Friday, January 06, 2012

Acid Pro 8 will be a dead duck

You may or may not like the fact that Apple bought Emagic, but the fact is, they did something with it. As a PC user, I'm angry at Apple for doing it and leaving us to a slow death, but I can't deny that Apple did their homework and made something out of Logic. It's living, it's growing, it gets somewhere. Again, you may or may not like WHAT they did with it, but they did something. Same with Roland and Sonar (Cakewalk), they do something with it.

Unlike Sony with Acid. Acid Pro 7 still as a GUI that looks likes it's still 1995. Plugins pop up in an horrible box, automation is laughable and the whole product is so far behind the competition, it makes me sick. After Apple announced Logic for Windows users were not invited to the party, I made some shopping around and bought Acid 5 thinking it was a good move.

Well it was at the moment, a good product, but then it all stopped. From Acid Pro 5 to Acid Pro 6 there were a few enhancements and so to Acid Pro 7, but that's it. A few enhancements. Enough to keep the product usable. And not enough to keep it competitive.Sony did not do their job like Apple did with Emagic's Logic. They just made a Studio version out of it and sell some more, and a Media Manager to push the sales of their sample libraries. That's it. All the rest of the features added up to version 7 are "catch up"features that were in the competition products long ago. No innovation. None. Beatmap? Chopper? Please, be serious.

Music industry magazines (Sound on Sound, Future Music, Computer Music, Electronic Musician, etc) barely mentions Acid as part of the current DAWs lineup, and non keep a column on it anymore. It's treated as a thing of the past. Because it is.

Thank God for Sony's weekly 8 packs, that's a real nice concept, but not the least bit "part" of the actual product. It doesn't make Acid any better.

I'm still using Acid Pro, it has some usefull features, but I wouldn't be using it as my only production software. I've added Catabile Solo and Ableton Live 8 along the way, so that I can feel like it's 2012, not 1995.

In the end, it looks like Apple bought Logic (or rather Emagic) to sell more computers. I'd say it worked. Sony bought Acid to sell more libraries. It probably worked, up to a point. My opinion is that where Apple continued to push the concept to make their whole brand better, Sony just stopped there and never had the vision to push Acid into new directions. Sample libraries are selling with or without Acid. They keep making them and the keep selling. So why would they bother with Acid Pro?

Now you might ask, why the heck am I still using Acid Pro if it's that bad? The answer is, it has still some very useful features that makes it valuable. I use it because I own it, but I wouldn't go has far as saying that those features are worth buying it.
  • Easy preview of WAVs synced with your current song, making selection fast and easy
  • Tempo curves
  • Easy to use "section" system for creating arrangements
  • Easy to use for putting together clips
  • Nice crossfade management
  • The clip pool is a nice touch and can be use to test different sounds
  • Beatmap can be useful
  • Groove tool is easy to use and useful

So, what is to expect of Acid Pro 8? My guess is: just a small upgrade that will still leave it outside of the current DAW world. If it ever sees the day.