Subject:Acid/multi-track audio link?

Posted by: Maruuk

Date:7/17/2001 4:10:10 PM

Anybody know of ANY way to sync Acid to an existing multi-track digital software recorder (in the same computer, of course!)? As far as I know, even Vegas is not sync-compatible with Acid. Does Sonic Foundry have any plans to develop a ReWire-type app?

Subject:RE: Acid/multi-track audio link?

Reply by: Ted_H

Date:7/18/2001 9:31:07 AM

You could sync Acid to any multitrack recording program that can generate or lock to MTC. Acid can sync to Vegas.

Ted

Subject:RE: Acid/multi-track audio link?

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:7/18/2001 12:32:39 PM

And Vegas Audio LE comes with ACID Pro 3. Not the most powerful, but it has MTC sync nonetheless.

Iacobus

Subject:RE: Acid/multi-track audio link?

Reply by: Maruuk

Date:7/18/2001 3:15:31 PM

Wow, thanks for clarifying this point guys! What I've obviously missed is...how do you sync and master/slave two programs running simultaneously on the same computer without some junction program like ReWire? If I just set Vegas LE to external MTC control (or should it be Midi Machine Control?) will it automatically slave to Acid?

I know how to do all that via midi outputs to external machines, but I never imagined it possible without some trickery between concurrently running software apps in the same machine. Is it that easy?

Subject:RE: Acid/multi-track audio link?

Reply by: Maruuk

Date:7/18/2001 4:03:00 PM

Guess it isn't. There doesn't appear to be any way to do it. Read the manuals and tried all the preferences options--nothing triggers a device in the SYNC menu for either program (Acid or Vegas Audio LE) as an input device, so you just get an error message in the Sync to external source selector. No dice. Plus, when you think about it, without a ReWire-type interconnection, you'd just get 2 completely separate audio sources which could be mixed through the computer's audio output, but not rendered internally in any way, and that's half the fun of computer music. Especially since Vegas LE can't even render to MP3! Yikes what a turkey! Trumped again by the geniuses at Steinberg, eh SF?

Subject:RE: Acid/multi-track audio link?

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:7/19/2001 11:56:34 AM

Try installing the SF Virtual MIDI Router on the ACID Pro CD-ROM.

Then generate MTC in ACID and have Vegas Audio LE chase to it via the router.

However, for some inexplicable reason, everything starts to drift and go out of sync after a little bit. Other than that, it "works." :o)

Iacobus

Subject:RE: Acid/multi-track audio link?

Reply by: Maruuk

Date:7/19/2001 1:04:41 PM

Iacobus--Now don't kid about something as nerve-racking as sync! Did you mean that seriously, it really does lose sync, or were you just being ironic after the sloppy. sync-free job SF did with the audio record feature inside Acid?

Subject:RE: Acid/multi-track audio link?

Reply by: Maruuk

Date:7/19/2001 1:29:58 PM

Anyway, I tried every variation of what you described and as I said earlier, Acid can't see a device listed from Vegas for it's "input device_ so you just get an error message. I also couldn't find any "midi router" as part of the Acid 3.0 folder, unless you just meant it was integrated. The whole midi routing thing seems oriented only around external hardware.

Subject:RE: Acid/multi-track audio link?

Reply by: Maruuk

Date:7/19/2001 1:43:30 PM

Oops, sorry, I was looking in the 3.0 folder, not the original disc--found the Router there! They give you a 9X or a Win2000 app choice, but no ME. Which camp is ME in? I'm assuming Win2000 is the pro business version of ME, but definitely different and requiring a separate app.

Well this solves some problems which is excellent, but now there's no way to route busses internally so you'd still have to mix the combined output of Acid and Vegas to an external target--no internal rendering or mixing would be possible as in a ReWire setup as far as I can tell...

Subject:RE: Acid/multi-track audio link?

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:7/19/2001 2:10:22 PM

I believe ME is part of the Win9x family, so you'd use the VMR for 9x, not the 2000 version.

I got this from the SF's knowledge base:

"The number one problem with synchronizing ACID to other applications will be dealing with tempo. If you always have ACID generate MIDI Clock for other applications to chase, there will (should) never be a problem. This would allow you to sync "unrelated" material because the chasing application will change its tempo to match ACID's. Thus, one ACID measure equals one measure in the chasing application.

Therefore, if I have a sequence in Cakewalk and I want to lay a killer drum groove to it using ACID, I can do so using MIDI Clock. I don't have to worry about tempo because Cakewalk will chase itself to ACID's tempo. In this way I can make the tempo anything I want in ACID and the sync between the two applications should be dead on.

If ACID is going to generate MTC for other applications or hardware, the audio on the slave must be recorded in sync with ACID. Otherwise, there will most likely be drift between the two because of differences in tempo.

As an example, If I have some tracks on my ADAT and I want to create a killer drum groove to go with it in ACID, I am pretty much screwed. Even if the ADAT was striped with Time Code, I have no idea what its EXACT tempo is or if it changed a little while it was recorded to the ADAT. This means that even if you generate time code from ACID to the ADAT to chase, 00:01:30.25 might correspond to Bar 9 Beat 3 Tick 100 on ACID and Bar 10 on the ADAT -- Obviously they are out of sync. This is completely due to the disparity in tempos."

I do notice that if you keep *both* the ACID project and the Vegas Audio LE project at the *exact* same tempo, it's just peachy. When I go to playback in ACID, anything I recorded in Vegas Audio LE at that *exact* tempo will match ACID's tempo beat for beat.

So how come Vegas Audio LE doesn't change tempo when I change the tempo in ACID, even though I've got Vegas chasing ACID successfully? Is this a bug?

Subject:RE: Acid/multi-track audio link?

Reply by: Maruuk

Date:7/19/2001 4:28:22 PM

Md--You raise some most interesting issues! If LE was just a midi seq, the laws of midi would force it to slave to the master Acid. But the moment you're dealing with normal, non-Acidized audio tracks on there, midi is not allowed to freely modulate tempo against prerecorded tracks--you'd have audio chaos. Of course, this is just a theory 8^). Thanks for clarifying the Acid-as-master operation. Very helpful.