Once they’d been installed I naively expected them to be available from a docked window in the ACID environment. I mean, what! Frankly, people, this is all a bit of a palaver and the loops should have been installed simply and automatically. The loop collection installers even demand that you select between a Standard and Custom installation in spite of the fact that no custom installation is actually available (I tried it – it wasn’t there). Having downloaded these (it takes hours on a slow connection like mine) you then have to run no less than seven installation programs, each of which prompts you to click through several dialogs to accept installation settings and licence terms. Finally I discovered that I had to download loops via the Help menu. But when I did that I just got advertising for other MAGIX products. The help system told me to click a ‘ Get Media from the Web’ button. The only problem was that I couldn’t find them. According to the ACID web site, the software comes with 9GB of new ACIDized loops. …um, well, actually that was the first problem I encountered. You just pick instruments such as guitars, organs or drums and…

These clips may take the form of pre-recorded ‘loops’ – fragments of music that can be seamlessly joined together to create a score. Essentially, it lets you compose and arrange music on multitrack timelines by adding clips one beneath the other. It falls into a category of software known as a Digital Audio Workstation or ‘DAW’. Check out the Magix website for more details.ACID Pro 8 – the interface has been given a spruce up. Magix ACID Pro 8 goes for USD $ 149 (About R1900), Magix also does a version called ACID Pro 365 which allows you to own the software via a subscription service, for USD $8 per month (Around R100) – not bad for beginners or those who want to give the software a spin before diving in. Hopefully the latest update will help ACID regain the traction it lost, as it is truly great software for beginners or casual music creators. The way most of us look at creating music has evolved vastly, programs like Ableton Live created a much more hands-on approach to music creation, without the need for an engineering degree to operate the software – partly what made ACID so popular in its hay-day. Sony ACID, as it was at the time, was one of the first DAW’s I ever experimented with, the loop warping functionality and easy layout helped me grasp some of the fundamental aspects of song arrangement, I’m glad to see it making a comeback. The ACIDized loops and samples are a host of sounds that have been pre-configured and warped to fit into any BPM. Magix have packed over $1000 worth of instruments and effects into the ACID Pro 8 bundle, including their DN-e1 virtual analog synth alongside a host of effects, a sampler and over 9GB of “ACIDized” loops and samples.

Acid pro 8