Acid Pro

Pros

• Powerful and still innovative after all these years
• Free trial makes it easy to dive in

Cons

• Complexity will overwhelm some newcomers

Acid Pro is a full-featured digital audio workstation and music creation tool. With a well-known emphasis on loops, Acid Pro has been a favorite of electronic music producers for many years. A generous free-trial version makes the power of Acid Pro accessible even to beginners who want to see what the fuss is all about.

A Long History of Making Electronic Music

Acid Pro's roots stretch back to 1998, and few similar programs have been as influential over the years. The original versions of Acid were relatively simple, being mere sequencers that allowed loops created in other programs to be arranged and adjusted.

Today's Acid Pro is a true digital audio workstation, even if a focus on loop management is still evident. The suite still allows the easy importation of loops and other sound files created elsewhere, but it goes far beyond the basics.

Powerful Features Set Acid Pro Apart From the Rest

It is possible, in fact, to use Acid Pro to record a live band and then mix, edit, and master the results. In practice, other digital audio workstations will make such projects simpler, because Acid Pro is full of features that are customized for electronic music.

One of the most powerful tools found in the newest version of Acid Pro allows producers to isolate and extract individual tracks from existing songs. That makes it simple to create samples that highlight vocals, instruments, or even crowd noise, instead of being stuck with a full mix. This Zynaptiq-authored functionality uses artificial intelligence to automatically identify tracks that would otherwise need to be painstakingly targeted by hand.

Acid Pro features full support for MIDI-compliant controllers and keyboards, enabling fine-grained control over samples and loops. Even producers who lack musical skills often find it faster to work with physical drum pads and the like than digital buttons.

That said, Acid Pro's interface is a fine-tuned affair that has benefited from many years of tweaking. It will look and feel generally familiar to anyone experienced with digital audio workstations but also provides access to Acid Pro's many unique features.

Professional-Level Sampling, Mixing, Sequencing, Mastering, and More

Users who stick to the digital layout will find Acid Pro welcoming and supportive. Its exclusive "Morph Pad" controls make it easy to adjust the parameters of digital effects to create entirely unique processing options.

The same widgets can be used to carry out more prosaic tasks like the assignment of audio tracks. As with other leading digital audio workstations, Acid Pro provides full control over basics like levels, bus connections, and limits.

There can be no denying that today's Acid Pro is a lot more complex than the humble sequencer that was released decades ago. Magix, the company that now owns the suite, has done a good job of keeping it fairly accessible and intuitive while making it increasingly powerful.

Beginners might be put off by Acid Pro's dozens of knobs, buttons, sliders, and other interface features. The free trial download should allow for a fair amount of learning before its limits kick in, however.

Experienced electronic music producers will almost certainly already know whether Acid Pro suits their needs. For more than 20 years, the answer has been "yes" more often than for virtually any competing product.

Just about anyone with an interest in creating or editing electronic music will do well to give Acid Pro a look. Even people who focus on more traditional types of music can count on discovering plenty of interest.

Pros

• Powerful and still innovative after all these years
• Free trial makes it easy to dive in

Cons

• Complexity will overwhelm some newcomers