As one of the favored recording programs, Acid Sony is a great loop based music production system. The beauty of this program is that it allows you to quickly build up musical material using pre-recorded loops. And even though the loops may have been recorded at different tempos and pitches, the real-time pitch and tempo shifting engine of the software makes them all work together.

Acid Pro from Sony allows you to work with sampled loops from a wide variety of sources. It accepts loops in formats such as WAV, AIFF, MP3, and WMA among others. A great feature is that the program can search your computer hard drive and automatically catalogue all available sound sources, making them available for use within Acid Sony. Acid is also one of the easiest programs in constructing songs. All you do is drag samples from the Media Manager into the track list area, and “paint” the sound file anywhere you want on the track. Dragging the paint brush across several bars causes the loop to repeat for that duration with the proper tempo and pitch. In the same manner, other samples are added on separate tracks, and because of the Acid Sony pitch and tempo shifter, they all play together in perfect unison.

Since its release in 1998, Acid from Sony has revolutionized the music production industry. It allows great sounding musical mixes to be quickly built up in a matter of minutes, which is beneficial when doing work on soundtracks. Acid Sony can also use VST instruments to provide musical material such as melodies and accompaniments that may not be available from the loop material.

This software can render audio in many formats including 5.1 surround sound. As surround sound becomes more popular, music studios need to incorporate this technology in order to stay competitive. Acid Sony allows you to specify whether projects are stereo or 5.1 and offers simple tools for placing the audio material anywhere in the mix.

Here's a brief little glance at some of the features that Acid Sony has to offer:

- The program comes with more than 1000 loops in various styles. These are professionally recorded samples suitable for use in any kind of music project.
- The Acid Sony Media Manager automatically catalogues and tags your audio material making it easy to find exactly what you need in seconds.
- The program can be customized to accommodate your working style. Window layouts and color adjustments can be saved and recalled with a mouse click.
- Audio material can be auditioned before placing it in the project by simply clicking on the file name. You can even audition new material while previous tracks are playing to hear how they fit into the existing mix.
- VST instruments can be mixed with loop material for the creation of complex musical arrangements. Acid Sony uses ASIO drivers for low-latency, real time control of VST instruments.
- A full set of effects are available in Acid Sony to apply to individual tracks or during mixdown. Acid Sony supports both DirectX and VST effects.

There are a few different versions of Acid available. Acid Pro, Sony Music’s top of the line Acid version, supports 5.1 surround sound which can be used on DVD audio and video. This software has made surround sound easy to incorporate into any musical project.

A suitable sound card is needed to take full advantage of the surround sound features in Acid Sony. The sound card needs at least 6 outputs to accommodate 5.1 sound. The subwoofer track can use a low pass filter to eliminate any high frequencies.

On the pan settings, each track of a surround sound project can be set at either “5” for the surround sound tracks, or “1” for the subwoofer channel. If you wish to have the same material in both types of tracks, simply duplicate the track and set one to “5” and the other to “1” and apply the low pass filter to the subwoofer track.

Individual tracks can be set for the various speakers in a surround sound setup. Each speaker can be muted individually and the front speaker has its own volume control for effective placement of sounds. All panning and volume in Acid Sony can be automated.

Virtual Studio Technology instruments (VSTIs) are popular features of most modern audio packages, like Acid Sony. Developed by Steinberg, they are plug-ins that can be played and controlled the same way external MIDI sound sources are used. They offer many advantages over hardware based synthesizers, most notably the ease in which you can incorporate a complete music studio within a computer system.

Of the three versions of Acid, only Acid Pro, Sony Music’s premier version of Acid, can use VSTIs. The ASIO sound card drivers allow VSTIs to be played in real time with virtually no latency, meaning that as you play them, you'll hear the sound in your monitors almost immediately. It's common in a lot of audio software recording programs to have latency issues due to slow processing power, which can really become problematic when you're trying to record to a click-track or do overdubs.

Choosing a VSTI sets up a separate track in Acid Sony that is similar to loop tracks. MIDI tracks can have their own effect and output routing. MIDI tracks can be edited using the event or piano-roll editors within Acid Sony. The editing capabilities are fairly limited compared to a full-fledged MIDI editor like SX Cubase but they suffice to do basic arrangements and cutting and pasting operations.

Acid Sony has been around for quite a few years, and in that time has evolved into the premier loop-based arranging tool. With the addition of VSTIs and surround sound, the software can be used to produce remarkably complex music. Its usefulness in video scoring is legendary. Acid Sony does fall short in the MIDI editing department, but MIDI tracks can always be exported for more complex editing in other software environments.

If you're under time constraints and deadlines are approaching quickly, Acid Pro from Sony will serve you well, as you'll easily be able to quickly produce musical arrangements for a wide variety of applications.