Pro Audio Review take a look at Sony Acid Pro 5 and say it’s an excellent consolidation of all the features that Acid is famous in an improved interface. They are particularly pleased with the ReWire support in Acid Pro 5, as well as the new support for VST plug-ins and multiport VSTi soft synths. They also like the new Media Manager for organising your Gigabytes of samples and sounds. This kind of function is more and more necessary these days; some reviewers have found the Media Manager to be a bit heavyweight, here they found no problems with it.

Other features they like are less glamorous but still useful — Folder Tracks, for example. These allow tracks to be grouped and hidden in folders. “Unfortunately, unlike … other programs, trim/expand editing operations cannot be done directly on a folder track, though the editing of clusters (overlapping events within a folder displayed only when the folder is collapsed) allows easy cut/copy/paste operations across multiple tracks. Folder tracks also provide much-needed grouping functions in Acid. Groups of samples and alternate arrangements can be auditioned in the project by muting or soloing folder tracks.”

On the other hand, they call Acid Pro 5’s lack of support for external hardware controllers “devastating”. A bit harsh perhaps, but the ability to use controllers would make the most of Acid Pro’s ease of use.

In summary, they approve of this upgrade, and think it brings Acid Pro to the next level: “Sony Media Software has done a highly admirable job of bringing a unique and much-loved application into the professional production arena.”

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