Oh, crap! My edit must have deleted both of your posts! Apologies! So, so sorry!

I still remember the day I found Samp, they were doing a high profile demo for Hollywood-based film School students, in a theater on Hollywood Blvd or Sunset, demoing actually the new Vienna Symphonic Library, uber high end at the time, and I was a bit surprised to learn Samplitude/Sequoia was the recorder/editor that they employed for that immense and pristine project. They also gave away a video editor with a purchase, AND they had a subscription for $20/mo. That was it, I was sold.

 

Oh, cool! So Samplitude's forte is like for scoring to picture? Thats exactly what I need! Thanks for the additional info!

I won't vouch for that idea, you CAN do it, and it also has a decent scoring editor, and I believe the addition of its video guide track is about five years old, and it works, now, I think, pretty well, but it hasn't made it's reputation on that aspect, as such, for that, but I would just get the full functioning demo and see if it does what you need. I'd say it would probably do what you need it to do.

Eventually, I would really like to integrate my music and sound design stuff more tightly with my video work in Vegas (kinda what rekindled my interest in getting a new NLE in the first place.). Not exactly sure which path I'll chart to achieve that, though.

 

@studio-4  AS I've pointed out already, Samp is DEEP and wide, but not user unfriendly. There are great tutorials by Kraznet, especially. A whole series.

Samp has a video track so that you can work out your hits or timing once you've established your video in Vegas, for example. It has different playback modes, so you can unburden the CPU load if need be (tx, real time monitoring, buffer settings, track pre-loads, all being factors).

Or you can work it the opposite way, like...(or both ways)

I do music videos, so I really do my audio editing, at least a rough mix, first, and then import that into Vegas, if I need to add atmospherics on top of that, it is a breeze in Vegas and you'd have a lot of control there, audio-wise, as well, just not as completely as you would in Samplitude. Samplitude was the accompanying program for SEK'd a German Company who came out early with an audio card for PC. The Germans almost over-engineered Samp, it is so feature packed.

Samp has also been closely aligned with (German) RME audio interfaces, they work extremely well together.

Samp's "Big Brother" is Sequoia, as staple of radio broadcasting and mastering houses for at least a couple of decades now. Really the same program with a few more bells and whistles, essentially the same. About $2500 more expensive.

Oh, cool! So Samplitude's forte is like for scoring to picture? Thats exactly what I need! Thanks for the additional info! Yeah, I've really been re-exploring the whole art form with Vegas, looking at video production in a whole new light.

I first started thinking I can now re-work my old short films when I bought Vegas a few weeks ago. But as I've gotten more into modular- and video-synthesis, I've become attracted to more "artistic," experimental, ambient, and abstract ideas for video (also, muscivideos!).

The possibilities of incorporating music composition, sound-design, video-synthesis, and live-action video is really exciting to me and because Vegas is so accessible, it's going to be the linchpin on which all of this can be built.

 

Oh, cool! So Samplitude's forte is like for scoring to picture? Thats exactly what I need! Thanks for the additional info!

I won't vouch for that idea, you CAN do it, and it also has a decent scoring editor, and I believe the addition of its video guide track is about five years old, and it works, now, I think, pretty well, but it hasn't made it's reputation on that aspect, as such, for that, but I would just get the full functioning demo and see if it does what you need. I'd say it would probably do what you need it to do.

@fred-w

Gotcha! Since its price is significant, I'll definitely be doing a demo before I decide to buy. It's too bad they don't offer a cross-grade like a few other DAWs do (e.g., typically, $200 for a cross-grade from Apple Logic).

 

Gotcha! Since its price is significant, I'll definitely be doing a demo before I decide to buy. It's too bad they don't offer a cross-grade like a few other DAWs do (e.g., typically, $200 for a cross-grade from Apple Logic).

You can often get it for a couple of two or three hundred, they have it on sale three or four times a year, it seems. There are academic discounts and there is a subscription, about $20 and $30 depending if you get the basic or the suite, the latter I'd recommend. Absolutely worth it because you'd be getting the free next version updates.

