Vegas And Acid Pro

Veggie_Dave wrote on 2/16/2005, 4:18 PM
As I've got to the point where I need more music for my DVDs than I can afford to pay for, I'm seriously considering getting Acid Pro. As an ex-sound engineer and session musician, who admitedly hasn't stepped into a studio since ADAT was the biggest and best thing to ever happen and Cubase was an Omega piece of software (somewhere between the late eighties and very early nineties), the actual process of creating music shouldn't be a problem

My question is, as Vegas has such amazing audio abilities, is Acid Pro worth getting? I know it doesn't have the ability for multi-track input, but this isn't a problem as there'll be little, if any, live recording anyway.

Comments

busterkeaton wrote on 2/16/2005, 4:57 PM
Have you asked this in the Vegas Audio and Acid forums?
I think the answer you would get is Vegas and Acid complement each other very well.

I'm not musically trained and I found it very easy to make something listenable in Acid. It certains takes longer to get something good. The hardest thing for me about it is remembering what all my loops sound like. I don't play with Acid too often, I'm sure if it was a daily thing, it will come much easier.

There is an Acid Demo, check it out. With your music background you'll be up to speed very fast with it.
Cliff Etzel wrote on 2/16/2005, 5:01 PM
I use Acid Pro extensively for composing house music on Acid Planet and I would say the use of Acid would be of great assistance in composing loop based sound tracks for any video you are producing.

I have Tried other apps to do the same thing and I always come back to Acid Pro for my needs.

Hope this helps.

Cliff
PossibilityX wrote on 2/16/2005, 5:07 PM
Veggie Dave, I don't have your credentials as a musician or sound engineer so my response may be somewhat meaningless, but speaking strictly as an indie filmmaker I can tell you that Acid has solved a number of problems for me----probably BECAUSE I'm not a musician / engineer and can't rely on skills I don't have.

I'm using a demo version of Acid 4.0 and am fascinated with it. I lay arrangements out in Acid but then must duplicate it in Vegas, as the Acid demo version doesn't allow me to save files, BUT even at that, the demo version has taught me a lot about constructing pretty nice music beds (is that the right term?)

Not being able to afford Acid Pro yet I'll probably get the less expensive middle alternative for about $70 and upgrade when I can. My answer, then, for what it's worth is that Acid would be (and will be, for me) a very worthwhile acquisition. Even at my beginner level, things go quickly and sound (IMO) really good.
JJKizak wrote on 2/16/2005, 5:11 PM
I can't explain why but I use Vegas to assemble pieces of loops, stretch them, mesh them and it's comfortable for me, but I am not a pro when it comes to music composition. I have Acid Pro and have yet to come close to composing something but it is very capable also mainly because you can look at the video as you mess around, also external monitor. It is in my opinion for people with musical knowledge. The hard part is the "total visual assembly of data" into what you want and I am more comfortable in Vegas and Sound Forge. In other words you have 1000 bass loops to select from---which one? Wheras I will take a bass note and put it in Forge, make 10 key changes (by ear) and save them as 1 thru ten bass notes. I make them extra long so they can be shortened and or faded which is a piece of cake. I do everything by ear so it's not perfect. So what I am saying itseasy to see alll of the bass notes , drum hits, etc in the media pool that you really want. Not have to go thru 100 loops to find something. Finding everything quickly is the hard part and Acid has the instant play when you highlight the loop in media pool which is kool. If you have 50 loop CD's how long does it take to put them in and pull them out and then you forget what you want. I download them all to the harddrive in a special file to eliminate the hassle of the "in and out" bit with the cd rom. I feel so comfortable in Vegas I hesitate to go into Acid. Acid is very "time structured" wheras in Vegas I can move the bass note whereever I want within microseconds. Vegas is totally manual but you can use the timing marks to be perfect. Being that you are a musician Acid would be the way to go and with Sound Forge also. Sound Forge can do miracles.

JJK
Veggie_Dave wrote on 2/17/2005, 4:54 AM
Ah, I completely forgot about Sound Forge...

Cheers everyone
Stardust99 wrote on 2/17/2005, 2:45 PM
"I can't explain why but I use Vegas to assemble pieces of loops, stretch them, mesh them and it's comfortable for me".

JJKizak, I know what you mean. To try to explain to some one else why you work through a project the way you do can become more work then
the project. I use Vegas, ACID and Sound Forge for my video work and only feel comfortable doing some things in say Sound Forge, but not in Vegas.

It would be fun to rent some place and get some people together and show them a video and then give them the files used to make the video and see how each one would use Vegas, ACID and Sound Forge to assemble the same video. Could be fun to watch, and learn.

Terry
Veggie_Dave wrote on 2/25/2005, 9:34 AM
>As I've got to the point where I need more music for my DVDs than I can afford to pay for

Unbelievable. It turns out that the mechanical rights are supposed to be paid by the distributor rather than the producer, which my distributor has been doing. Except, I've been paying, too...

Still, at least it solves one problem in that I can afford to pay for the music again now.
Lili wrote on 2/25/2005, 11:55 AM
When I bought V5 it came with Acid 4.0, however I was so new to editing (since June last year), I had no clue what Acid was for!

Then one day when I had a bit of time I started playing with it and to date I've composed several numbers to accompany my videos (when nothing else has been suitable). I faithfully download the free 8-packs every week from Acid Planet and build my loop library with other free loops I can find. I've only bought one loop cd.

Acid loops are fun to work with when time constraints don't factor into it, and as someone else mentionned, the worst thing is having zillions of loops to sample when composing a piece -- and they're ever increasing!

I don't have Soundforge, but it's on my mental list of soft and hardware to acquire "someday". All in all, Acid and Vegas are great together, for me.
lili