It's not a book, it's a DVD set, but...

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/products/showproduct.asp?PID=957

Mario

Yup, we'll be releasing our ACID set shortly as well, hosted by this forums very own Johnny Roy Rofrano. Like the books, it's a more task/workflow/tips oriented DVD, the Sony DVDs get you through the application well too. I saw these for the first time this week at NAMM, and they were pretty good. I don't think you can get enough information about any of the software, but since we knew the Sony DVDs were coming, Johnny Roy focused more on the workflow and hidden techniques that make ACID much more powerful than you'd think.

Hi Spot

Many thanks for the Amazon link to JR's book on Acid 5.0.

I have just pre-ordered it and greatly looking forward to improving my Acid 5.0 creative musical skills.

And a big THANK YOU to JR!

BrianG

> And a big THANK YOU to JR!

You are very welcome and thanks for ordering the book. I hate to read, but I read Jeffery’s Instant Sound Forge book cover-to-cover on a trip to Cape Cod this summer and I thought, this is how books should be: concise, to-the-point, just tell me what I need to know and let me get to work. We tried to keep the same feel in the Instant ACID book.

Many of the topics come from discussions we’ve had on the ACID forums. The book tries to address those things you can’t get out of the manual. For example, most books on ACID will show you how to Beatmap a song, but quite often songs have drifting tempos and don’t beatmap cleanly. We address this in the book showing you how to find the downbeat for a song that starts with a pickup, and how to multiple-beatmap a song with drifting tempo.

Also in the chapter on MIDI recording, most books will tell you to press record, play your part, and then press stop... and there you have it. Well... there you DON’T have it because ACID doesn’t have punch-in/out capability so there are always nasty heads and tails on your MIDI recordings that have to be trimmed. The book explains a technique to do this quickly and gives you some pointers on what to look out for when your MIDI recording doesn’t loop cleanly.

What we hope makes this book unique is that it doesn’t just give you instructions and assume everything went ok. It’s also tells you what to look out for and what to do when things go wrong as often happens in the real world. We try to offer our experience wherever possible which is something you won’t get from reading the manual. I hope you enjoy reading it.

...and, of course, if you have any questions you can always find me and Iacobus (his userid is mD) on the Sony ACID forums. ;-)

~jr

Hey Spot and JR,

Where will the new dvd set differ from Rudy Sarzo's? Is the older one being discontinued?

thanks,
David

> Where will the new dvd set differ from Rudy Sarzo's?

David,

The new DVD set is more “general” than Rudy’s (which focused more on non-linear editor’s use of ACID). It will cover things like using multi-port VSTi’s and MIDI recording and, of course, all the new features of ACID Pro 5.0 like the Groove Pool, Media Manager, Folder tracks, etc. I do a remix of one of Spot’s songs (Brother, Father, Warrior, Son from his Closer to Far Away CD) It also goes into techniques like Tempo-mapping which are not covered in Rudy’s DVD or the Instant ACID book. (unlike Beatmapping, which maps the song to a fixed tempo, tempo-mapping maps the project tempo to the variable beat of the song maintaining the “live” feel while syncing with other loops).

What it does not contain are extensive details of all the menu and preferences and what they do etc. because that’s all covered in Rudy’s DVD and it’s assumed that you can figure out what the menus do by using the help file. We wanted this DVD to be about things you don’t get from reading the manual. It teaches you what the menus and preferences do in the context of using the program. I feel you are more likely to remember things when you learn them as they are needed. Rudy also has a lot of information about scoring for video with emotion. There is none of that in the new DVD. I could not improve on what Rudy said and did not want to just rehash it. (although it does cover other video/NLE topics)

So the new DVD and Rudy’s DVD are complimentary. Obviously both teach you how to use ACID and there is overlapping content w.r.t dragging, dropping, and painting loops but there is a lot of new content as well (i.e., more extensive use of the Chopper to create new phrases, etc.).

~jr