? about recording MIDI in Acid 5

[soulkraka]

I recently downloaded the Acid 5 demo. Acid has some pretty nifty features but whats up with the MIDI recording?

Is it really neccessary to name my take, specify a location, choose whether its an audio or MIDI recording etc? Is there some way to bypass this obscene dialog box and just simply start recording? I searched the manual and the acid forums but couldnt find anything in the way of usefull info.

[paradiddle]

might wanna check out the upcoming version 6 has they semmed to have improved that aspect of acid.
I have version 4 and never bothered to upgrade.

http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/produc ... ochure.pdf

[funkychickendance]

I recently downloaded the Acid 5 demo. Acid has some pretty nifty features but whats up with the MIDI recording?

Is it really neccessary to name my take, specify a location, choose whether its an audio or MIDI recording etc? Is there some way to bypass this obscene dialog box and just simply start recording? I searched the manual and the acid forums but couldnt find anything in the way of usefull info.

It's not quite that bad, is it?

Once you've got a project set up, you click to add a MIDI track (or audio track) and start recording. If you're blending a pre-recorded MIDI or audio track/snippet/whatever with a looped construction, you first get it beat-mapped so it's able to be synched and/or then tell the program where to find it.

I just ignore all that dialog box crap until a project is at a point where it needs a name

Or maybe I misunderstood your question.

ACID Pro 6 (next month?)is expected to be much more MIDI-friendly, but 5 is not a complete bust for those who are patient and unambitious

Whenever I find anything I can't do in AP5, I go do it in FL Studio, the other much underrated, and cheap, host. Then 'glue the bits together'

/fcd
so old, he remembers splicing tape, and four-track recording. "Expect nothing...do something"

[soulkraka]

ACID Pro 6 (next month?)is expected to be much more MIDI-friendly, but 5 is not a complete bust for those who are patient and unambitious

ya, the announcement and pdf is what peaked my interest. Im loving the groove quantize features...cool stuff

[funkychickendance]

ACID Pro 6 (next month?)is expected to be much more MIDI-friendly, but 5 is not a complete bust for those who are patient and unambitious

ya, the announcement and pdf is what peaked my interest. Im loving the groove quantize features...cool stuff

The Groove Quantize thing is pure voodoo, and I haven't really scratched the surface of its possibilities yet. But it does let you grab sounds from different genres and "make them behave." So, if you want Latin-inflected loops, but in a strict rock tempo, you got it. And arabic drums will fit reggae, etc., etc.

There are other ways you can accomplish this (like, duh, with samples in a sequencer), but this is sooo simple!

enjoy/fcd

[soulkraka]

Ive mainly been using it to quantize midi tracks. Grabbing grooves from audio loops, then quantizing my MIDI parts. I havent gotten good results when quantizing audio though. any tips?

any good acid tutorials/resources on the net you can recommend?

[DaveL60]

Is it really neccessary to name my take, specify a location, choose whether its an audio or MIDI recording etc? Is there some way to bypass this obscene dialog box and just simply start recording? I searched the manual and the acid forums but couldnt find anything in the way of usefull info.

Assuming it's the same as ACID Pro 4.0, there's no way that I'm aware of to just click record and start playing. I think the minimum you need to do is:

1) select a track
2) put the cursor where you want to start recording
3) click record
4) identify your track as either audio or MIDI
5) click to start recording

ACID will automatically name your track "take 1.wav" or "take 1.mid", and put it (i think) in the same folder you last recorded to. Some folks take the approach of making the recording, using the ACID-supplied default filename, and then using the Chopper to extract the part of the recording they want to keep and giving that a name. Then you can go back and delete everything in the folder named "take*.*", because you've given real names to bits you want to keep.

I'm not aware of any way to simplify it beyond that. I can't imagine how any host can operate without you at least specifying audio vs. MIDI.

DaveL

[funkychickendance]

Ive mainly been using it to quantize midi tracks. Grabbing grooves from audio loops, then quantizing my MIDI parts. I havent gotten good results when quantizing audio though. any tips?

any good acid tutorials/resources on the net you can recommend?

