Customer Reviews

ACID Music Studio 7 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I will try to make this brief. This is a easy program to use if you are experienced or just learning(like myself). The program pretty much spells everything out for you. But for a program that is based around music it limits you if you do not have the full version of Acid Pro(which is about 300 dollars). For example, if you are recording multiple tracks, you need to create mixing busses. But the program does not save your busses unless you have Acid Pro, so if you record something that has lets say 25 tracks all asigned to busses and then you save it, once you open the project back up all those busses are gone and the program tells you an error occured and it then tells you to buy Acid Pro so this will not happen anymore. This is very frustrating, if you make any projects that involve complex mixing, you basically need to leave your computer on until you finish your work and never want to touch it again, unless you love remixing stuff. There is also a strange thing where you can't automate panning and volumes from the busses, you have to pull up an "envelope" on the track and create bullet points to adjust these things. I find it to be tedious and strange, when other porgrams such as Pro Tools allow you to automate much easier. Overall this is a decent program, but it has its frustrations and does not work fully unless you want to buy the full 300 dollar program.

I am actually a singer and was skeptical at first as to what Sony Acid can do for me. I have been amazed at the amount of effects you can play around with your voice. I am using this with a TASCAM US-144 ($150) and a Samson C15 ($50) and of course an XLR cable to connect the two ($15). You would need a Pop filter for the Mic ($20) and for under $300 (including Acid) you can have your own professional home studio for vocal/instrumental recording. Not to mention the fact that you can get loops of music that you can use if you can't play an instrument. Nothing will stop me now!!! Muahahhahhah! Lol...seriously though, good software!!!

Awesome, amazing, excellent, flawless. These are just some of the words that can be used to describe Acid Music Studio 7 - a software that allows you to produce original, high quality music. What this tool can do for you is simply astonishing, to say the least. You definitely get your money's worth, that's for sure.

Acid Music Studio 7 is ideal for anyone who's ever thought about producing music, regardless of what genre they're into: Techno, Hip Hop, Rock, Country... no problem. In fact, there's no other software I would recommend more than this one. It's flexible, powerful, and quite possibly the most user friendly software of its kind on the market today. As far as I'm concerned, you can't really make this software any more user-friendly than it already is. And although there are other, much more expensive products of this kind on the market, like, Cubase and Pro Tools (which I've taken for a test drive before), why would you want to pay multiple times more for a product that gives you the same results? Unless you're a professional music producer and you fear "looking unprofessional" in front of your peers for working with a software that costs less than a hundred bucks - that's understandable. Otherwise, forget it.

Beginners will be pleased to know that this software comes with a ton of pre-composed music files to get you started and give you some good practice. Most of these music files are "loops" but there are also many samples of snares, kicks, hats, stabs, strings, and other one-shots. This allows you to be as creative as you want. You can also modify each loop through a wide range of options, such as chopping them to bits and pieces, moving them around wherever you want, changing the volumes and pitches, mixing them with other sounds and even adding some effects to them. You can also record your vocals into it for a live session. With this software, the user is always in control. You can produce whatever music you want, at whatever level you want. The quality of the music files, by the way, is top notch CD quality. You can create your own mp3s and export them to your favorite player or burn them onto a CD.

For more advanced users, you can plug in your music keyboard to your computer or use any synthesizer software, such as FL Studio, for example, to compose your own, 100 % original music from scratch. If you have the interest for this kind of stuff, you'll be able to master this software very easily. Don't be fooled by reviewers who give this software anything less than five stars. This product is gold! I've been using Acid 2 for years and recently upgraded to Acid 7 and I'm absolutely thrilled with it. It's fun, it's easy to use, and it's suitable for people of all ages and skill level. Excellent for beginners and excellent for pros.

I highly recommend it!

I use this program to make my own soundtracks for my videos. There is a bit of a learning curve, but this program works in a similar manner to any other creative computer program. I enjoy the ability to overlay samples with my own recordings, as well as using imported sounds. The effects (reverb, delay, etc.) are a little weak, but with some internet searching, I was able to find many free effects that are of higher quality. I also enjoy the simple conversion of completed work into MP3 and wav files. The final sound is up to you. You can spend hours editing, or just throw something together in a hurry.

So far I've spent hours trying to learn this product, and I finally got the hang of it to do very basic stuff. The biggest issue that I have with this product is that Sony does NOT give any technical support, not unless you buy a technical support package, which consists of $14.95 fee each time you call for help!

I called Sony before I purchased the product and asked them if they had a certain feature, the sales rep said yes. She told me to try it out, download a free trial and a Tech Support person would help me with any questions. Because she told me they had the feature I was looking for, I went ahead a purchased the product instead. Well, now I'm finding out that Sony will help those with trial versions, but not those that have already purchased.

If you're not familiar with the normal jargon for music software, you'll have a harder time figuring this out. Especially since no one at Sony will walk you through anything. The tutorial is a joke! It doesn't address a lot of issues, so now I have this new product I paid Sony for and they won't even help me figure it out without shelling out more money.

Anyone that writes a positive review about Sony's technical support or tutorials is probably a manager at Sony trying to make their product sound better than what it really is.

If you already know terminology such as loops, BPM's, Track FX, Soft Synth, snapping, crossfades, compressors, Marker, Region....then you'll breeze through this product. If music software is new to you, buy another product where they'll actually support you after you buy their product.

I've worked with Acid in it's various forms for quite a long time. Before I was tinkering with the freeware version, Acid Xpress, but I recently upgraded to Music Studio 7 for the added features. Quite honestly, this is about as easy as it gets when it comes to creating and mixing tracks for soundtracks, games, etc.