 

Although I used Sony Acid in the early 2000s (and really liked it!), I'm now more inclined to create my own music-beds and effects-tracks with hardware synths, modular gear, my V-drum kit, and cabinet-mic'd electric guitar/bass.

You likely missed where they added Midi sequencing, and multi-track audio recording into Acid in an attempt to turn Acid Pro into a DAW instead of a just a loop based sequencer. It actually does all that you described currently. The problem was Sony made a last ditch effort to turn Acid Pro into a full DAW, then they stopped development on it for like 5 years straight. It got so bad that Sony missed the entire 32bit to 64bit OS transition and essentially pushed away the entire userbase due to neglect of updating it to work on x64 systems. Then it got sold off to Magix, where the 1st thing Magix had to do was make a 64 bit version, just to get it working on the current systems. Since it no longer has a strong userbase, it seems Magix just doesn't have the necessary resources to get all the kinks worked out of it. No 3rd party developers seem to have an interest in making sure their products work with Acid since it's just that low on the todem poll compared to other DAWs.

Eventually, I would really like to integrate my music and sound design stuff more tightly with my video work in Vegas (kinda what rekindled my interest in getting a new NLE in the first place.). Not exactly sure which path I'll chart to achieve that, though.

 

@studio-4  AS I've pointed out already, Samp is DEEP and wide, but not user unfriendly. There are great tutorials by Kraznet, especially. A whole series.

Samp has a video track so that you can work out your hits or timing once you've established your video in Vegas, for example. It has different playback modes, so you can unburden the CPU load if need be (tx, real time monitoring, buffer settings, track pre-loads, all being factors).

Or you can work it the opposite way, like...(or both ways)

I do music videos, so I really do my audio editing, at least a rough mix, first, and then import that into Vegas, if I need to add atmospherics on top of that, it is a breeze in Vegas and you'd have a lot of control there, audio-wise, as well, just not as completely as you would in Samplitude. Samplitude was the accompanying program for SEK'd a German Company who came out early with an audio card for PC. The Germans almost over-engineered Samp, it is so feature packed.

Samp has also been closely aligned with (German) RME audio interfaces, they work extremely well together.

Samp's "Big Brother" is Sequoia, as staple of radio broadcasting and mastering houses for at least a couple of decades now. Really the same program with a few more bells and whistles, essentially the same. About $2500 more expensive.

Oh, cool! So Samplitude's forte is like for scoring to picture? Thats exactly what I need! Thanks for the additional info! Yeah, I've really been re-exploring the whole art form with Vegas, looking at video production in a whole new light.

I first started thinking I can now re-work my old short films when I bought Vegas a few weeks ago. But as I've gotten more into modular- and video-synthesis, I've become attracted to more "artistic," experimental, ambient, and abstract ideas for video (also, muscivideos!).

The possibilities of incorporating music composition, sound-design, video-synthesis, and live-action video is really exciting to me and because Vegas is so accessible, it's going to be the linchpin on which all of this can be built.

I think you'll like this:

https://www.smartsound.com/sonicfire/

Integrates in Vegas, Premiere Pro etc.

I would also like to say that if you want to compose music start by trying free MuseScore 3.0. Very good even compared to the top commercial scoring programs. Easy to learn and very fast at that tedious inputting notes (using key board numbers and letters. Samplitude's midi score editor is not bad but MuseScore does just one thing and it does it well and then outputs to midi or wave formats.

@adis-a3097 Seems very nice, but I mainly compose my own music and effects which I perform/record live into Apple Logic (I rarely use any MIDI-generated/controlled sequences). The only thing I tend to use a MIDI-track for is for an occasional bass-line when I'm too lazy to actually play it (either from a monosynth or an electric bass).

Back in 2000, Acid Pro was a fun beat-generator which I enjoyed using, but I've acquired quite a bit of music gear since then.

 

Although I used Sony Acid in the early 2000s (and really liked it!), I'm now more inclined to create my own music-beds and effects-tracks with hardware synths, modular gear, my V-drum kit, and cabinet-mic'd electric guitar/bass.

