Sonic Foundry

Appendix— Don t overlook this invaluable reference to the stunningly extensive set of shortcuts that Sonic Foundry has programmed into ACID. Even a cursory knowledge will improve your efficiency and will clearly identify you as an ACID guru. 

Sonic Foundry has released a number of different versions of ACID, from a free version that may be included on a CD-ROM that came with a new computer or another piece of hardware up to an expensive professional version. As you might expect, you get what you pay for. 

ACID XPress is the free version of the program used as a promotional introduction to the ACID family by Sonic Foundry. You will certainly get a taste of the application and be able to create some pretty cool stuff, but you are otherwise quite limited. Sonic Foundry may offer some good deals on upgrading to a higher version from the Express version. 

ACID Style (DJ, Techno, and so on) describes a broad category of products, all of which include the ACID Style version of the program and a collection of loops from a specific genre (e.g. ACID Techno is a collection of electronic loops and the ACID Style version of the application). While ACID Style is a bit more capable than ACID XPress, these versions of the program are still truly introductory in nature and lack some of the features you will need to take ACID beyond the novice stage. Again, check with Sonic Foundry for special upgrade prices. 

Readers of this book should not forget (nor underestimate) the quality of the documentation that came with the program from Sonic Foundry. This text should be seen as a supplement to these primary references and not as a substitute. Read the manual, pause the mouse cursor over unfamiliar items in the UI to get ToolTips, watch the Status Bar at the bottom of the program, and don t forget to use Fl for specific context sensitive Help on just about anything. Finally, check out Sonic Foundry s Web site and user forums. The discussions that occur on ACIDPlanet can often be nearly as interesting as the music that shows up there. 

The default toolbar is Sonic Foundry s best guess as to what the user might want to do most frequently. AQD also allows a significant amount of customization to fit your personal work habits. This being the case, the particular command buttons that appear on the toolbar can be specified by the user. To customize the Toolbar ... 

The Track Properties window displays all of the relevant information about the media file contents of a track. Since there are a few different kinds of tracks in ACID, the information displayed is dependent upon the type of track selected. Many of the properties that are displayed can be modified in this window (see Figure 1.20). While a media file (especially a loop file from Sonic Foundry) may already contain the extra information to specify a track s properties, these properties are independent of the actual file. In other words, a media file s ACID properties often correspond to a track s properties, but this is not necessary (an intended one-shot media file can be placed in a loop track). Video tracks do not have any properties that are displayed in this window. 

Loops are specially recorded audio files that are usually fairly short in duration. Loops are standard audio files that can be played back using just about any Windows-compatible media player (even the Windows Media Player). What makes a loop a loop is that it is recorded and structured so that when it is played back twice in a row, the end of the loop immediately and seamlessly leads back into the beginning of the loop. This means that most loops can be played over and over again infinitely, sounding as if it were a much longer continuous recording. Loops are normal. wav audio files and are commercially available from multimedia companies for use in loop-based music tools. ACID loops from Sonic Foundry contain a little more information than a typical. wav file (such as key and tempo information) that make them particularly easy to use in ACID. Sonic Foundry loop libraries can be used with many other multimedia applications (for example, video editing applications or Flash animation tools) and loops from other companies loop libraries can also be used in ACID. 

Changing the tempo does not alter the pitch or key of a song or loops, within reason. There are limits to this technology, and some distortion may occur if the project tempo is radically different from the original tempo of the loop. This can be heard most easily in vocal loops. The original tempo of a loop from Sonic Foundry in beats per minute is displayed in the information bar along the bottom of the Explorer window (see Figure 3.11). 

Insert a loop with key information into a project. Most commercial loops from Sonic Foundry will have this information. 

There are additional creative ways to create space in a song, including the very cool Acoustic Mirror plug-in, which can be purchased from Sonic Foundry. 

Track FX are generally simpler versions of some of the other effects available from Sonic Foundry, such as the XFX series of plug-ins. Some types of effects work better on a project level, such as using Reverb to create a room atmosphere for an entire song. Some effects are best used at the track level, such as using a Noise Gate to remove the hum of a camera motor in the soundtrack of a video clip. Track FX are optimized for ease of use on tracks but can be used at the bus and project level as well. Likewise, there is no reason not to use ExpressFX or XFX on the track level either. 

The best place to use compression in ACID is at the track level. The danger of squashing a song into dynamic oblivion increases greatly when compression is used at the bus or project level. Sonic Foundry Track Compression is the simplest of the compression plug-ins. Using it usually results in an increase in the loudness of a track, although this isn t necessarily the case. To apply Track Compression ... 

In the Audio > FX folder, double-click the Sonic Foundry Track Compressor item (or select it and click the Add button). 

Sonic Foundry also has two more capable and flexible FX that can be used for compression— the Graphics Dynamics and Multi-Band Dynamics plug-ins. See Chapter 8 on FX for more information on these. 

Equalization should be used to balance the song overall or on the track level to color/distinguish instruments. Equalization can be done at the track level with individnal loops, to groups of tracks assigned to a bus, and as a final step to the project as a whole. There are a number of different equalization plug-ins available from Sonic Foundry. These inclnde ... 

