
Sadly, users may struggle to capitalise on this improvement, if they ever realise it's there. This was something previously reserved for the pricier Acid Pro. Sadly, Acid’s handling of virtual instruments is relatively crude, with just a small selection of bundled sounds and clumsy MIDI editing facilities.Īcid Music 9 also supports 24-bit recording, which should provide extra headroom so that audio doesn't accumulate rounding errors each time it's processed. This sample montage approach was groundbreaking when Acid first appeared in the late 1990s, but modern music production software must also have a good selection of virtual instruments. Sony Acid Music Studio 9's MIDI editing facilities still lag behind rivals' implementation Even after recording, it's still possible to experiment with different tempos and keys, with the samples and live performances following any changes. If you want to add a vocal or acoustic instrument, just plug in a microphone, set the level and hit record. However, it also allows for some intricate editing, chopping samples into small fragments and rearranging and retuning them to add a bit of personal expression. There are 3,000 loops included, and they're automatically stretched and tuned to match the project's tempo and key. It's delightfully easy to throw a track together simply by selecting a few sample loops and painting them onto the screen.

Sony Acid Music straddles the divide better than most.

The eJay series adopts a paint-by-numbers approach, while Cubase Elements provides its users with a blank canvas and leaves them to get on with it. How do you design software that helps casual users get good results quickly, but still gives them enough free rein to experiment and express themselves? Most manage one or the other. This poses some tough challenges for consumer music-production software developers. You might be able to take a great photo just by following your instincts, but music is besieged with rules and conventions across the composition, recording and mixing processes. Music production is an inherently complex business.