You likely missed where they added Midi sequencing, and multi-track audio recording into Acid in an attempt to turn Acid Pro into a DAW instead of a just a loop based sequencer . . . Since it no longer has a strong userbase, it seems Magix just doesn't have the necessary resources to get all the kinks worked out of it. No 3rd party developers seem to have an interest in making sure their products work with Acid since it's just that low on the todem poll compared to other DAWs.

Yes, I did totally miss that! It's too bad the third-party interest has dried up. I would just like the pick up a new license to play with my old add-on libraries. If nothing else, Acid was fun! Would you recommend getting the current Acid Pro 10?

@adis-a3097 Seems very nice, but I mainly compose my own music and effects which I perform/record live into Apple Logic (I rarely use any MIDI-generated/controlled sequences). The only thing I tend to use a MIDI-track for is for an occasional bass-line when I'm too lazy to actually play it (either from a monosynth or an electric bass).

Back in 2000, Acid Pro was a fun beat-generator which I enjoyed using, but I've acquired quite a bit of music gear since then.

I see.

FWIW, SonicFire Pro is not a MIDI VST instrument...

@adis-a3097 Seems very nice, but I mainly compose my own music and effects which I perform/record live into Apple Logic (I rarely use any MIDI-generated/controlled sequences). The only thing I tend to use a MIDI-track for is for an occasional bass-line when I'm too lazy to actually play it (either from a monosynth or an electric bass).

Back in 2000, Acid Pro was a fun beat-generator which I enjoyed using, but I've acquired quite a bit of music gear since then.

I see.

FWIW, SonicFire Pro is not a MIDI VST instrument...

Yes, I know. Still, very cool app for those that need it. Not sure why I got off on that MIDI-tangent. Acid was fun, but I don't use if for any "real" work, mainly because it's not actually "my" work.

I actually didn't know what composers used to score feature films. According to a quick Google-search, it's among Avid's ProTools + Sibelius, Apple Logic, and Cubase. I did find that Logic supports a video track so that you can cut to picture, which is a feature I've never even used (but planning on doing so now).

A few years ago I also bought FotoMagico Pro, a slick macOS multimedia application which has the appearance and workflow of a full-fledged NLE with DAW-like abilities. It's really powerful and has automatic Ken Burns-effects, and the multitrack audio support is really nice, but it was still work.

Even though I think PhotoMagico is best-in-class, no matter how you slice it, creating slick, polished presentations (or in this case, multimedia shows) takes time and effort. More than I was willing to invest for simple family photos and personal events. That's why I'm so pleased with Vegas' Slideshow Creator—it's so fast and easy!

Of course, for times when I do want to produce a nice, polished multimedia piece, I'll revisit FotoMagico and perhaps combine it with more of my stills and video-synthesis work, but perhaps Vegas is all I'll really need.

Even though I think PhotoMagico is best-in-class, no matter how you slice it, creating slick, polished presentations (or in this case, multimedia shows) takes time and effort. More than I was willing to invest for simple family photos and personal events. That's why I'm so pleased with Vegas' Slideshow Creator—it's so fast and easy!

 

Just FYI, there are quite a few 3rd party templates and plugins for creating all sorts of videos, intros, business ads, interesting transitions, slide shows. Start with Vegasaur offerings, and also Youtubers focused on Vegas.

Note of caution: some of the latter rely on other 3rd party plugins that they sometimes provide pirate links to the same.....Don't recommend those....unless you already OWN the extra 3rd party fx plugs that they are utilizing.

Yes, I did totally miss that! It's too bad the third-party interest has dried up. I would just like the pick up a new license to play with my old add-on libraries. If nothing else, Acid was fun! Would you recommend getting the current Acid Pro 10?

Honestly, my personal jury is still out if I'm going to continue to use Acid Pro or not. I mainly use it because there's a lot of cross over functionality between Vegas and Acid. It's one less complex program where I need to relearn how to do 80% of the same things over. So as far as familiarity if you are familiar with Vegas Pro, then you should be able to hit the ground running using Acid, where Acid should do everything you've described. I haven't done any music scoring to video but Acid does allow you to import a video track into Acid to do exactly that. How well it works, I couldn't tell you since I never tried it.

