Sony ACID Music Studio 8 2011 Release (PC)

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 13.5 x 2.8 x 19 cm ; 77 g
• Delivery Destinations: Visit the Delivery Destinations Help page to see where this item can be delivered.
• ASIN: B0051M6JJI
• Release Date: 23 Jun 2011
  

By : Sony Creative Software
Price : £21.99

Product Description

Manufacturer's Description
Sony ACID Music Studio 8 - Music creation, remixing ; sharing made easy
ACID Music Studio is the perfect tool for loop-based music creation, audio recording, MIDI production, effects processing, and studio-quality mixing. Create, then share your music—burn CDs, upload to the Web, or export as MP3 for listening on your favourite portable players. With built-in tutorials to guide you, you’ll be composing, editing, and mixing like a pro in no time—even if you’re a newcomer to the world of computer music.
Sony ACID Music Studio 8 - Music creation, remixing ; sharing made easyACID Music Studio is the perfect tool for loop-based music creation, audio recording, MIDI production, effects processing, and studio-quality mixing. Create, then share your music—burn CDs, upload to the Web, or export as MP3 for listening on your favourite portable players. With built-in tutorials to guide you, you’ll be composing, editing, and mixing like a pro in no time—even if you’re a newcomer to the world of computer music.
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Sony ACID Music Studio 8 2011 Release (PC)

 

Product Features

• Record, edit, and mix music—no previous experience required
• Burn your music to CD and generate files for the Web and your favourite portable players
• Easily record live instruments and vocals
• Create Original Music with Loops
• Show Me How tutorials provide step-by-step help

Customer Reviews

If you visit the Acid Software pages on the Sony Creative web site you will see that this is the middle of three offerings. There is a free version of Acid called Xpress 7 which will suit many home users who just want to add music to their videos (or create standalone tracks) with some simple edits. Like Movie Studio 10, Xpress 7 is limited to 10 audio tracks - for some people this will simply not be enough. There is also a professional edition called Acid Pro 7, which costs considerably more and has a raft of additional pro-level features. Both Music Studio 8 and Acid Pro 7 allow unlimited audio tracks.
There is no obvious significant difference between Music Studio 8 '2011 Release' and the 2010 version, other than the way in which they are marketed.
Packaged on the CD are the following extras:
- "British Valve Custom" from Studio Devil, this is a freeware add-on to emulate an amp so you can totally rock out;
- "Amber Lite" from TruePianos, a free Soft Synth module for grand pianos;
- A folder called "Content" which contains over 3,100 loops, sounds, music, project files and DLS instruments.
Sony now also provide a voucher code in the box which allows you to download a "Sony Sound Series" loop library.
Bearing in mind I purchased this software to edit together several files into one, I was impressed with the simple philosophy behind the working area. The asset browser (the panel is called "Explorer") in the lower left of the Studio window allows you to locate sound files which can then be previewed, and when files are added to the current project a new channel is automatically created in the work area. The one criticism I would have is that the space allotted to the asset browser is not very generous and you might need to un-dock it to a second monitor to improve your work flow. All the panels in the working area can be dragged to move them elsewhere and can be "ripped" off the dockable area and dragged outside the application window to be placed elsewhere on a desktop, which is very handy. Music Studio shares a considerable portion of its interface design with Vegas which meant that I was able to pick up a lot of how it works very quickly indeed without having to use the help system or tutorials.
Music Studio allows the use of VST plugins and ships with the Sony Preset Manager. In terms of actually making music you really have - very broadly speaking - two options: loop editing and DLS composition. Any audio file can be "drawn" onto a channel in the main editing panel as a loop and can then be repeated endlessly, chopped and changed, or exposed to a variety of effects from graphical equalisation to autotuning (google "GSnap" for a free autotune plugin).
DLS (downloadable sounds) instruments allow you to essentially compose music with industry standard virtual instruments. I personally found this tiresome and laborious using a keyboard and mouse but I can see how it would benefit people who want to digitally compose with a MIDI keyboard controller or drum pad set, and I can envision situations where I won't be able to find a sound sample that meets my needs and might elect to construct one from DLS sounds instead, so it's great to have that option of software synthesis available at such a low cost. There is a separate manual provided on the Music Studio CD which gives a brief introduction and quick starter tutorial for DLS Instruments.
One of the best things about this package is similar to the major strength of Vegas Movie Studio - namely, that it really doesn't care what your source is or how you want to use and abuse it. Too many software packages demand source files be provided in a particular format and get treated in a particular way, Music Studio however has a very laid back attitude and as long as it's physically possible you can pretty much do what you want, which obviously has implications for your ability to express yourself creatively. You're not encumbered by arbitrary restrictions in the software, which is exactly how all creative software should be built. Supported formats are as follows:
Import: AAC, AIFF, AVI, BMP, FLAC, GIF, JPG, MIDI, MP3, OGG, PCA, QuickTime®, SFA, TGA, TIF, W64, WAV, WMA, WMV.
Export: AAC, AIFF, AVI, FLAC, MP3, OGG, PCA, QuickTime®, RealAudio(tm), RealVideo(tm), W64, WAV, WMA, WMV.
In summary, Music Studio is very similar to Vegas Movie Studio in that it has a massive range of usefulness. Although it is not the most intuitive thing for a novice to get to grips with I would recommend it to everyone from newbies to enthusiasts simply because as your knowledge and capability grows, you'll find that you don't outgrow Music Studio. It is very much a software package with hidden depths.

I purchased this software to record live music through a mic. Although I am competent with PCs and most software, I found it incredibly hard to get into and do anything with it. It is too complicated and may be good for mixing tracks of pre-recorded music if you are able to understand it but for a guy who gets his pleasure from playing the sax, and not from making electronic music it is just plain hard work. The Help is very detailed but it is like teaching someone to cook who has never boiled an egg, and starting them off with making a souffle!
The Sony On Line Help took nearly 2 weeks to respond but when they did, they gave me a worthwhile answer which enabled me to get started and make a recording, but did not show me how to play back what I had recorded. I only managed to do this by playing around with ITunes and accidently found a way into the Sony software.
So yes, it sort of does what it claims to do but only after about 6 weeks of frustration and wasted time.
When we had reel to reel tape recorders, you pressed one button to record and one button to play back! How simple was that!
So I would say avoid it but I haven't found anything better or more user friendly.

 

Sony ACID Music Studio 8 2011 Release (PC)