You gotta beatmap the audio, or it's a mess.

The only good guide I know is a book, Acid Pro 5 Power! by Eric Franks. Sony-sponsored, $40 from them, $28 on Amazon. It's quite open about the MIDI failings of '5'

/fcd

[G-Ro124]

Ive mainly been using it to quantize midi tracks. Grabbing grooves from audio loops, then quantizing my MIDI parts. I havent gotten good results when quantizing audio though. any tips?

any good acid tutorials/resources on the net you can recommend?

You gotta beatmap the audio, or it's a mess.

The only good guide I know is a book, Acid Pro 5 Power! by Eric Franks. Sony-sponsored, $40 from them, $28 on Amazon. It's quite open about the MIDI failings of '5'

/fcd

That book is the only book I own about ACID and it taught me a lot about ACID...

The MIDI recording dialog is really not bad, in general, ACID groups things together with options to choose different modes, whereas FL just gives you one way to do this and an entirely different way to do that. An example is MIDI v. Audio, w/MIDI you record and then play in the piano roll, but w/Audio, you have to go through a long process...

If you decide to turn to ACID, I recommend that you buy the ACID power book and if you decide to become an ACID user, then it will just get absorbed into your workflow.

[soulkraka]

You gotta beatmap the audio, or it's a mess.

If I beatmap the "source" loop then Im no longer able to add it to the groove pool. So do you mean that I should grab the groove, beatmap the "destination" loop and then quantize?

[funkychickendance]

You gotta beatmap the audio, or it's a mess.

If I beatmap the "source" loop then Im no longer able to add it to the groove pool. So do you mean that I should grab the groove, beatmap the "destination" loop and then quantize?

Oh, I see what you're trying to do (I think...)

You want to (a) grab a groove from an original recording and (b) use it to create a groove preset to go with the ones Sony has devised, and then (c) apply it to something new?

This idea appealed to me, too. But I was never quite certain how to pull it together. As I read the book, you can certainly extract a groove from a properly prepared, beatmapped loop (which is what I was implying).

But I don't think you can peel a groove off a longer audio recording (for a start, nothing stays in time that long ) The good news is: now we've got a real technical question for folks to respond to! I'd like to know the whole answer, too!

/fcd

[Igor 4000]

I'll tell ya the more I read about Acid Pro 6, the more I become convinced that this is the next big thing in sequencers.

[soulkraka]

You want to (a) grab a groove from an original recording and (b) use it to create a groove preset to go with the ones Sony has devised, and then (c) apply it to something new?

This is exactly what I already am doing. Groove quantizing. My point is that this functionality works great when extracting grooves from audio and then applying them to MIDI parts but doesnt work well when applying grooves to another audio part, with the exception of staccato sounding parts like congas, muted guitar etc.

Thats fine though. I really wasnt expecting good results with this anyways, especially in real time. This is pretty advanced stuff and I think a dedicated app such as melodyne is needed.

Cant wait to try out 6 when it becomes available

[soulkraka]

I'll tell ya the more I read about Acid Pro 6, the more I become convinced that this is the next big thing in sequencers.

a comeback? a return to form you say?

We shall see.

[funkychickendance]

This is exactly what I already am doing. Groove quantizing. My point is that this functionality works great when extracting grooves from audio and then applying them to MIDI parts but doesnt work well when applying grooves to another audio part, with the exception of staccato sounding parts like congas, muted guitar etc.

Thats fine though. I really wasnt expecting good results with this anyways, especially in real time. This is pretty advanced stuff and I think a dedicated app such as melodyne is needed.

Cant wait to try out 6 when it becomes available

Interesting. Well, time for me to go back and give this another try. Typically, I'm trying to extract some fearsomely complex time signature/groove and use it to drive those kinds of rhythm elements (but MIDI, not audio), so I can jam over them. This opens up the possibilities a bit. Thanks for clarifying.

/fcd