I recently have been getting back into more music creation and as such I'm currently going through setting up my system to include more music production plugins. How well my key important plugins work or don't inside of Acid will be my main deciding factors if I continue to use Acid or move onto Reaper. The good thing is that both Reaper and Acid support Rewire, so I could therefore seemlessly use them both together to ease my transition process. As you know one of Acid's key strengths is how easy it is to work with loops. Reaper's may be just as good, but I haven't used it, but at that point I realize I could always use Reaper for audio, midi, and virtual synths and just do loop sequencing inside of Acid and run them together if I had to but I rather just learn one program and do it all in one since they both technically have all the features that I need for music production.

I currently have a focus on moving things I used outboard gear in the past to be inside the box and reduce the amount of external hardware I'm using. My external hardware now includes a Behringer UMC1820 audio interface, a Behringer X-Touch One controller and an Akai MPK mini II as my Midi instrument controller. As well as an Asus 10in Android tablet where I'm using InfiniMote for keyboard short-cut controls.

In regards to plugins my key music production plugins at this time are Native Instruments Kontakt and it's wide variety of sample libraries. For effects, I'm using and really liking Audioease's Altiverb convolution IR reverbs. With Altiverb I finally found reverbs which sound as good or better than expensive hardware units, because it can use IR's from the actual hardware units. Another key instrument plugin is Toontrack's Superior drummer.

So here's been my experience so far of Acid vs Reaper with all those key setup items.

- UMC1820 ASIO audio interface: Both work well.

- MPK mini II MIDI controller: Both work well

- Altiverb plugin: Both work well

- Kontakt plugin: Both work well

Now here's were things start to separate themselves.

- Behringer X-Touch One controller: Just like Vegas, Acid has MCU (Makie Control Unit) external controller support and so does the XT1. They work together, but there are definitely some annoying glitches where things don't work as smoothly as they could. On top of that the XT1 has a built-in preset to work directly with Reaper, select that preset and you're off and running. Reaper works much better with the XT1 in MCU mode and as expected Reaper preset configuration mode. The XT1 has presets and skin template overlays not only for Reaper but many of the other major DAWs including Cubase, Logic, Studio One, Waveform, and Protools. This is a strong indicator which demonstrates just how irrelevant Acid Pro as well as Vegas Pro has become in the DAW user world. A 3rd party developer such as Behringer don't even consider Acid or Vegas to be relevant enough in the DAW community to even include presets or template overlays on their device. You would think a company like Behringer which is a value priced hardware developer would be all over it if they were. The ironic thing is that when I tried using the Reaper preset on the XT1 with Acid Pro, it actually functioned better than with the XT1 in MCU preset operation mode.

Superior Drummer Plugin: As of yesterday, this almost became the deciding factor if I was going to fully start making the move to Reaper and away from Acid. I installed the plugin to their default locations. Acid and Reaper both configured to scan all the same VST folders. Acid recognized the 32bit version but not the 64bit VST. Acid showed the 64bit as a "Failed" VST instrument. When I fired up Reaper, Reaper recognized it and it just worked.

Now here's the odd thing I noticed which likely stopped me from jumping over to using Reaper instead of Acid. I noticed when I installed the Superior Drummer Plugin, that by default it placed the x64 version in my default VST3x64 scan folder BUT I noticed the plugin had a .DLL file extension instead of the typical .VST3 extension. So out of a wim, I decided to copy that .DLL plugin file over to my VST2x64 plugin folder. Low and behold after I did that, Acid magically recognized the plugin and functioned properly inside of Acid. It went from "failed" plugin to working, just by moving the plugin file to another folder where I had Acid configured to scan both.