After reading various amazon reviews on this product, I decided it was time to write one of my own. From what I've read, it seems the biggest complaints are lack of documentation and poor customer support by Sony. I can't really speak about the customer support as I've never had to call them. Missing serial keys is completely inexcusable on Sony's part, but that's why I HIGHLY recommend just ordering Acid Music Studio directly from Sony's website. You can digitally download it, and you are emailed a serial key right away. The program even auto-activates itself over the internet saving you from typing it in yourself. So that solves any hassle involving serial keys.

As for lack of documentation, that is a non-issue in my opinion. If you can't figure out this program, I don't really know what to tell you. It couldn't be any easier unless it automatically did everything for you. You just drag and drop what sound loops you want onto the workspace, and use the paintbrush tool to draw where you want which sound sample to play, at what interval, etc. I really don't know what's non-intuitive about that, as personally, I found it to be the most efficient mixing tool I've tried. I will say that I've never really had a reason to delve into the advanced features, so if you are doing more than just mixing sound loops, I can see how that might be harder due to lack of documentation (such as hooking up your keyboard/synthesizer to your computer and getting it to work in Acid. Never tried it). But if all else fails, there are forums you can post on, and you can always google for whatever documentation or tutorials are available on the internet.

One thing I do like is the ability to purchase and download a wide range of royalty free sound samples and loops from Sony's online store (each disc/download has a ton of samples/loops), but this isn't really a feature of Acid Music Studio itself. You can purchase those separately and use them in whatever sound mixing tool you prefer, but as a non-musician I find these extremely valuable as I need to make sound tracks for my products and I have zero music talent.

Bottomline, most serious projects are going to need more than one tool for the job. For video projects, I use Corel Video Studio, but I create the soundtracks with Acid for instance. If you are making videos, it's just better to get a dedicated video editing program. For sound mixing and looping, Acid does the job.

Amazon has this product for cheaper than the Sony store, but considering the issues people have with missing serial keys apparently, I would just buy it via direct download. You can also pay a little extra to have them ship you out the installation and sample CD (which is what I did, you don't get the samples via digital download itself, so it's worth the price).

For people who found the product too hard or difficult, and not worth the money, they really only have themselves to blame, considering Sony has a free trial on their website. Try it out for yourself. If you like it, buy it and get the extra features that come with the full version.

I purchased this program in hopes to start creating my own music. So far, it's worked like a champ. I'm not the most experienced, but I've been able to even create my own acapella songs. They're not great, but that's not because of the program. I need to learn to sing better. LOL!!!!
And the nice thing is, it isn't hard to use. I installed it, and within about 30 minutes I had created my first song. Short, but it did what I wanted.
I can also atest to the program working okay in that my other half now keeps complaining about all the racket in the computer room!
In closing, I do like the program and I do recommend it for someone who's looking to create their own music.

I guess that I just was lucky. I bought two copies of this software (on separate occasions) and loaded it on two computers (an HP desktop and a Toshiba laptop) and frankly have not had a single problem. I can use the MME drivers for my sound cards or ASIO drivers for my Line6 Studio USB interface with no problem. The sound quality is stunning. The software is self-explanatory and all my plug-ins work just fine with it.

I guess I just got lucky and both of my copies had the activation numbers included and it simply worked. If you have never worked with audio software (recording and/or editing) then I would expect you will have a fair learning curve. However, that is true of ANY audio software. Once you understand the general concepts, they are fairly universal across software packages. ACID however is one of the easier packages to learn with drag and drop music creation. I had a 10-track tune thrown together in about 30 minutes after loading it the first time. Again, if you have never used audio software, expect that you will have to take your time and figure out the concepts.

If you never used a spreasheet program such as Excel before, you would have to do the same thing in order to construct a useable spreadsheet. Granted, if ACID is crashing your computer, I can't really comment. I did not have to deal with tech support so, again, I can not intelligently comment on their abilities or effectiveness.

I CAN tell you that if you have a basic knowledge of audio programs and are lucky enough that you have no issues with running the software on your computer, this is one heck of a program with endless applications including video soundtracks, backing tracks, practice tracks, recording play-along sessions, songwriting ideas, dance tracks, and the list is just endless. If you don't find loops that you like included with the software (they are a bit limited), you can always buy loops in just about any style you might wish.

I have to give it 5 stars and say that my experience with this product has been stellar. Besides being so easy to use, it is inexpensive and just a LOT of fun to tinker with! I LOVE IT!

RHB

ACID has to be the easiest sequencer to start out with. If you know the basic terminology of audio production, it will take you less than 5 minutes to be recording and arranging both audio and MIDI tracks.

If you're looking to create a demo or just record some of your own songs, this program is perfect. It still has its looping roots, so it excels at that too, but in the past couple of versions they have really beefed up the sequencer piece.

The included effects are useable. Nothing outstanding, but not horrible. They include a 3-band graphic EQ, a 7-band graphic EQ, a compressor, a delay, a chorus, a flanger/wah, a tremelo (amplitude mod.), and a reverb. There is also a distortion plug-in, but it is pretty useless as it sounds ugly.

Luckily, these effects can be easily supplemented with the vast number of free VST and DX plugins available around the web.

Effects can be assigned per track, or over the entire project. Busses can be created, but not saved. Apparently this is available in the Pro version.

The program is able to record in 8-bit or 16-bit (sadly, no 24-bit is enabled - you have to get the $200 Pro version for that). I would have loved to see 24-bit support, as my hardware supports it, but for $50 it's hard to complain.

Overall, if you're looking for a sequencer/DAW for under $100, this is the best of the bunch. If you're planning to move up to Cubase, Logic, or ProTools later, you might want to check out their "LE" versions, but for the amateur producer, it doesn't get much easier to start than with ACID.

I had the same problem another reviewer reported. I have now purchased two copies of this with no serial numbers and no help from Sony customer service. Fortunately, Amazon has been great about letting me return it.