[osiris]

I had Sony Soundforge (previously Sonic Foundry Soundforge) with no problems until Magix bought it and then wanted money for an update. That's fine because Audacity is pretty much lifted from Soundforge circa 2004.

[havran]

As of three or four months ago, my licenses for Acid Pro 7 and SamplitudeX Pro 8 were still in my Magix account. I haven’t done the Boris upgrade, hope I don’t have to.

I had a look in my Magix account yesterday, and it didn't seem any of my licenses or serial numbers had disappeared.

[CrystalWizard]

I had Sony Soundforge (previously Sonic Foundry Soundforge) with no problems until Magix bought it and then wanted money for an update. That's fine because Audacity is pretty much lifted from Soundforge circa 2004.

offtopic but: i always thought audacity was a clone of CEP Cool Edit Pro, which i had in 2001.
It got bought by adobe (we don't have a puke emoji?), which i had a free license for 3.0 but after the silly attempted merging of pemiere pro (need another puke emoji) into CC they cut me off from re authorizing it, so for serious editing i use an old machine with CEP.

[ThomasHelzle]

(On Windows, hit "Win + ." to insert emojis )

[BONES]

but magix was the name of the company? they developed several products including acid, music maker, sequioa, samplitude, vegas pro and soundforge, i dont recall one actually called 'magix'.

Magix didn't develop shit. They buy up other companies, or do deals to distribute and market them, and sell their products. Magix is basically where old products go to die.

Boris-FX are a bit the same, they have hoovered up half-a-dozen different plugin developers in the visual effect industry. They started out as a small fish in a big sea but ended up swallowing half the major players. They don't seem to do much actual product development so don't expect things to be any different to they way they were under Magix.

I wonder if the Magix versions can still be activated if we need to re-install them. Looks like moving a current license over to the new BorisFX version requires a paid upgrade.

My experience with Xara, who make the structured art application I use, is that Magix will support your license for a while but eventually you'll have to move it over to the new owners. (Xara re-took control of sales and distribution from Magix, after several years of being under their umbrella.)

For years, BorisFX has made visual FX plugins for the pro video industry.

No they haven't. I'm not sure they have ever developed anything of their own. I think they are more like WA Productions/Plugin Alliance/United Plugins, in that they buy or license products other people have developed. In the VFX industry they are a competitor to Red Giant, who do the same thing.

I've been using Boris stuff for decades at work but I've never bought anything of theirs. I do own a very old SoundForge license, from the Sonic Foundry days, which I upgraded once under Sony ownership, but for the last 10 years or so Ocen Audio has done most of what I need from an audio editor and I have access to Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit Pro) for anything else.

[havran]

@BONES -- Thank you for the history and clarifications.