So at this point, I have Reaper installed on my system because it's very similar to Vegas, preparing myself to make the move if I have to but mostly using it as a sanity check to test out whenever I run into any problems in Acid or Vegas to be able to determine if it's a 3rd party developer problem or if it's a problem with the Sony/Magix implementation. Stuff just works inside of Reaper, where with Acid I'm just uncertain if Acid is the problem or not. It just doesn't seem like the 3rd party developers are testing their stuff out to ensure it is working with Acid....again demonstrating how irrelevant Acid has become in the music creation industry.

P.S. Acid does include a large collection of Acid loop libraries with AP10 which is a nice bonus add-on. However, I won't use them for anything but playing around with the program and personal video uses. The reason being is with their licensing. Ya see....you are free to use the Acid loop libraries however you wish until if comes to a scenario where you may have a monetary gain which includes those loops. So make a YouTube channel, include those loops in your projects and start gaining income from your Youtube channel? Nope, you just violated the license agreement. You're Free to use them on Youtube content if you don't make any $ on your Youtube channel. Write a song which includes Acid Loops and never make a dime? Oh yeah....you're free to distribute that song however you wish. Write a song which includes Acid loops, publish it on Spotify and start receiving income? Nope! You now just violated the Acid loop license agreement. Not even worth taking the risk to use them in my opinion. You can just as easy create your own music bed loops using the included MIDI files in Superior Drummer and not have to even be concerned about those situations.

@Rednroll You've not mentioned Cubase, or even a trial of Samplitude.

All DAWs are similar, but the learning curve can still be steep, going from one to another, of course. So I get the hesitancy. I don't think Samp has any issues that would be on your list, and I can vouch for very good MC implementation.

If I did tons of virtual orchestra stuff, I think the call is Cubase.

If you are more "organic" I'd give the Harrison Virtual Console - which is a DAW - coming on strong - a look as well.

Samp is the Protools killer/Swiss Army knife.

 

@Rednroll You've not mentioned Cubase, or even a trial of Samplitude.

All DAWs are similar, but the learning curve can still be steep, going from one to another, of course. So I get the hesitancy. I don't think Samp has any issues that would be on your list, and I can vouch for very good MC implementation.

If I did tons of virtual orchestra stuff, I think the call is Cubase.

If you are more "organic" I'd give the Harrison Virtual Console - which is a DAW - coming on strong - a look as well.

Samp is the Protools killer/Swiss Army knife.

 

Cubase is off my personal list. I've tried to make that jump multiple times in the past, my patience ran out very quick, actually preferred working in Nuendo in regards to audio than Cubase. Found Cakewalk/Sonar/Whatever it's called now to be a more enjoyable experience. I tried Samplitude many moons ago, I liked it. However, it too is now owned by Magix and so far I can't say I've been very impressed with the things they've done with Acid, Sound Forge and Vegas, and just not that interested in feeling that's gonna change if I now start using Samplitude.

The developer of Reaper was previously a Vegas user, so it has many similarities borrowed from Vegas. The things I'm tending not to like about Reaper is that if you go through any of the menus looking for something, you can easily get lost in there. It becomes overwhelmingly too much He's added way too many user preference options in my opinion which now get in the way and adds frustration. Options are good but too many can be a deterrent.

As a couple examples,

Reaper has track freeze. You select it by right clicking on the track header and look at the long laundry list of items it asks you to choose between and this is after you had to read through the long laundry list of menu items to choose between to select the track freeze. If I had a preference of the track freezing or not through the insert plugin, I would have just clicked on the track's damn FXs enable/disable button.

Then I'm working with the EZDrummer plugin in Reaper where you can drag and drop Midi events from the sequencing window in EZDrummer onto one of your DAW's midi tracks and when you go to do that Reaper throws another selection option window in front of you to choose from before it places the actual midi notes on the track. F**k! Just get out of my way with all these options and place the damn midi notes on the track already so I can get to editing them like I intended.

The "package deal" acquisition of all former Sonic Foundry applications, (by Sony Magix) and how they are treated individually, should not be the yardstick by which the purchaser should be assessed. Just like you and I, organizations certainly purchase things in a package deal that we'd/they'd not purchase/use otherwise. I just find that a red herring. That is just the nature of the beast. If you like Samplitude, you buy it, if not, leave it alone.

