Sunday, January 04

Geek

What's In The Box, Pixy?

Acid Music Studio doesn't support multiple processors (not that I really need it for anything I've done so far; my most complex production uses 61 tracks and could still be mixed in real time even on a 1.2GHz Athlon) and can't export to AAC, AC3, FLAC, or MPEG-2.  Acid Pro does support all of these, but it's a $300 program, and I don't really, really, need it.*

But back in the day, when I had more money, I actually bought a copy of Acid Pro.  That was version 3, and they're now up to 7, but apparently I can still upgrade for $135 - if I could only find my old serial number.

Bit of a fool's errand, since I haven't seen the manual since 2004, but I went upstairs and took a look anyway.

Found it in less than ten minutes.  Also, four of my missing Beatles CDs and two of my missing Mike Oldfield CDs.  (But not Tubular Bells II.)

So I hopped onto Sony Creative's online store, got my Acid Pro 7.0a, my free copies of Garritan Aria, Acid Pro Effects Rack, Native Instruments Guitar Combos, and Submersible Music KitCore Drums - none of which I know anything about - my 3GB of bundled loops, and my free "Standard" loop library (unfortunately, you only have eight to choose from, and three of them I already had).  That last one is from an offer that has apparently expired, but nobody's bothered to turn it off, so I still got it.

I need to do a little tweaking; the VU meters in Acid 7 include a peak meter that I'm pretty sure wasn't in version 2 (which I used for my original composition), because while I was reloading my old projects I noticed immediately that several of them suffer from clipping.  I already knew that the volume settings weren't even between albums, and wanted to adjust that anyway.  There's also one track that needs one or two bars of drum solo snipped - it just bothers me; the delay before the melody comes back is too long - and another that needs the strings brought up relative to the woodwinds in one passage.

Once I've remastered things, which shouldn't take too long, I'll reupload everything for the enjoyment** of readers who weren't around back in the old, old days.

Update: Erp.  I need to cut back on my downloads just now - I'm approaching my limit, and my quota doesn't reset until the 14th - so maybe buying 5GB+ of software and loops wasn't the best idea right now.  Garritan Aria is 1GB by itself.

* Acid Pro also supports 24-bit/192kHz audio (vs. 16-bit/48kHz), which is great for professional mastering but nothing I need unless I'm planning to make a breakthrough hit in the dolphin market); "improved" pitch- and tempo- shifting, which will be interesting to see, as pitch shifting is something that's a bit hit-and-miss in Acid Music; support for 5.1 sound mixes; the three XFX audio processing libraries, which would cost $105 by themselves; a separate mixer panel; and support for external "control surfaces" - USB mixing desks and the like.  It's pretty good value if you happen to have an existing serial number from a past life.
** I use the word advisedly...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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