While ACID Pro comes with all of the plug-ins discussed in this chapter, not all versions of ACID do. See the Sonic Foundry Web site for more information about your version and the availability of upgrades and additional plug-in packages. 

There are a number of different versions of ACID available from Sonic Foundry, from free promotional versions to inexpensive Style versions to the Pro version (see the Introduction). Not all versions have all of the FX, although the Pro version comes with the works. 

Track FX are not the same as Thack Optimized FX, which are a subset of plug-ins that are recommended for use at the track level by Sonic Foundry and are contained in a separate folder in the Plug-In Chooser dialog box. These are a subset of all of the FX available from Sonic Foundry. You can use any FX at the track level, not jnst the Track Optimized FX. 

XPressFX are all simplified versions of the professional XFX plug-ins from Sonic Foundry and are not included with ACID Pro. These FX are certainly capable and more than adequate for many operations. If you have purchased a version of ACID that does not include the full set of XFX plug-ins, XPressFX are an economical alternative to purchasing more expensive plug-ins. XPressFX are listed following the corresponding XFX in the pages that follow. 

The Sonic Foundry XFX series of plug-ins is a professional series of DirectX effects available for use in compatible programs, like AQD. ACID Pro comes with the full set of XFX plug-ins XFXl, XFX2, and XFX3. Other versions may not have all of these plug-ins, which are available for purchase from Sonic Foundry. 

The XFX and XPressFX audio plug-ins from Sonic Foundry are all DirectX compliant. Any DirectX audio plug-ins from other companies will work in ACID. DirectX compatibility means that the plug-ins follow a strict set of programming guidelines from Microsoft that result in a... 

The presets from Sonic Foundry are protected and cannot be saved with modifications or deleted, but you can start with a Foundry preset and save it to a new name. 

The previous chapter detailed the use of FX and plug-ins generally. This chapter is devoted to a thorough explanation of the various effects that come with AQD Pro. Not all of these effects are included in all versions of AQD, and many other effects are available from Sonic Foundry and other vendors. These explanations are meant to he concise and helpful, hut the only way to really understand what is going on is to use your ears and experiment with these yourself in AQD. 

This plug-in is referenced in the Help file but did not install with Build 189 of ACID 3.0. From the screen shot in the Help, it appears that the Track Dither plug-in is identical to the Sonic Foundry Dither plug-in. 

So what makes an ACID loop an ACID Loop ACID loops are simply audio files available from Sonic Foundry that have had beat, pitch, and tempo information added to them. As mentioned previously, this information is useful only to ACID (and perhaps some other Sonic Foundry projects in the future). At this time, only loops from Sonic Foundry have this additional information, but this is not some carefully guarded secret. Anyone can create ACIDized loops. Information about a media file as it pertains to ACID can be found in the Explorer window and in the Track Properties window for files that have already been inserted into ACID, as shown in Figure 9.2. See the section later in this chapter about ACIDizing your own loops. 

Loop tracks and the media files that they contain that come from Sonic Foundry have beat, pitch, tempo, and type information saved with the file. Any audio files below about thirty seconds in length will be inserted as loops into loop tracks, with ACID s best guess about the beats and tempo. Pitch information will not be included, although pitch is an important aspect of Loop tracks. This is because Loop tracks can be pitch shifted automatically or manually. The Stretch tab in the Track Properties dialog is used to control this information. While most loop files contain pitch information, this is not really necessary for loops that are not primarily tonal in nature, such as drum and percussion parts. Most percussion loops are inserted as loops into Loop tracks and can have pitch information added, but they do not have a root note selected on the Stretch tab. 

For commercial loops from Sonic Foundry, a small bit of information is saved with the media file that tells ACID what type of loop the file is and, therefore, the Ttack type that should be used. For media files that do not have this information, ACID follows a few default rules ... 

As mentioned in the previous section, loop files irom Sonic Foundry (or any audio files that have been ACIDized) have some information about pitch, heat, and tempo saved with the file that instruct ACID how to deal with it. This information becomes relevant when the loop is inserted into a track in an ACID project. This means that a loop s default properties are identical to those of the track into which it is inserted. While both the loop s properties and its associated track s properties can be changed independently, changes to a loop s properties are permanent and saved to the media file on your hard disk. Changes to a track s properties are saved only to the current project. Many of a loop s properties are displayed in the Explorer window in the Summary View area (click the View button to view/hide this feature) when a media file is selected (see Figure 9.1). 

The other way is to find a few simple loops with clear tonal qualities that have key information saved with them. Simple solo parts without complex harmonies work best. Insert an ACIDized loop— most likely a loop finm Sonic Foundry— into a project. Change the project s key to be the same as the media file s key. The media file s key can be seen in the Summary region at the bottom of the Explorer window or as the root note in the Track Properties window. The number after the key (for example, A3) should represent the octave of the note—but it always seems to be either octave 3 or 4 in ACID— firom the lowest sub-bass to the highest piccolo. Figure 9.12 shows the various octaves. (A3 might be called A4 if the first octave is numbered Octave 1, as it sometimes is numbered.)... 

You can browse for new loops for free right from within AQD. From the File menu, select Get Media from the Web (you must be connected to the Internet for this to work). ACID will first contact a Sonic Foundry server to search for providers and update the server information. Then... 

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