Multi track feature of any such VSTi just are another level of complexity that would, from time to time, introduce some glitchy-ness. Samp does a good job, AFAIAC. I don't know about other programs.I use S. Slate Drums and others, and they work fine.

I've always preferred external hardware and/or live players. I always feel the VSTi is a "convenience" sold to would be users at the expense of resources and thus DAW speed and stability. I am almost never on super friendly terms, they are always, to me, a kind of necessary evil. I use them, of course, but I never fully invest in the technology company promises, it is ALWAYS with a healthy grain of salt that I entertain them, if at all.

 

The Independence library in Samp is pretty good, I think you have to add a $1K digital orchestra to get better sounds, lots of articulations in that library. Also the midi files that transfer from MuseScore to Samp can be broken down to individual instruments (if I remember Independence does not have individual instruments only sections) and a PRO level Orchestra VST will add those individual instruments for classical and movie scoring. I've done some midi files in MuseScore taken them out to my PX-5s which can be helpful. If you want to score for video you really want to take a few scoring courses and I'd use Independence to see what type of music I was good at. Remember even if you get Samp and a PRO level scoring and orchestra software you still might need an Orechestra to get the sound a client would want (expensive indeed).

The "package deal" acquisition of all former Sonic Foundry applications, (by Sony Magix) and how they are treated individually, should not be the yardstick by which the purchaser should be assessed. Just like you and I, organizations certainly purchase things in a package deal that we'd/they'd not purchase/use otherwise. I just find that a red herring. That is just the nature of the beast. If you like Samplitude, you buy it, if not, leave it alone.

Multi track feature of any such VSTi just are another level of complexity that would, from time to time, introduce some glitchy-ness. Samp does a good job, AFAIAC. I don't know about other programs.I use S. Slate Drums and others, and they work fine.

I've always preferred external hardware and/or live players. I always feel the VSTi is a "convenience" sold to would be users at the expense of resources and thus DAW speed and stability. I am almost never on super friendly terms, they are always, to me, a kind of necessary evil. I use them, of course, but I never fully invest in the technology company promises, it is ALWAYS with a healthy grain of salt that I entertain them, if at all.

 

I used to think the same way. The majority of my setup was with external hardware, synths, samplers, reverbs, mixing board, etc.

I switched my thinking recently. Most of the sample libraries being made for Kontakt and Toontrack sound amazing and are better than any external synths I've ever heard. Good sounding reverbs were always hard to come by in a DAW plugin but with the Slate Digital and Altiverb convolution reverbs providing hardware IRs, plugins are now a better and more flexible option. I always wanted a Lexicon 480L, 224X, and PCM90 in my studio...now I have them and many more.

Anyways, I've just been sold on Reaper. I learned all my current frustrations are easily user preference configurable. It will just take me a little time to configure Reaper to my personal preferences. It turns out all those right click menu items I was sorting through, are found under what Reaper calls an "Actions Menu" where any of those actions can be assigned to button and user defined KB short-cut and then the buttons can be arranged in custom toolbars.

As it also turns out Reaper's theme support and customization of the user interface is 2nd to none where they have a large user community making custom themes and each of those user created themes can further be configured to your personal preference with Reaper's built-in theme editor.
 

You want Reaper to look/feel more like Protools? Then just change it's clothes by installing one of the many available Protools themes.

You comfortable working in Logic Pro, install one of the Logic themes.

Heck, there's even an Acid Pro theme for Reaper.

This is currently one of my favorite themes created by a user which is named Commala. I'm currently customizing it to my preferences. All the transport, fader buttons and controls can all be changed as well as the colors of the waveforms and timeline grids. If you're good with a photo editior, you can even custom color the buttons since they're just a .PNG file. It's pretty darn slick once you've had a chance to dig into it.

Here's a great video which explains how to customize toolbars in Reaper. Pretty slick where he shows how to create a custom toolbar dedicated to takes and be able to switch between takes. Makes things pretty efficient for A/Bing multiple takes. Seems same can be done with my Track freeze troubles.